Question regarding refugium?

[marblesojecki]

I am changing out my refugium for a bigger/better one. I currently have a deep sandbed in the refugium and was wondering if disturbing the sand would have any negative effects on the tank. My plan was to remove the sand from the old refugium to the new one. Is this a good idea? It's a 90 gal with a deep sandbed, approx 120lbs of live rock, six fish, and many inverts. Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks

 

[Horace]

Its not a good idea to remove the sand bed and replace into another tank. You will disturb the layers where some nasty stuff is occuring. If you remove it, you should remove the whole thing as well. Dont just remove part of it, unless you only take a thin layer off the top (1/4" - 1/2").

 

[marblesojecki]

Yeah, that's what I thought. Should I just get some new sand and start over?

 

[brad23]

I was also wondering about this as well, I know a lot of places sell LS and I would think that would have the same problems.

 

[funloven]

I'm a little confused; in your first post you talk about a refugium with fish and inverts ? That sounds more like your display tank instead of a refugium.

I am currently doing research for starting a refugium so I can't be of much help there. But I did just upgrade to a larger display tank and I did move all of my DSB from the old into the new. Then I add more DSB to reach the depth I wanted. Although this does disturb things, many of the microorganisms you want remain in the transferred LS which is good for your tank. Things do settle back down. My new tank cycled in 10 days and I attribute this quicker turn-around time to using the DSB from my old tank. :rollface:

 

[Horace]

Dont get me wrong, you can transfer the sand from one tank to another and it will be just fine, however, you cant expect to support live stock right away. You need to let things settle first.

 

[marblesojecki]

I apologize for the confusion. I wrote the thread in a misleading way. The tank that the refugium is attached to is a 90 gal. The refugium is a 20 gal. I was wondering if disturbing the refugium would have any negative effects on the 90 gal tank (where the fish and inverts are located). If I did transfer the sand from the old to the new refugium, how long do you think that it would take before it was ok to link it back up with the main tank (90 gal)? Once again I am sorry for the confusion.

 

[llewoh05]

what are you gonna do with your old refugium?

 

[Horace]

To be safe, I would wait atleast a couple weeks....

 

[marblesojecki]

Well, that just won't do. What if I add new sand and seed it with some of the old stuff? Will that work? I know that the sand bed won't be doing much, but I can still link it to the old tank while it's establishing itself...correct? The old refugium is chipped. It has always held water but I had the opportunity to change it out. llewoh05 if you want it you can come and get it, although I don't know why you would want it. Let me know because I have to get rid of it regardless.
Thanks for all the info

 

[funloven]

Horace, your right about not being able to support anything until a tank has cycled. I did have to add more LR (dble the tank size so dble the amt of rock) and wait for it to cure along with the new LS (and old LS). I just thought perhaps it went a bit faster because of seeding the new LS w/ the old since this was cycled in 10 days compared to 30 days for my first tank. However, I didn't add the LR, fish, or corals from my old tank until I was sure the new stuff had completed its cycle.

Marblesojecki, I'm guessing you can't wait the 2 weeks because you don't have a pump, thus water flow, to your refug. Is that right? BTW, what do you keep in your refuge beside LS?

Anyways, if you can't wait then you can't wait. Not much you can do about it I guess. If it was me and I couldn't wait I would probably go for it and add all of the LS from your old refuge. You could top it off w/ new LS if you needed more depth.