Can I save a 9month old sandbed??

cracker

cracker

Well-Known Member
Hello, I have the chance to swap my existing cloudy glass 75 for a new clear one. The tank has been up for 9 months now. It's has 3 fish and corals. this tank is doing very well. Can i save the sand bed? it's about 2 inches . it shouldn't be too dirty yet and just now maturing. Or should I just leave well enough alone and not mess with this well running tank? Any suggestions? thanks
 
frisbee

frisbee

Well-Known Member
If you want to try and save your sand bed just siphon out the top 1/4" or so into an ice chest or something similar. The more surface area the better. Remove the rest of the sand & give it a good rinse with the garden hose before you put it in your new tank. Add the existing live sand on top of that and you should be set. GL.
 
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Squatch XXL

Squatch XXL

Well-Known Member
NICE!

Back in the day I had a leaky 75 that had 200# DSB.....I did a changeover at 1 year, and it was aweful. The sand smells totally foul.

The advice to salvage the top portion and clean the rest is great advice. You may get some algae, but nothing that an established rockwork couldn't handle.
 
cracker

cracker

Well-Known Member
I watched a great vid from Melev on changing out a sand bed. Sorry I can't figure out how to post it !
Any way I think I'll put 1/4 in a bucket with water and wash the rest. I just prey I don't upset the balence of this setup and piss off my corals ! After many years of trying to keep corals in the big tank. I finally have a setup where they are thriving ! This will be an interesting experiment. I plan to test before and after and see how it changes. Thanks for the info and advice. Now I'm going to try to get that link here.
 
cracker

cracker

Well-Known Member
Stir, I think my toasting beers has something to do with my not so stellar PC skills :pint:
I love it when a plan comes together and I can so easily rationalize spending money ! Today I picked up a new shiny clear glass 75. it was 172 bucks and a 20$ Favia frag. so that emptied the change jar. so any further expenditures are coming from the "new truck" fund..At this rate the truck will be new like year 2025
new. LOL so any way I'll drill for the over flow tomorrow. Maybe the swap on sunday. I still have to make sure I have everything on hand so the transfer goes smoothly. so I plan to drain the water ,take out the rock and as gently as possible move the fishes. swap the tanks, mount the overflow rinse the sand and refill. I'm thinking the existing gaskets with the overflow might not seal properly,so I need to be able to get replacements quickly.If not I'll have to silicone and that will set me back 24 hours for the cure. wait wait, I'm not allowing for a test filling and clean rinse out of the new tank ! :duh:
did I miss something?
 
Oxylebius

Oxylebius

Well-Known Member
When I move across town years ago, I caught all the critters and got all the rocks out. Then I siphoned the entire sand bed ~2inches. At that point the sand was clean enough that I took all of it out and transferred it to the new tank. I didn't have any issues.

The bacteria in the sand bed isn't really worth saving once it is disturbed. The bacteria in the rock is what you want to make sure survives the transfer.

But, the advice above from firsbee is sound and should work well for you. I'd personally rinse the sand in rodi water and not tap water though. But, I live in an area that has lots of extra chemicals added to the tap water like chloramines and fluoride. So, I'd prefer not to have anything that goes into the tank touch the tap water.
 
cracker

cracker

Well-Known Member
Oxy, I like Your idea also. It might make that step less complicated. I would lose pretty much all the existing tank water. I'd have to use all new water and want to keep as much of this tank water as possible. Gotta think about that. Think it would be ok to use all new water? I don't know,
I do know I'm burned out on this tank thing. I have spent about all free time this past couple week s painting, stand building, drilling the new tank etc. I think I should use tomorrow as a timeout day. here is the new 75 drilled. Thanks for the advice !
 
Oxylebius

Oxylebius

Well-Known Member
The good bacteria lives on surfaces, that is why keeping he rock wet is important. There is very little bacteria in the water in comparison to the rocks. So with that in mind I don't think it is that important to keep the water. If you want to keep the water then keep 1/3 to 1/2 of the water, but you really don't need to keep all of it.
 
cracker

cracker

Well-Known Member
Well it's done ! It was a job for sure ! I got the sand washed out good. I ended up washing it in buckets with the garden hose. I drained off as much water as possible then poured new mixed water. Did that twice. Took me all day just now got the fish and corals back in the in tank. They a "all" pissed off at me ! The whole thing went pretty smooth with one little problem. One of the over flow bulkheads trickles ever so slightly . Every body is in time out with no light and covered . I will finnish it tomorrow as I'm done for the day ! Thanks Folks for all the ideas and tips !
 
cracker

cracker

Well-Known Member
Goood Evening Folks I pulled the overflow and put the gaskets in the correct place prob solved in 10 minutes .Everybody in the tank is responding well to the change. I truly hope it was more traumatic to me then my critters ! Fishes are eating and swimming around as usual. The coral actually look even better ! Sorry I can't seem to get a good pic of this tank. So now I have a sump for the big tank. A reef keepers work is never done ! Gotta love it LOL
 
Pat24601

Pat24601

Well-Known Member
cracker said:
Goood Evening Folks I pulled the overflow and put the gaskets in the correct place prob solved in 10 minutes .Everybody in the tank is responding well to the change. I truly hope it was more traumatic to me then my critters ! Fishes are eating and swimming around as usual. The coral actually look even better ! Sorry I can't seem to get a good pic of this tank. So now I have a sump for the big tank. A reef keepers work is never done ! Gotta love it LOL
Click to expand...

Sounds great!
 
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