adding live sand

[ricky1414]

I have been reading the forums, but was unsucessful in coming to a conclusion for my problem...

I originally had intended to operate my sw tank as a fish only, but now want to convert to reef. Was convinced (read coerced) to go with crushed coral of around 5 mm by a lfs. I would like to replace the coral with live sand for obvious reasons. would i be able to remove the crushed coral, which has been cycling for over a month, and replace it with live sand? or could i leave a portion of the crushed coral, and place a 3" layer of the sand over the top of it in order to salvage some of the bacteria that i hope is present in the crushed coral. Any help in regards to this would be greatly appreciated.

P.S.- The info given by the veteran reefkeeps means a world of benefit to us noobies. Thanks

 

[Anonymous]

Here is what I would do, take out all the Crushed coral, but save some and put it in one of those cheapo filter bags, or a stocking

Put the sand in, rearrange the rocks, then lay the saved CC on top of the sand. The bacteria and such should colonize the sand bed, and then you can take the CC out later without disturbing anything.

Anyone else think that is a good idea???

Bryan

 

[ricky1414]

knucklehead, how long should it take for the bacteria to recolonize, so that i can remove the filter bag with the crushed coral in it?

 

[Anonymous]

I agree with knucklehead..You should allow at least a couple weeks if not a month or so for it to "acclimate and recolonize"...I will let knucklehead elaborate more on this

8)

 

[Anonymous]

A month sounds good to me

tell you the truth I have never read of anyone doing that, it just seems like a practical idea to me

Bryan

 

[Anonymous]

I agree it does make sense...its like a bio-wheel..you dont wanna change the wheel cuz of the good areobic bacteria....

 

[ricky1414]

alrighty, just changed out the crushed coral for sand. Went with about 15 lbs regular sand, and approx. 10 lbs of live sand. I placed a little of the old crushed in a filter bag. it looks kinda unsightly in the back corner b/c my tank is a wee bit on the small side.
In addition, it is a task that i never want to have to do again. It was a pita to get all the old stuff out, and now i have some serious silt suspended in the water. I guess it will be that way until the bacteria weighs down the floating grains.

 

[Anonymous]

I know...ive done what you did except i didnt keep any of the crushed coral...i just started from scratch..actually i went to a larger tank...to a 20gal...so i too have a small tank....with the old bacteria and new bacteria from the live sand you outta be in pretty good shape...hide the bag behind some LR or something....

8)

 

[ricky1414]

Yeah, sounds good to me, but i dont have enough lr to hide it behing, only adding lr in small increments. I guess that i have about 8-10 lbs in there at this present moment.
i would like to eventually have about 40+# of lr. how quickly can i add it so as to not overburden my tank? i'm running a penguin emperor 400(i know, poor choice, but i had it in my freshwater setup already), an intank skimmer, and a sweeping powerhead. As for livestock i have 2 green chromis, 8 astrea snails, 8 blue leg hermits along with the before mentioned liverock.
thanks for the input.

 

[Anonymous]

What size is your tank??? I imagine the penguin is fine...i have a 20 and run a tetra tec pf150 in mine...i think its a good bio filter...i am gonna go to a refugium/sump, but my water quality is good...I have a cheapy intank skimmer too..its a Lee's..however for my small tank its perfect, i empty the cup every 2-3 days....So i know it works...if i had a larger tank say 30 or more, id go with an aqua c remora skimmer....i have 15lbs LR in my 20..im about 10lbs shy but will in time add to it...the tank is functioning fine w/o it....

8)

 

[ricky1414]

i've got a 20 gal, i hafta empty my skimmer every 2 days or so, keeping it clean. my ammonia jumped up a little from 0 to .5 since i put in the new sand. I figured as such. Unwanted, but not unanticipated. I have a galaxea in my tank as my sole coral and he does not seem to be disturbed by the change.
I will probably remove the bio wheel from the filter due to it possibly creating excess nitrate, and just utilize the water movement created by it cycling approx 400 gal/hr. I might even keep the carbon filtration in there, but rinse it out every 2 days or so in order to prevent crud building up on it. We'll see how it goes...

 

[Anonymous]

I hear galaxea is a tough species of coral to keep?? I myself, is looking for some galaxea...I really dont see getting rid of the bio wheel part...or the carbon..If you go to any other filtration you will have some sort of carbon or bio deal...Maybe im wrong??

 

[Achilles_Tang]

Hey Knucklehead, I've been reading along with your advice to Ricky and it all makes sense. Stocking sounds like a plan, (patent the idea)

I also fall in the same boat as Ricky. I have CC and would like to switch to LS as I switched from a fish (5 fish) tank to a reef system.

Could I do all of the above mentioned with fish in the tank? and about 40-50 pds of LR? I have a 65 gallon tank. Hey, thanks for your advice and your time.



Achilles Tang

 

[ricky1414]

I kept the fish in the tank the whole time. the only ones i removed were the snails and the hermit crabs. all seem to be doing fine, 3 days later. the sand also played a beneficial role with the crabs, their locomotion seems to be better across the sand than the cc. they all looked like 4x4's trying to climb over it. haha.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, glad it helped

I don't see why you can't do the switch with the fish in there although I myself would take them out and put them in buckets while the actual rearranging was going on.


Bryan

 

[Anonymous]

You can do whatever you want really..You just want to wait til the sand settles before adding fish..Stirring sand has a tendancy to irritate most fish's skins.....And Bryan...im telling ya, you have to use the old pic for your avatar...

8)

 

[Anonymous]

You can do whatever you want really..You just want to wait til the sand settles before adding fish..Stirring sand has a tendancy to irritate most fish's skins.....And Bryan...im telling ya, you have to use the old pic for your avatar...

8)

Was this directed at me??

If so, what old pic???

Bryan

 

[Achilles_Tang]

Any advice on sand??? Don't know much about it other than it's the preferred choice when it comes to reef.. I want to know why and wha kind of sand??? Also, how much sand should I get??? I want a decent thickness for my base and considering that I have a 65G tank, 48X13 ... is there a formula to figure out how much I need??? Thanks guys.

 

[ricky1414]

i have about a 3" bed of sand in my tank now, i found a website- http://www.cyberreefguru.com/calc/sand_cost.html
this should be able to help you out. it says about 90 lbs for your tank to have a 3 inch bed.

 

[Anonymous]

Yes Bryan (knucklehead) the old pic prior to the joker one...