Changing sand bed?

[lonbrat]

Hello~ ^^ I'm not really a newbie, but I would like to check here before I mess up my tank.

I've been thinking about removing the sand in my 55 gal. And replacing it with crushed coral. My sandbed is about 2-3 inches deep. But every time I move a chunk of my live rock, the extra fine grains fly up and cloud up my tank to the point that you can't even see the live rock in the back( lasts about a day)
It only seems to fly all over when Im close the the sand, the current in my tank is pretty strong but that doesn't seem to pick it up.
But I'm really tired of looking at my fogged up tank every time I have to move something or scrub the coralline algae off my glass.

Would removing the sand crash my tank?

And do pistol shrimp like crushed coral anyways? Lol

Danke for any help ^^

 

[Isaacs55]

I would switch to a course grain sand instead of crushed coral. You are going to find yourself having much more problems having crushed coral then having to deal with a cloudy tank.
And I'm sure if you weren't a newbie you would know why. Same for all your questions in this thread. I've been in the fish keeping hobby for several years and I still consider myself a newbie when I know a wealth of information and the answers to your questions. ...

Will it crash your tank...well we don't know because you didn't specify what's in your tank and or parameters so it's hard to say. I'm going to go with yes it will crash your tank with a 2-3 inch sand bed...but again I'm not sure because I have no idea what's in your tank

 

[kentwo]

Removing the sand with everything in it would probably cause problems and kill most if not everything. Stirs up too much detritus causing spikes, lowering oxygen, and all kinds of other problems. Your best bet would be to put everything in a QT while you remove the sand, then replace it with something a little more course.

 

[gone fishin]

Personally I would go with a larger grain sand and not crushed coral. The crushed coral has a tendency to trap detritus causing issues.

Either way if you use a larger grain or crushed coral I would do it in sections. Remove and replace maybe a quarter of the sandbed, wait a week or so then do another section. A slow process but better than doing it all at once. Good luck just my 2 cents.

 

[ericarenee]

Personally I would go with a larger grain sand and not crushed coral. The crushed coral has a tendency to trap detritus causing issues.

Either way if you use a larger grain or crushed coral I would do it in sections. Remove and replace maybe a quarter of the sandbed, wait a week or so then do another section. A slow process but better than doing it all at once. Good luck just my 2 cents.

This might work. Depending on how long the sand has been in there. If the tank is Mature.. A deep sand bed is a Ticking time bomb Disturbing it will KILL EVERYTHING..

I SAY
1. PREPARE SOME Containers to hold live rock and about 1/2 to 3/4 of your water...
2. Prepare a QT Tank big enough for your Marine life.....
3. Get new Substrate .. Bigger grain sand recommended to QUALITY Brand new sand (crushed coral not recommended )
4 Slowly tear down the tank
4a shut off all pumps and equipment
4b remove the top pieces of live rock not touching the sand . Draining the water down into the storage bin as you go.
4c remove the fish and marine life as you can catch them..
5. Remove the remaining of live rock that is buried in the sand.
IF There were any fish you could not get . GET THEM OUT QUICK..

6 . remove the remaining water and trash it.. . Remove the sand and Trash it..
7. Put new very well rinsed sand in the tank..
8. Fill tank back to about 1/3 way with new water .
9 Slowly put rock back and fill up tank with rock from rock storage bin.
10 . Let tank settle and recycle as needed...
There will likely be a mini cycle and not a large one. few days.. Depending on the water and the live rock.....

I Would not chance it no other way except complete tear down... My TANK Is bare bottom because of a DSB (DEEP SAND BED CRASH)

i

 

[lonbrat]

Thanks for all the replies ^^
I will definitely just upgrade to a bigger sand grain if I do end up changing it.
I have 3 damsels ( if it matters what type, a striped one and 2 blue-green ones) a lawnmower blenny, 6 line wrass, a few hermits and snails. Some zoas a gorgonian and some weird squishy pink coral- I assume a leather of some sort.

If this helps I've stirred the top of the sand about once a week for about 2 months now ( algae build up possibly detritus, was unsightly and I didn't want a buildup of something more dangerous)

I've had this tank set up for 5-6 months. There aren't ever any spikes in ammonia or anything. I think my tank is semi-mature, the only new things we put in the tank when we started was this darn sand and the water.( and I bought the sand as live sand as well) Filter and everything else was from an established tank.

 

[Shawn O]

This might work. Depending on how long the sand has been in there. If the tank is Mature.. A deep sand bed is a Ticking time bomb Disturbing it will KILL EVERYTHING..

I SAY
1. PREPARE SOME Containers to hold live rock and about 1/2 to 3/4 of your water...
2. Prepare a QT Tank big enough for your Marine life.....
3. Get new Substrate .. Bigger grain sand recommended to QUALITY Brand new sand (crushed coral not recommended )
4 Slowly tear down the tank
4a shut off all pumps and equipment
4b remove the top pieces of live rock not touching the sand . Draining the water down into the storage bin as you go.
4c remove the fish and marine life as you can catch them..
5. Remove the remaining of live rock that is buried in the sand.
IF There were any fish you could not get . GET THEM OUT QUICK..

6 . remove the remaining water and trash it.. . Remove the sand and Trash it..
7. Put new very well rinsed sand in the tank..
8. Fill tank back to about 1/3 way with new water .
9 Slowly put rock back and fill up tank with rock from rock storage bin.
10 . Let tank settle and recycle as needed...
There will likely be a mini cycle and not a large one. few days.. Depending on the water and the live rock.....

I Would not chance it no other way except complete tear down... My TANK Is bare bottom because of a DSB (DEEP SAND BED CRASH)

i

I would say this ↑↑ but would save a small scoop of the old sand (from the top layer) and add it back in on top of the new sand.

Question to GoneFishin, wouldn't removing a section of the sandbed expose the bottom sand layer (at the edge) and allow the nasties to get into the water column?

 

[cloak]

Personally I would go with a larger grain sand and not crushed coral. The crushed coral has a tendency to trap detritus causing issues.

Either way if you use a larger grain or crushed coral I would do it in sections. Remove and replace maybe a quarter of the sandbed, wait a week or so then do another section. A slow process but better than doing it all at once. Good luck just my 2 cents.

+1

It's almost TOO easy to just say that this will be detrimental, even fatal to the tank, but this is not always the case. If you know what your doing this can be done without a hitch.

 

[gone fishin]

Question to GoneFishin, wouldn't removing a section of the sandbed expose the bottom sand layer (at the edge) and allow the nasties to get into the water column?

When I have done this I will time it with a water change. I will visually lay out a section to change and then vac it up methodically. Once it is all out then I will use a piece of 1-1/4 inch PVC and a funnel and put the new sand in. In a couple weeks I will repeat in a different section.

If any bits of nasties do get out then only doing small sections should not really have much of an impact on an established tank IMO

 

[lonbrat]

Thank you for all the info ^^! I'll leave it be for the time being, i don't want to crash my tank over sand. It only fogs up when I'm meddling In it or the rocks so I'll keep out lol. I'll just need some sand sifters to "hopefully " eventually get rid of all the extra fine particles.

 

[SALTYwaterDOG]

I have a tank with crushed coral. It takes a lot of maintenance to keep the nitrates down. I've also had the same problem your encountering, I solved it by vacuuming out the fines when I did water changes. It took a few changes to get it done. And I had a slight nitrate spike on the first attempt. Maybe doing small sections would help.anyway don't think crushed coral is the answer for you. Although the crushed coral looks great and the pod's love it. Good luck with it.:thumbsup: