Substrate Change in Running System

[staninct]

I'm running a 38g FOWLR and am going to change the substrate from crushed coral to old castle. The current substrate traps waaaayyyy too much detritus and therefore raises my NO3 and PO4 levels and feeds the hair algae. Soooo, my question is how to do it while the tank is up and running with livestock in it. Any advice? I have 5 fish, some snails, hermits and about 60 lbs of LR. No corals or other inverts. Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[bertoni]

I have done this. The procedure has some risk, but it's worked for me. I disassembled the entire tank, keeping everything (live rock included) in water, and also in styrofoam boxes to keep the temperature up. After a quick rinse of the tank, I just put down the new substrate and reassembled. Having some water on hand for top-off and changes is a good idea, IMO. Also, perhaps some Amquel, although I never saw any ammonia.

 

[doox00]

if you are using the old castle/southdown, do your self a HUGE favor and rinse the heck out of it first, I did a bad job of this my first try, it wa s like a milk shake cloudy and did not clear up at all after days. I finally drained the tank down to only a couple inches above the substrate (90g tank) then had to run a hose from outside to fill it while I had a siphon from another garden hose to drain it, I had to keep this going continuisly for abouy 5 hours, every 5 minutes or so I would mix up the sand, finally after all that time the dust was gone and the water was clear. Let it completely drain and then refilled with ro/di water. Do yourself a big favor and rinse really really well before putting it in your tank.

 

[staninct]

I've heard about people that don't rinse - but I can't see any validity in all that dust in your tank, on your rock and in livestock's gills! I will definitely rinse before I use it. Thank you all.

 

[Devildogg9745]

To avoid the dust simply put the sand in the empty tank, cover the sand with garbage bag, and then pump the water onto the grabage bag. Don't just pour the water from abucket, use a power head to pump the water back into the tank . I did this in my tank and got no sand storm at all. I returned all rock, coral ,and fish into the tank the same day and suffered no losses.
GOOD LUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[psimitry]

When I used this stuff, I got a hose w/ a sprayer head and rinsed about 50 times (kept rinsing until the rinsewater ran clear).

The water was a bit cloudy at first (to be expected when adding new substrate), but it settled down overnight.

 

[Blown 346]

I would actually siphon a quarter of it out, and replace that quarter with your sand. Then repeat every 2 weeks until it is all gone. I have done this before and it is by far the easiet and less stressful way to change substrate without a ammonia spike.