Change from Crushed Coral to Sand Bedding. Thoughts?

[jakery]

Hello All,

I have a 5 month old 55 gallon tank and it came with crushed coral bedding.

I am planning to change it out to Sand because I have heard this is better for keeping nitrates down as well as maintaining a healthy mirco-organism colony.

My question is, How would you change to sand?

I was planing to split the tank into 1/3's. Every 2-3 weeks i will replace 1/3 of the bedding with sand moving right to left.

I know this will not get 100% of the crushed coral, but i understand that the established colony in the bedding cannot be replaced all at once.

Does anyone else have another idea?

So, as I said, I have had a hard time keeping my NO3 down. (currently 40ppm never seen below 30ppm, sometimes as high as 50ppm)

- I installed a 5 gallon HOB refugium 2 weeks ago with 3" Sand Bed & Chaeto (replaced Biofilter)
- I run a AquaC Remora Skimmer (It fills up every 3 days)
- I perform a 10 gallon water change every 10 days with RO water (mixed by fish store)
- I have 6 smaller fish, 4 corals, 3 crabs, an urchin and snails
- I am careful not to overfeed.

I am going to do a 20 gallon water change tonight & start the bedding process>

Thoughts?

Here is a link with my tank information. LINK CLICK HERE

 

[wes2179]

put sand on top of the crush coral just make it thick

 

[MikeG]

Do you have any coral or just fish? If just fish I would empty some water into another tank, catch fish and put them in there with some of you rock. Empty the rest of the water in a big container or smaller ones to hold it all. Put all your rock in these containers. dump crushed coral and put in new rinsed sand. Put a plate or so seran wrap on top of sand and pump water back in being careful not to disturb sand. Put fish back in once you are sure you don't have a real bad sand storm.

You should have enough bacteria on the rock to sustain the fish in there, just make sure to have fresh saltwater on hand to replace any you lose in the transfer.

 

[MikeG]

put sand on top of the crush coral just make it thick

I personally wouldn't do this, the sand can pretty easily sift down through the crushed coral and you might be right back in the same situation except with a bunch of sand now mixed in.

 

[P-Nut]

What kind of sand?

 

[kingfish62]

I did the same thing with my 55G after a few years of being established . I did it all in one shot. Siphon out the water into buckets place your LR into the buckets of water to prevent die off, put all your livestock into a seperate bucket. Get out as much water as you can then scoop out crushed coral. Place your pre-rinsed or live sand in tank, gently put water and LR back set up filters and equipment. let the filters pull out all the crap for a bit and replace livestock. I would do it on a day where the room temp is 75 t0 85 so your livestock does not get too chilled or hot. I did not loose anything . It will take a couple of days for the tank to clear but it should be fine.

 

[jakery]

So, can the fish survive the sandstorm that I will create if i add sand to the tank ?

 

[kingfish62]

So, can the fish survive the sandstorm that I will create if i add sand to the tank ?

My fish seemed unaffected by the ordeal!

 

[P-Nut]

So, can the fish survive the sandstorm that I will create if i add sand to the tank ?

fast forward to minute 8.

[video=youtube;buMZbrbhJVs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=buMZbrbhJVs[/video]

 

[beelezebubba]

new yorkers, lol

 

[beelezebubba]

you could also use a long piece of pvc to pour the new sand through to the bottom

it'll still cloud the water a bit, but less so

 

[JohnK]

You can also fill a plastic bag with wet sand, sink it, then slowly dump it. Again, you still get some sand storm but less than just poruing the sand in.

Beware of that guy in the you-tube video. That particular video is OK, but he has some really bad tutorials out there. Don't listen to anything he says about working with acrylic.....

 

[P-Nut]

You can also fill a plastic bag with wet sand, sink it, then slowly dump it. Again, you still get some sand storm but less than just poruing the sand in.

Beware of that guy in the you-tube video. That particular video is OK, but he has some really bad tutorials out there. Don't listen to anything he says about working with acrylic.....

I checked out his acrylic videos in the past. He makes it sound so easy. I do like his wet/dry filter video (not his idea), except for the part where he comments on how to install it on top of the tank.

anyways, I think he did a pretty good job with the sand.

 

[jakery]

Thank you all for your advice !!!!

I did a 1/3 Bedding change. Things went well, however, with the 40% water change, My No3 is still 20ppm. (But better then 50 !!!)

I am happy with the results.
I did check the removed crushed coral & i found ZERO Copepods, so my girl bought more this morning & put them in our refugium.

I did find 9 tiny serpent stars, which i relocated to the refugium.

Would the HIGH N03 kill off my healthy Copepod population?

Here are the photos. Last night -->

This Morning -->

 

[beelezebubba]

lookin good

 

[Bobbofin]

I was planing to split the tank into 1/3's. Every 2-3 weeks i will replace 1/3 of the bedding with sand moving right to left.

I did this in a tank I have a few years ago. It worked out fine. I couldn't get maybe 15% of the crushed coral out but it was fine.

 

[STiTCH87]

Looks to be going well! Good luck on the other 2/3. Interested in seeing how it all turns out. =]
Those are some big chromis!