Opinions needed on adding sand

[LuciDog]

The tank in question:

30 gallon tall. I run NO mechanical filtration on this. No HOB's, no sump, nothing. It has 30(ish) pounds of LR which have been keeping up nice. I blast the water around with a hydor rated 850gph and a hydor nano (240?) aimed up to agitate the surface. It works like a charm. My trates are a little higher then I'd like, but weekly water changes keep them tolerable.

Tank is new. 3 months running.

Currently there is 1" crushed coral on the bottom. They are not fine particles, and I don't like it.

So I'm thinking I'll either add, or replace, with a sand bed. I'm due for a water change so I can clear some cloud when I do that.

It would be a pain to pull the old stuff out, so I'm leaning towards just mixing. Thoughts on this? As well as advice to keep the dust storm to a minimum. I just added some new coral that I'd prefer not to irritate too much.

 

[tzylak]

If you don't like the crushed corral then remove it. From what I heard, that would be a good move since crushed corral is a PITA to maintain.
With new sand, you will be starting a new cycle, so that's another 4-6 weeks before adding any critters.
Rinse, rinse and rinse again the new sand with tap water. You will get a snowstorm after you add it but the more you rinse the less it will be. The cloud should settle within a day or two.
Good luck.

 

[Happyschneider]

I can't help you on removing sand. No experience with that. But adding without a cloud I can give you support. I could see a syphon work though. If you syphon it through a filter sock you could add back the water without the sand. Worth a try.

I washed my sand thoroughly. About 10 times in tap water and then twice in RODI. I let it stand in RODI over night. Then taking a plastic cup I filled it half with sand and let the RODI water rinse out. Lowering it slowly into the tank I let the cup fill, went to the bottom and let the sand slowly fall out. No clouding whatsoever. I did turn off the flow for that though. Good luck.

 

[LuciDog]

I need to avoid that cycle. I have corals and and snails in there.

 

[pmcarbrey]

I washed my sand thoroughly. About 10 times in tap water and then twice in RODI. I let it stand in RODI over night. Then taking a plastic cup I filled it half with sand and let the RODI water rinse out. Lowering it slowly into the tank I let the cup fill, went to the bottom and let the sand slowly fall out. No clouding whatsoever. I did turn off the flow for that though. Good luck.

I do the exact same thing, it works like a charm.

 

[LuciDog]

If I pull most the substrate out, then add the sand at a rate of 2 cups a day, will it still cycle?

 

[ryeguyy84]

I just replaced my sandbed on my SPS dominate reef and here is what I did. I used tropic eden sand because I read that it was practically dustless and it was. the first thing I did was soak the sand in RODI water with a powerhead for 4 weeks, changing the RODI water every week. this took out any phosphates that were in the sand. then I did 1/4 of the tank each month, so I vacuumed out a quarter of the tanks sand and replaced 1/4. this way if there was a cycle (which I didn't notice) it would be a very small one. it took 4 months to do a whole transition but I didn't run into any issues.

good luck

 

[DavidinGA]

I'm in the painfully slow process of siphoning out my oolite to replace with special grade. I'm planning to get at least half my current sand out before I replace any of it since my oolite likes to get suspended and would merge with the new sand so easily.

 

[thegrun]

It is easy to remove the old sand bed with a 1/2" hose or tubing. Simply siphon out the old sand, given that the tank is only 3 months old you should be able to remove the crushed coral on one half of the tank and replace it with washed dry sand, waiting a week before you remove the other half. You do want to remove the old sand, as over time the larger grained sand (crushed corals) will work its way back to the surface as the finer grained sand drops to the bottom.

 

[LuciDog]

That makes sense. So as long as I move VERY slowly I shouldn't trigger a cycle. Perfect.