Those poor fish...

If you opt for Aragonite sand, not the "cheap stuff" from Home Depot, then yes, it will buffer your water.

There is no need to dain the tank. You simply scoop and chuck the CC and replace with sand about 25% weekly until you've replaced it all. Should take a 4 weeks if it goes smoothly, 6 if you see spikes of ammonia.

"They used it for years and people still had nice looking tanks with the stuff. "

Until fairly recently, asbestos was used to insulate homes and schools. In hindsight, was that a good idea? CC isn't nearly THAT bad, but there are much better ways to do it. The fact that those ways are both better and cheaper should make them a no brainer =) You are refering to what I like to think of as the "dark ages" of saltwater keeping. Dead coral skeletons, cruched coral substrate, very sterile and un-natural. The Berlin method is a more natural appraoch to keeping salties, and far more effective.
 
OK... There aren't any fish in the aquarium right now so is there any harm in just replacing ALL of the crushed coral at once, returning the LR to the tank once the water settles for a few hours?

My only fish is stuck in QT with ich until after christmas... I am seriously considering just replacing the CC bed and adding some uncured live rock (about 40') and letting the tank run for another 2-3 weeks before I think about putting anything else in there.

See my PM. To recap, here is my plan if I decide to go through with this:

1) Pull my current 15' of CURED LR out and put it in a bucket w/power head or air stone.
2) Remove the CC by scooping it out. I will leave the water in there and not drain it.
3) Pour a full bed of aragonite sand in there (how many ' ?).
4) Turn the filters back up, let the water clear for a few hours.
5) After the water starts to clear (3 hours or so at least) I will put the 15' of cured rock back in and am also going to add 40' of uncured rock.
6) Run the aquarium for 2-3 weeks before I add my maroon clown back into the tank. This should allow time for the uncured rock to fully cure and also for the system to settle down.

Is this an OK plan?
 
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OK... There aren't any fish in the aquarium right now so is there any harm in just replacing ALL of the crushed coral at once, returning the LR to the tank once the water settles for a few hours?

Don't bother removing the LR. The sand will settle, then you just turkey baster it off the rocks. Besides, if you jsut put in sand, then place rocks on top of the sand, your foundation won't be very stable. Put the rock in, then the sand around em.

My only fish is stuck in QT with ich until after christmas... I am seriously considering just replacing the CC bed and adding some uncured live rock (about 40') and letting the tank run for another 2-3 weeks before I think about putting anything else in there.

If you put uncured LR in with your cured LR, anything big enough to see and enjoy will probably die on the original liverock. Uncured LR is an extremely potent source of ammonia, and cured LR won't enjoy that environment. Yes, LR will help process that ammonia, but the cost will be the macro life on it. Also, 2-3 weeks is a bit low on the estimate. Curing LR can vary, but it TYPICALLY takes 4-6 weeks. I hate to keep bursting your bubble, but I hate when people leave these little tidbits out of advice. So I try to give ya the straight dirt..
 
The cloudy water won't bother the chunk of cured LR I already have?

The LR at my dealer has been curing for about a week and a half already, hence the 2-3 week estimate. I may decide to wait until the LR at my dealer's tank has been through most of the curing process before adding it then if you think it'll kill my current cured LR.

Other than that, does the plan look OK to you? The way I read it I should nix #1,5, & 6. At least I don't have to lose all the water in the tank.

Modified plan:
1) Scoop out CC.
2) Pour the sand in. How many lbs. do I need? It's a 55.

A simple plan. I will wait until the LR @ my dealer's has been through at least 3-4 weeks of curing then before I add it. Hopefully the impact will be minimal then.
 
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The only thing I noticed is that you expect 3 hours for the sand to settle, it's probably gonna take about 5 to 7 days for your water to be 100% clear again, but it will eventually clear.
 
As long as the cloudy water doesn't hurt the LR, no biggie then I guess... What do you all think of my modified plan? Simple enough... I'll forget adding more LR in there until it is done curing at my dealer.
 
Sounds good to me, I just added 20# of cured LR to my tank, even though my nitrites are still around 1ppm, my ammonia is 0. From what I've been told, most of the rock will survive, but not all. I had a good deal I coudn't pass up, if you can wait for your lfs to cure their rock, wait til your tank comes to 0 nitrites and ammonia.
 
The tank is at 0 ammonia and 0 nitrite already. It's only been up for just under 3 weeks. We weren't testing for nitrite like we should've so we never even noticed it spike or not. Ammonia did come up and then back down however.

With as little as I have in that aquarium (only 15' of live rock, that's it) it doesn't surprise me that the spikes weren't real heavy. Ammonia never got over about .6 or so before it came back down.

It is very tempting to buy some real nice pieces of partially cured rock and let it finish in there. I understand that most of the stuff that might be killed on the current 15' of cured rock I already have in there will just grow back anyway.

By george, this is a really confusing thing. Corax and others clearly know what they are talking about. Yet others who also have experience have told me the exact opposite: keep the coral if you're not doing a reef. Who do you believe?
 
llebcire, that diatom outbreak isn't to bad. Could be worse. I've seen a friend's tank literally taken over by hair algae. It was even growing off the sand on the bottom! Talk about nasty...
 
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