removing sandbed to go BB

[DevilBoy]

what is the safest way to remove a sandbed to go bare bottom?

should remove alittle bit at a time?

 

[wiscsaltwater]

its a fairly invasive thing to do, I did it once in a 55 and what i ended up doing was moving everything into a different tank, (i happened to have a 30 empty at the time) live rock, fish, pumped the water into it then took the remaining water and drained the 55, scooped all the sand out and cleaned the tank, put 25 gallons of new RO saltwater back in the 55, brought it up to temp, then pumped the water from the 30 back into the 55, transferred the fish and live rock back. It was a pain in the *** and the whole process took me about 36 hours but i figured it was better than taking a cup out at a time and causing a mini cycle every time i disturbed the sand bed, this way the fish got stressed only once and i had no casualties except a damsel that somehow made it into the sump with my mantis!

 

[racksteris]

I think its very easy, just take a little time. You have a sump so just siphon the sand in to a large filter sock over your sump and then keep emptying the filter sock in too a bucket when its fill with sand. If there is a little sand left in your tank that you can't get just leave it and when you do water changes just siphon it out.

 

[wiscsaltwater]

Its not quite so simple when you stir up those black pockets in your sand, physically removing it is not the problem, removing it without causing a huge cycle and wiping your tank out is what is the trick to avoid, sure anyone can syphonn it through a sock and get it out, then take all the dead fish out a week later from the massive cycle.

 

[tbar]

I did mine by siphoning a little at a time over 5 water changes once a week. Still have some under the rocks but about 99% is gone. This way nothing drastic changes all of a sudden.

 

[DevilBoy]

thats what i was thinking of doing was alittle at a time siphoning it out during my water changes. I like the look of the sand bed. But i can get my sand to settle down in my water column with all the flow i got inside of the tank, and the floaties are a huge eye sore to me. It doesnt help my sleeper head goby decides to mess up the tank all the time either.

 

[tank monkey]

For my curiosity's sake, how deep are these sand beds?

 

[DevilBoy]

my sandbed runs right around 1-2" in most places. other places are completely bare.

 

[tank monkey]

I think you will be safe with the "a little at the time" approach. That doesn't sound scientific, but the small changes, small ammonia spikes, should be handled quickly by the tank and not reach toxic levels.