puka shells
- Thread starter LekicINC
- Start date
LekicINC
New member
http://www.naturesocean.com/marine_substrates.htm ---that website has what i use, a little down the page it says puka shells. Im not sure if its #5 or #10. Either way, there are pretty large pieces. Is this as bad as crushed coral and could it contribute to high nitrates? Should i change to live sand?
kappaknight
New member
I could have sworn 2-3 years ago I heard using them could be deadly for a tank. I don't remember the reason...
Desert Aquarium
New member
Deadly by Nitrates only :-(
That's the monster I'm fighting now. Just used a liter box scoop to get the larger pieces out, and replaced with #0 (suger sized) crushed coral, and some sand.
4" DSB now.
That's the monster I'm fighting now. Just used a liter box scoop to get the larger pieces out, and replaced with #0 (suger sized) crushed coral, and some sand.
4" DSB now.
LekicINC
New member
thats what i thought, alll this time i thought it was crushed coral until i did a little more research. Wanted to make sure i should change it before i started the unenviable task of changing substrates. Desert Aquarium how did you go about changing your substrate?
Thanks everyone
Thanks everyone
I switched from puka to aragonite sand last june.
I was sucking out a ton of stuff from the substrate when vacuming during water changes and had pretty high nitrates... the problem with that stuff is your clean up crew can't get at the stuff before it gets into the substrate
As long as you have alot of biomedia (rock, biowheel, bioballs, etc) don't sweat swapping out too much-- realize all the stuff you are pulling out is decomposing and conributing to your bioload....so by removing it with your substrate (which also handles part of your bioload) you are removing a large ammonia source..
When I pulled mine out I had rock, a biowheels, and bioballs (yes I was bad back then).
Here is what I did on my 72-- I made up about 20 gallons of new water in a tote. I set up 3 other empty totes--- I siphoned into one of these-- moved most of my rock into this. Siphoned more into a 2nd one (put my fish in this one), moved heaters, and powerheads to these totes--
In the third tote I siphoned/vacuumed my substrate into-- this water was pretty nasty.... this was to harvest bristle worms and some pods from my old tank..
Scooped out the old sustrate with a plastic dustpan, wet vacuumed the bottom of my tank to get out the rest of the gunk and shells.... poured my sand in (did not rinse) and spread out--- put a couple of pieces of base rock in the bottom of the tank-- pumped the water from the totes back to the tank so that it hit the base rock and ran off into the sand (this minimized my sand storm)-- added rock as the water got deep enough--- added fish after I arranged all the rock the way I wanted-- topped off tank and started everything back up...
When I was done, I dug throught the gunk in my vacuumed to tote and picked about 50-70 worms and some pods and put those back in my tank to help seed my sand.
I fed lightly for a few weeks to be safe but had no detectable ammonia spike and everybody came through fine. THe water was a little cloudy the rest of that day but was clear by the next morning.
I was sucking out a ton of stuff from the substrate when vacuming during water changes and had pretty high nitrates... the problem with that stuff is your clean up crew can't get at the stuff before it gets into the substrate
As long as you have alot of biomedia (rock, biowheel, bioballs, etc) don't sweat swapping out too much-- realize all the stuff you are pulling out is decomposing and conributing to your bioload....so by removing it with your substrate (which also handles part of your bioload) you are removing a large ammonia source..
When I pulled mine out I had rock, a biowheels, and bioballs (yes I was bad back then).
Here is what I did on my 72-- I made up about 20 gallons of new water in a tote. I set up 3 other empty totes--- I siphoned into one of these-- moved most of my rock into this. Siphoned more into a 2nd one (put my fish in this one), moved heaters, and powerheads to these totes--
In the third tote I siphoned/vacuumed my substrate into-- this water was pretty nasty.... this was to harvest bristle worms and some pods from my old tank..
Scooped out the old sustrate with a plastic dustpan, wet vacuumed the bottom of my tank to get out the rest of the gunk and shells.... poured my sand in (did not rinse) and spread out--- put a couple of pieces of base rock in the bottom of the tank-- pumped the water from the totes back to the tank so that it hit the base rock and ran off into the sand (this minimized my sand storm)-- added rock as the water got deep enough--- added fish after I arranged all the rock the way I wanted-- topped off tank and started everything back up...
When I was done, I dug throught the gunk in my vacuumed to tote and picked about 50-70 worms and some pods and put those back in my tank to help seed my sand.
I fed lightly for a few weeks to be safe but had no detectable ammonia spike and everybody came through fine. THe water was a little cloudy the rest of that day but was clear by the next morning.
LekicINC
New member
That is pretty much what I had planned, although i had been told to keep the fish in the holding area for 2-3 days which i was uneasy about. How did the fish deal with the sand storm? I also have bioballs, and i want to switch that too. I figured I woud switch the substrate first, let the bioballs do there job and take up the extra ammonia till the sand matures...then gradually switch to a better sump w. fuge. I too have high nitrates. Thanks for the help.
My sand storm was not bad-- but I wouldn't worry too much-- there are storms in nature that stir up alot of sand...
If you ever read Melev's 14 day project conversion from a 55 to a 280 gallon tank-- his journal shows a pretty bad sand storm...his fish did fine.
http://www.melevsreef.com/days127.html (it (the pic of it) is fairly close to the bottom of this looong page).
I left my bioballs running til after the substrate change-- a few weeks after the change, I started pulling them out-- a handful every few days... I have no balls now...
This is what I used before--
and this is what I use now..
This is fairly large diameter sand so not good for a DSB... finer sands will likely cloud up longer though...
If you ever read Melev's 14 day project conversion from a 55 to a 280 gallon tank-- his journal shows a pretty bad sand storm...his fish did fine.
http://www.melevsreef.com/days127.html (it (the pic of it) is fairly close to the bottom of this looong page).
I left my bioballs running til after the substrate change-- a few weeks after the change, I started pulling them out-- a handful every few days... I have no balls now...
This is what I used before--
and this is what I use now..
This is fairly large diameter sand so not good for a DSB... finer sands will likely cloud up longer though...
LekicINC
New member
i think ill follow your advice. i have two spare tanks i think ill set up to hold the fish in. I will then put all the rock work into a few seperate tubs, with powerheads and heaters and water from my tank. After that i will siphon the rest of the water out, remove the puka and put in the sand. Add some rock, then pump the water back up. I am not sure i enough pumps though, and i dont think i want to pour the water in. Hopefully i could get this done in a weekend.
Desert Aquarium
New member
I didn't do teh "IDEAL" job, but here's what I did...
I brought in a large ICE chest and began filling it with my LR, leaving the fish in the tank. I shut off all my pumps, powerheads etc to prevent blowing sand around. Using a cat litter scoop from Sprawl-Mart, I began removing substrate over ~3/16th". Once I had my stuff cleaned out/thinned down, I used a funnel and hose (learned that here
) to pour the sand straight to the bottom with little sand floating around as possible.
Once it was all said and done, I had about 1.5" of a slightly more corse substrate, under about 2" of fine sand. Ready to be covered my the LR (which was in salt water in the ICE Chest).
My storm was so minimal, that the pumps/power heads had it cleaned up in about 30 minutes.
I brought in a large ICE chest and began filling it with my LR, leaving the fish in the tank. I shut off all my pumps, powerheads etc to prevent blowing sand around. Using a cat litter scoop from Sprawl-Mart, I began removing substrate over ~3/16th". Once I had my stuff cleaned out/thinned down, I used a funnel and hose (learned that here
) to pour the sand straight to the bottom with little sand floating around as possible.Once it was all said and done, I had about 1.5" of a slightly more corse substrate, under about 2" of fine sand. Ready to be covered my the LR (which was in salt water in the ICE Chest).
My storm was so minimal, that the pumps/power heads had it cleaned up in about 30 minutes.
Desert Aquarium
New member
IMO - An "Ideal" job would have been to remove anything larger than sugar. I didn't. I left everything about 3/16" and smaller, and added sand on top.
Definately an improvement, but only time will tell.
As far as aquascaping, yes the fish were in the tank. Did they show signs of stress? Not a single one. They were happily swimming about as they normally do. Just be careful to not plan a rock on one. I did that to a Bi-color once, and I still feel bad.
Definately an improvement, but only time will tell.
As far as aquascaping, yes the fish were in the tank. Did they show signs of stress? Not a single one. They were happily swimming about as they normally do. Just be careful to not plan a rock on one. I did that to a Bi-color once, and I still feel bad.
