I'm getting ready to move to a new apartment tomorrow, and thought that it could provide an opportunity to redo the sand bed in my tank. The question is whether or not messing with the sand bed is really necessary.
Right now I have a 29 gallon display tank with about 3" of crushed coral on a bottom layer and ~1.5" of live sand above that. I put it all together three years ago on the advice of the LFS and hadn't heard any objections to using crushed coral in a bed at the time.
Well since then I've been reading about potential nitrate buildup in crushed coral. So I'm wondering if I should take the time to get rid of the crushed coral below the live sand while I already have the tank broken down for the cross town move. I haven't had any trouble with nitrates in the three years that I've had the tank running, but I'm worried that the crushed coral on the bottom layer could be a ticking time bomb that might go off at any moment as the tank ages.
If the opinion is that I should get rid of the crushed coral, is it just a matter of scooping all of the live sand into one bucket, removing the coral, and then moving the live sand back into the display tank before adding the live rock and animals back in? If I do remove the crushed coral should I be adding more sand so that I have more than the 1.5" of live sand at the bottom of the tank? Crushed coral is supposed to help maintain pH, so will that be a problem if I remove such a large amount all at once?
Opinions would be appreciated as i'm on the fence as to whether or not it would be necessary or beneficial to remove the crushed coral since I haven't had any issues with it so far.
Right now I have a 29 gallon display tank with about 3" of crushed coral on a bottom layer and ~1.5" of live sand above that. I put it all together three years ago on the advice of the LFS and hadn't heard any objections to using crushed coral in a bed at the time.
Well since then I've been reading about potential nitrate buildup in crushed coral. So I'm wondering if I should take the time to get rid of the crushed coral below the live sand while I already have the tank broken down for the cross town move. I haven't had any trouble with nitrates in the three years that I've had the tank running, but I'm worried that the crushed coral on the bottom layer could be a ticking time bomb that might go off at any moment as the tank ages.
If the opinion is that I should get rid of the crushed coral, is it just a matter of scooping all of the live sand into one bucket, removing the coral, and then moving the live sand back into the display tank before adding the live rock and animals back in? If I do remove the crushed coral should I be adding more sand so that I have more than the 1.5" of live sand at the bottom of the tank? Crushed coral is supposed to help maintain pH, so will that be a problem if I remove such a large amount all at once?
Opinions would be appreciated as i'm on the fence as to whether or not it would be necessary or beneficial to remove the crushed coral since I haven't had any issues with it so far.
