Swapping out crushed coral for live sand

[Andrew52984]

Hey guys, hope everyone's doing great. Well i've decided to swap out my crushed coral for CaribSea Aragonite. I've got a 46 gallon bowfront and I plan on taking out my two clowns and my two brittle stars along with my inverts and placing them and a couple pieces of live rock in a 8 gallon rubbermaid tub with a PH to keep circulation going. While they're hanging out in there I will take another 2 8 gallon tubs and fill them with the water being drained from the tank. As the tank gets rather low I will start removing the crushed coral by hand and by net(any other ideas please let me no lol)...I no i most likely won't be able to remove all the CC but as much as possible will be great. I am replacing the CC with 30lbs CaribSea Aragonite Sugar Sized Sand and 40 lbs. of CaribaSea Special Grade Reef Live Sand. This should give me around a 3 inch SB(average from various calculators I've used lol).

I have three 8 gallon tubs ready to take the water out of the tank, along with 10 gallons or RO water, that I mixed this afternoon and the salinity is sitting at 1.026...the remaining live rock that wasn't put in with the fish will sit in one of the other tubs in sw from the tank. I'm basically removing everything from the tank so I can replace the substrate(I do realize this will cause I spike, I do have RO water ready for a massive water change if needed). Do I need to remove all water in order to swap the substrate out or should I leave a little in?

Once I have the crushed coral removed, I will rinse the new sand and set the bag on the bottom of the tank and slowly spread it across the floor of the tank(not gonna dump it in!). I'll first put the sugar sized sand in and then next the live sand on top. I'm contemplating putting eggcrate on the bottom of the tank but I would like to purchase a blue spot jawfish in the future and have read a few posts saying I shouldn't if i wanted any type of burrowing fish?

Anyway, still deciding on the eggcrate, and once I have put my live rock back in with a fresh new aquascape I will slowly add the water back in from my tubs with a pump and small water line. Sorry, for the super long post, half asleep getting ready to nap before work at 2 am so let me no what everyone thinks. Thanks for the help, this place has been super helpful to me so far and obviously will help in the future! Thanks again. Later.

 

[framerguy]

Sounds like you are starting all over! I don't know what stirring the CC bed is going to release , maybe nothing, maybe something, there is no way to know, so I wouldn't use any water left over after you start removing the CC bed. Get it all out before starting to add the sand. Best of luck with the switch!

 

[jski711]

I would siphon as much water out as possible before disturbing the the cc. That way when u take all that cc out just siphon the rest of the water in the tank out and then ur just gonna have to add a little water from what you took out. Once u start moving the cc ur gonna notice a whole bunch of crap left in the water and u don't want that in ur tank. Sorry if I just confused you. Hth.

Jake

 

[funkpolice]

you should put the rocks in before the sand, especially if you're going to get a burrowing fish.
bill

 

[stonedfish]

I did the same thing a couple of months ago. I just siphoned a little CC out with each water change. Then I replaced it with live sand. One half one week and the other half two weeks later. It worked out wonderfully. I used a funnel and a tube to put the new sand in. Very little mess. and everyone stayed in the tank. Be careful of rock slides.

 

[Andrew52984]

I plan on removing all the water into tubs, or at least as much as I can!, and then I will just use that same water to put back into my tank minus about 10 to 15 gallons(due for the weekly water change with my 0tds ro/di water). The hole thing shouldn't take but a couple hours, i'm praying, as I will be pumping the water out and pumping it back in with a small MJ powerhead. Got a one and a half year old sun who is extremely interested in daddy's pishies!

 

[Andrew52984]

Well, I did it! Planned on taking tons of photos and posting them but I can't find my camera, somewhere in the closet or the wife lost it! Lol. Anyway, Everything went perfect. Took two hours total, removed water, rock, livestock and crushed coral. Scraped the inside of the glass down pretty well and then began putting the new sand in after I rinsed it in RO water as best I could. Rescaped alot and I think it looks so much better. I used the Caribsea Sugar Sand and Caribsea Fine Grain Live sand, i wasn't too sure about that fine grain of a sand until I went to the LFS the last couple of times and checked out a huge predator tank with a large shark in it and he was just hanging out on the bottom and slowly slid across it as he swam. It just looked really cool seeing him glide across it so I went with it.

The bed's probably three inches to maybe three and a half inches deep, bout three times deeper than the crushed coral that was in there. My two clowns love it! The female immediately found her rock she normally slept in and began fanning the sand and kicking it up with her tail, and within a couple hours her and the male were back at it shaking up against each other swimming together.

All in all, it was a great experience and i've tested my params multiple times since the switch two days ago and my nitrates didn't spike at all! Couldn't have been better. I'll post pics asap.

Also, I'm looking at purchasing a 125 gallon long tank, or bigger. Would like to buy brand new but a used one wouldn't be a bad idea to save money. Can anyone shoot me some links to sites for tanks they prefer. I would like to start my research asap! I was given a blue hippo tang, she was a half inch long when I was given her, and now she's 1.5 inches long and I gotta upgrade cause I wanna keep her. She's still doing fine in my 46g bow, of course should never have been in here but she was a gift and my LFS doesn't take trades or buy anything from customers, so I was screwed. Had to put her in and she's doing great on a diet of purple nori and rod's food along with flake food.