Replacing the sand in my 29gal fish only..

[rbredding]

I will be using sand from my 90gal reef (up and running since February) because I've got too much in a couple areas..

do I just plan a "large water change" and remove the existing sand during the process?

Obviously, I will put the live rock and livestock in holding buckets while the change is happening..


What are the issues to take into consideration? (or precautions to take)..

I'm changing out the sand because I think it's become too saturated with ditritius(sp?). The tank was established for a year when I got it (14 months ago) and I'm not sure it was cleaned very often.


As always, thank you for the advice/suggestions/discussion..

 

[rbredding]

:sad:bump...

 

[shrimpy brains]

Disturbing sand in a running tank is a huge gamble, IMO. You run the risk of disturbing pockets of junk that can pollute both tanks.

If you are concerned about the sand being stagnant, get a bunch of nassarious and cerith snails and throw them in there.

 

[rbredding]

Shrimpy Brains;581503 wrote: Disturbing sand in a running tank is a huge gamble, IMO. You run the risk of disturbing pockets of junk that can pollute both tanks.

If you are concerned about the sand being stagnant, get a bunch of nassarious and cerith snails and throw them in there.

I've got a puffer in that tank.. he makes short work of them..

 

[eandrews]

How deep is the sand bed? I would say do a full sand and water change and use your bio on the rock to handle any spike you would have for a couple weeks before putting any livestock back in.. just to be safe..

 

[morganatlanta]

I'd vacuum it to clean it up, one small area at a time over the course of a couple weeks, rather than swapping it out, if detritus your concern. You can suck out a lot of junk by siphoning only a couple gallons of water.

 

[purplegorilla]

I would just do a litltle at a time.

 

[gnashty]

I have done a little at a time - I actually used my homer bucket lid wet vac - it sucked a portion of the sand bed out so dang fast there was no chance of detritus being suspended in the water column - and if there was it was negligible. then I just replaced it with new freshly rinsed sand - ive never been happier

 

[rbredding]

the sand now isn't but maybe 1" deep.. (possibly 1.5")

it started out as black sand and now looks like dirt.. any disturbance of the sand bed creates a "toxic cloud" that you can see moving/settling around with the flow...

 

[morganatlanta]

So your plan seems reasonable to me. I'd take the sand you want to use out of the 93 and rinse it really good, a couple times. You could do that the day before you actually tackle the 29. It always takes longer than you think to do this stuff.

I'd also save the original water from the 29 and put that back in. Save the water change until after you've put the new sand in, re-aquascaped and let stuff settle down.

 

[ricksconnected]

ron

kirsten and i took a tank (29) and pulled the fish out, the rock, the 2 corals, removed the old sand, put in new sand and added the rock, the fish and the coral in a day with no ill effects.
we did it systematicly of course and it worked perfectly.

 

[rbredding]

I guess I could just vacuum the sand out and leave it bare bottom for a little while.. then add the sand from the 90 whenever I get around to it..

I don't really want to rinse the sand from the 90 though, If I did that, I'd kill all the bacteria, which is the reason that I want to use that sand (as opposed to buying new sand)

 

[rbredding]

thanks for the input y'all....

 

[ricksconnected]

its your choie ron, but w/o rinsing the sand, you will be that much closer
to where you are now. rinse the sand lightly in old water from a w/c and you'll be fine. put the sand in a 10gal w/hang on filter. stir it up every so often over a day or two. it will be fine and still alive to boot.
oh, i have another VERY easy project should you choose to accept it. :yay: