Im switching from crushed coral to sand because i was told many times on here that crushed coral was bad because the spaces in between can collect detritus and stuff which cna be hard to get out. I want to switch to sand so I am gonna get an argonite sand or however it is spelled. What I plan to do is put all my fish and live rock into a rubbermaid container while i do this. Now, I'm putting water from my tank into the container. I have a 36 gallon tank with 4 damsels. Should I mix new saltwater for my tank in this process, or should i use the water i take out. MY problem is if I use the water I take out, i would still have to leave enough in the tank for when i put the sand and live rock in. If I took half the water out and put in the rubbermaid container and left half in my tank, would that be ok for my fish? or does anyone have a different approach to switching out my crushed coral for sand. I probably sound confusing and I actually confused my self with what I just wrote, but could someone help me? I really wish I had put sand in from the beginning. By the way, i have a blue devil damsel about 1 inch, a yellowtail about 1 inch maybe a little smaller, and two sergeant major damsel that are around 3 inches just in case that may have to do with how much water i need to take out and put in the rubbermaid container. And while I'm on here, is there any special ways for acclimating macro-aglae? I plan to put some in that fish dont go after eventually to help control nutrients.
switching from crushed coral to sand
- Thread starter bchbm2022
- Start date
oh and also, i do water changes every week and when i cant i do it every week, i do it every two weeks. also, i siphon out the coral as much as i can. I do regular cleaning of the tank every time i do a water change. My nitrates keep going up fast after i do water changes, and i have cut back on feeding. I added purigen to my filter to help with nitrate removal and only after about a couple of weeks it was very discolored and exhausted. Ive done everything i can and still my nitrates go up. Ive lost snails in the past due to this and all i have now is just my 4 damsels and a small feather duster, and aother feather duster that came with my live rock. I am happy to say that i finally stopped my red slime algae problem. I guess my nitrates arent as high as they used to be. I had an ick problem a while back and i tried ick attack. it got rid of the ick but caused a whole bunch of other problems, which is probably where my algae problem came from.
A different approach noted above which will also save you from draining the tank, moving fish out and rock out etc etc....
What i did to bring down the dust was soak the new sand in my water change water.then syphoned.
I did the change ,in my opinion i think your plan may be best as everything was so grey looking after my sand setteled and didnt look good .
If you take everything out we got a new dustpan from tthe dollar store and used that to remove the CC got it out way faster the syphoning (slowly)lol
I did the change ,in my opinion i think your plan may be best as everything was so grey looking after my sand setteled and didnt look good .
If you take everything out we got a new dustpan from tthe dollar store and used that to remove the CC got it out way faster the syphoning (slowly)lol
what if i mix in some of the crushed coral tohelp seed the sand? and also add some bigger pieces to it. i also hav eheard some people leave about and inch of crushed coral in and put the sand right over it. i bought my sand btw, its CaribSea Aragamax. Is this a good type of sand or should i take it back and buy something better? It looks just like the sand at the beach i was at in the caribbean so i like it alot.
I too would do the partial way.
Acquire (6) 5 gallon pails.
Make up a 10 gallon water change. Get it aged and temp stabilized.
Rinse your new sand with a garden hose in 5gal pails on the lawn until the water runs clear.
Now when you put in the sand you won't get a huge sand cloud.
Bring in two more 5gal pails.
Pick a side of your tank to change out.
Move all the live rock to the other side.
Now you have unrestricted access to the CC.
Using a siphon hose that is 1/2"-1"ID (inside diameter) start a siphon into one of your pails. Control it with your finger. Distort the hose end by squeezing it if your finger can't plug it. If you distort it into a keyhole shape then your finger can just lay across it.
Start in a corner and VERY agressively siphon the CC into the pail. You want to be sucking as much CC as the siphon can take without clogging. You will see that you can siphon a huge percentage before it chokes. (maybe 80%).
Watch your pail!!! When you've filled the pail change to the second one. When it's full stop. You should have a failrly large cleared area if not fully half the tank bottom.
Do not worry about a few bits of CC on the siphoned side it is a good thing to leave as it will greatly speed the seeding of the new sand.
Because you siphoned two pails out and have two pails of change water ready you should now be able to top your tank back up fully.
Top it back up quickly to just above any exposed live rock or algae because any exposed life will be in a really big hurry to die (a few minutes).
Once you have recovered any exposed stuff you can now take your time and add your new sand in. You can add it any way you want. You will likely find it doesn't matter sand storm wise. But if you do find a better way let us know.
Once your sand is in move back the live rock that was on that side of your tank.
Now patience my precious... Wait several days.. Perhaps a week and then do the same thing for the other side/third/whatever.
One thing I forgot to mention. With your small tank you need to consider the temperatures. If you lob in a third or half the sand and it's cold you will cause a sudden temperature yank. If you washed the sand with a cold garden hose nuke a couple of qts of water and throw it on the sand to bring its temp up a bit to room temp at least.
Acquire (6) 5 gallon pails.
Make up a 10 gallon water change. Get it aged and temp stabilized.
Rinse your new sand with a garden hose in 5gal pails on the lawn until the water runs clear.
Now when you put in the sand you won't get a huge sand cloud.
Bring in two more 5gal pails.
Pick a side of your tank to change out.
Move all the live rock to the other side.
Now you have unrestricted access to the CC.
Using a siphon hose that is 1/2"-1"ID (inside diameter) start a siphon into one of your pails. Control it with your finger. Distort the hose end by squeezing it if your finger can't plug it. If you distort it into a keyhole shape then your finger can just lay across it.
Start in a corner and VERY agressively siphon the CC into the pail. You want to be sucking as much CC as the siphon can take without clogging. You will see that you can siphon a huge percentage before it chokes. (maybe 80%).
Watch your pail!!! When you've filled the pail change to the second one. When it's full stop. You should have a failrly large cleared area if not fully half the tank bottom.
Do not worry about a few bits of CC on the siphoned side it is a good thing to leave as it will greatly speed the seeding of the new sand.
Because you siphoned two pails out and have two pails of change water ready you should now be able to top your tank back up fully.
Top it back up quickly to just above any exposed live rock or algae because any exposed life will be in a really big hurry to die (a few minutes).
Once you have recovered any exposed stuff you can now take your time and add your new sand in. You can add it any way you want. You will likely find it doesn't matter sand storm wise. But if you do find a better way let us know.
Once your sand is in move back the live rock that was on that side of your tank.
Now patience my precious... Wait several days.. Perhaps a week and then do the same thing for the other side/third/whatever.
One thing I forgot to mention. With your small tank you need to consider the temperatures. If you lob in a third or half the sand and it's cold you will cause a sudden temperature yank. If you washed the sand with a cold garden hose nuke a couple of qts of water and throw it on the sand to bring its temp up a bit to room temp at least.
So I did what I was supposed to do. Everything looked great and my fish seemed fine. Woke up this morning, all of my fish were dead. My feather dusters were fine. So I came to the conclusion that my fish were stressed out. I tested the water, everything at 0 ppm. I checked my salinity, it was around 1.023, so then I thought that maybe some outside chemical got it when using the hose to rinse my sand. But if something did then the algae and my feather dusters would be dead. My damsels have been through a few spikes in ammonia and nitrites and nitrates and were absolutely fine so the only thing I can think of is stress. My one feather duster is nolonger is his tube, but he hasnt been in it for months and was doing just fine. His feathers are a little curled up but he is most definately not dead. MY other little feather duster is doing just great. I wanted to get rid of my damsels so I can have some small peaceful nano fish, but not this way. I am very unhappy. Im defnitely not blaming anybody who gave me advice on how to do this. I did a small portion at a time. I havent had much luck at all with my tank, so now that this happened Im going to act as if I m starting over from the beginning and do everything exactly as it should be done. Im gonna let the tank sit for a few weeks, no fish, and just take care of my feather dusters. Everyday im gonna test the water as usual, do my weekly water changes and siphoning detritus off the sand. The only thing that isnt like starting over again is the tank is cycled. but im still not taking chances. At first I was ready to just pack up my rock and everything, bring them back to the pet store, and then just conver t my tank back to freshwater since Ive had much much better luck with that, but im not going to. Im goign to start over and do things right from the beginning.
OMG soo soo sorry ..........................
You couldnt have expected this ,when i did mine i had no fish in tank .
So sorry , dont give up !
You couldnt have expected this ,when i did mine i had no fish in tank .
So sorry , dont give up !