Barebottom question

[blindskater02]

So my tank has been set up for about 2 years now and until a recent trip away things have been great. Now that my tank is virtually dead. I have been contemplating going bare bottom. Now my question is. Since my rock has been established for 2 years and is completely covered in coralline algae does it have to be cooked?? Or can I just take my time and remove all the sand and go from there?? Any helpful hints or suggestions are welcome. Thanks!

 

[Jar*Head]

If your rock already established, there is no reason to cook them. Unless you want to take a break for couple months and start everything all over from scratch. IMO, just slowly siphon out the sand during water change a little bit at the time. You don't want to stir up anything in the sandbed.

 

[blindskater02]

I was thinking of completely taking the sand bed out after removing all of the water into garbage cans. Then laying down a piece of starboard and re-aquascaping. And just continuing from there. Or would that remove too much of the biological?

 

[thor32766]

this is from my recent experience. I have a 220 gallon that I had to move across the room, to make room for the 450. I emptied the enitre tank, then moved it and set it right back up without the sand bed and went bare bottom. I didnt have any loses. I did do about a 45 gallon water change, some of that for the fact I lost quite a bit of water since the sand was gone. hope this helps.