Can anyone help??

With sand, true, you try not to disturb it as much as possible, but with crushed coral, the complete opposite. Sand actually benefits a SW tank, crush coral only hurts SW tanks from my personal experience. You must syphon crushed coral with a gravel vac about weekly to keep it clean. I did it myself for 7 years with my predator tanks. Also used an undergravel filter back then... I was such a noob and just listened to my LFS in the early days in hopes they knew more than I did.. turns out they didn't.

55G Wolf Eel/Stars and Stripes puffer tank
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One giant red hairy crab, about the size of your fist and would actually catch and eat fish with its claw. Even this guy had a hard time with crushed coral.
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So basically if I dont change to sand I'm going to have problems in the very near future?

What is the best way to change to sand as I have nowhere else to put the stock at this time.
 
Since it is only a 30G tank, best bet right now would to take all the rocks and livestock out and put them in buckets/rubbermaid containers while you scoop out all the crushed coral. Get your sand ready ahead of time, buy regular dry sand, and pour the bag into a bucket and run a garden hose through it slowly, letting the water overflow the bucket in a yard, until the water is clear. If you don't, your tank will be milk white color for a few days. (FYI, I used 200lbs of dry sand on my 75G tank and it took me 12 hours to rinse that much sand clean using a large trashcan and leaving the garden hose running/stirring the sand about once every 15 minutes). Once the sand is rinsed good, drain as much fresh water out of the bucket as you can without spilling the sand out, then put the sand in your empty tank. Then put the rocks back in, let the tank run for 10-15 minutes to settle a little, then you can put your fish back in. Not the best idea, but better than the alternative of leaving the crushed coral in there.
 
The CC would be your biggest problem.. but your skimmer is going to be next in line. That isn't nearly as big of a concern as fixing the crushed coral problem though.

Prizm skimmers - Joke around my LFS is the box the skimmer comes in will do my skimming just tearing it up and "wicking" the top of the water clean. Sorry to break the bad news to ya on that, but don't feel too bad, I got suckered into that one myself at one point. Lasted a week on my tank, a month back in the box when the LFS wouldn't take it back (different LFS than the one making the joke), and then went into the trash, $100+ mistake.

In the mean time, raise the surface skimmer attachment just a notch or 2 so it is partially above the water line. That should help suck more of the bad junk floating on the top of your water if you do that.
 
OK thanks for the info, already heard that about the skimmer but the money it cost me and the cost of a new one I really didnt want to take it in. lol.

As for the CC i'm looking into the forums on ways to change it out and the best place to get it. I really dont want to go back to LFS as it seems to have caused me problems right from the start....
 
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