Changing sand in a stocked tank

[CodeBlueMedic]

I'm wanting to swap out my sand for some special grade live sand. I know you can rinse it to decrease the cloudiness, but I'm concerned about causing a mini cycle in a stocked tank. Is it okay to just have the water really cloudy while its stocked?

 

[thegrun]

You should be fine replacing the sand, but I would only replace 1/3 at a time waiting a week between replacements. This will allow some of the sand dwelling organisms to migrate into the new sand. Rinse the new sand well and you will have only minimal cloudiness.

 

[CodeBlueMedic]

Rinsing it won't cause any die off?

 

[tkeracer619]

Cut a 3" pvc pipe to length. Suck out some old sand. Put the pvc in that spot. Pure new sand in. Every 10 or so scoops let the sand out of the tube but never lift it completely from the bottom. When done do not remove the tube for at least a day.

Put the packets of biostuff they include in the tank and a little bit in the tube. You won't have a big storm. I leave the sand in piles for a few weeks careful not to disturb it. Eventually it moves on its own or i spread it out.

I don't rinse it because i want the oolitic particles though im not really sure it matters...

 

[tubbs2323]

When I changed my 55 gal reef tank to my 90 gal tank I re used my sand and added more sand for a deep sand bed, to reduce the cloudiness in the water I put some old maxi jet power heads in the new tank and affixed some filter pads to the intake sides of the pumps, in about 2-3 hrs of the pumps running the tank was almost clear. In the beginning I could barley see thru the tank. I also cleaned off the filter pads every 20-30 min during the time I was running the power heads.