i set up my 55 FO tank thinking crushed coral was the best way to go. boy was i wrong. is there any way possible that i can convert this crushed coral to sand. the tank has been up and running with fish in it for about 3-4 months. i have about 65-70 pounds of live rock. a six-line wrasse, 2 bar gobbies, a baby skunk clown, coral beauty, and a firefish. my inverts include two star's, 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 pepp shrimp, four red legged hermits, and a bunch of snail. just to let you know i do not have a quarantine tank or anything to cure the sand prior. i don't know if that would work anyways.
crushed coral to sand?
- Thread starter ded08221
- Start date
Yeah I'm in the same boat as you, except I have a nano tank. My solution may not be practical for you, but all I'm doing is scooping out 1cup of old substrate and replacing it with 1 cup of new fine sand. Do this about once a week. I hope this is a small enough dent in the substrate that it doesn't cause a cycle. So far everything's copacetic. Also, it's tough to get all the old substrate out, and at first it bugged me, but I decided it was ok to have a few grains of old stuff to add texture. I just left the old substrate under the chunks of rock. Basically I am working my way out from the front center in a ring / apron around the LR ... so i'm not completely moving the old one out.
Like I said, doing 1 cup a day might not be practical in your setup. I don't know how much larger you could go without adversly affecting your tanks chemistry though
Like I said, doing 1 cup a day might not be practical in your setup. I don't know how much larger you could go without adversly affecting your tanks chemistry though
I did my 55 a few years ago. I had started with CC. All I did was remove all the rocks and animals into plastic bins. I then removed all the CC and tossed that in the dumpster. I used Southdown sand enough to get a 4" sand bed. I used my diatom filter to help clear things out a bit (not too much since I didn't want to remove all the beneficial partial size). I then placed everything back in the tank. in about 3-4 days the tank was crystal clear again. Never had a cycle problem at all since it was dead clean sand. later the same month I purchased a few pods and worms and the like from IPSF. After a couple of months my sand was highly populated and doing great.
Bob
Bob
I removed my cc about 6 months ago and never removed anything from the tank. I have a 125 gallon with 100 of live rock and all I did was carefully scoop the crushed coral out by hand and put the washed sand in the same way. I did it in 1/2 one day and the other half the other day. No big deal about getting the cc out from under the rock or behind it, I think its worse to remove and disturb everything to get it all out.
The water gets cloudy but will clear in a day or so. didn't loose any fish or the few corals I had the sand is full of stuff now and everthing is great.
The water gets cloudy but will clear in a day or so. didn't loose any fish or the few corals I had the sand is full of stuff now and everthing is great.
I removed my cc about 6 months ago and never removed anything from the tank. I have a 125 gallon with 100 of live rock and all I did was carefully scoop the crushed coral out by hand and put the washed sand in the same way. I did it in 1/2 one day and the other half the other day. No big deal about getting the cc out from under the rock or behind it, I think its worse to remove and disturb everything to get it all out.
The water gets cloudy but will clear in a day or so. didn't loose any fish or the few corals I had the sand is full of stuff now and everthing is great.
The water gets cloudy but will clear in a day or so. didn't loose any fish or the few corals I had the sand is full of stuff now and everthing is great.
I removed my cc about 6 months ago and never removed anything from the tank. I have a 125 gallon with 100 of live rock and all I did was carefully scoop the crushed coral out by hand and put the washed sand in the same way. I did it in 1/2 one day and the other half the other day. No big deal about getting the cc out from under the rock or behind it, I think its worse to remove and disturb everything to get it all out.
The water gets cloudy but will clear in a day or so. didn't loose any fish or the few corals I had the sand is full of stuff now and everthing is great.
The water gets cloudy but will clear in a day or so. didn't loose any fish or the few corals I had the sand is full of stuff now and everthing is great.
What is southdown sand :?:Bobzarry":chfal051 said:I did my 55 a few years ago. I had started with CC. All I did was remove all the rocks and animals into plastic bins. I then removed all the CC and tossed that in the dumpster. I used Southdown sand enough to get a 4" sand bed. I used my diatom filter to help clear things out a bit (not too much since I didn't want to remove all the beneficial partial size). I then placed everything back in the tank. in about 3-4 days the tank was crystal clear again. Never had a cycle problem at all since it was dead clean sand. later the same month I purchased a few pods and worms and the like from IPSF. After a couple of months my sand was highly populated and doing great.
Bob
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