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Need advice on removing stablish sandbed out

drdoolittle

drdoolittle

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Well, it has come down to this... I have been fighting what i thought to be Hair algea bloom. But, turned out to be combination of dinoflagellate and hair. I have been reducing feeding, skimming wet, added carbon and decrease lights. the dino receeded dramaticly, but now I have Cryno. Searching for the source of nutrient, i stirred up some of my 5mm coarse sand and tons of detritus just came out of it. Also notinced that some of my sand are clumped together like a brick. Not sure what would cause this other than my calcium reactor or microbateria7.

So, now i want to remove all my sand and convert into barebottom. my questions is want is the safest method on removing sand out of stablish tank with minimal impact into the corals?

any input is appreciated. thanks
Ed
 
When I did it several years ago, I would just vaccuum out a little bit with each water change until it was pretty much all gone. Took a couple of months.
 
I used the vacuum method too. It minimizes kicking crap up into the water column. Over a month or two, it won't shock the system as much either.
 
Just went with my gut is the amount I removed each time. Was worried in what I might stir up or potentially recycling the tank if I did it all at once. No solid evidence that it would cause a problem but decided that it was a conservative route. If I did stir some bad stuff up, I limited it by doing it in spurts.
 
If you want to get it done...pull out as much water as you can into rubbermaids or garbage cans/kiddie pool,etc... Remove fish and any easy to move corals/rocks, then siphon out as much sand as you can, then scoop out the rest if all the water you had left in the tank has been removed with the siphoning of sand. After it's all gone just refill with all the good water you saved and however much new water you need.
 
The reason why you do it with a water change is you're bound to pull water up with the sandbed, and you really don't want to use that water that got sucked out back in your tank as it will be quite nasty. I would simply go with as much of a water change as you normally do and use a very wide tube to suck the sand out.
 
sfsuphysics said:
The reason why you do it with a water change is you're bound to pull water up with the sandbed, and you really don't want to use that water that got sucked out back in your tank as it will be quite nasty. I would simply go with as much of a water change as you normally do and use a very wide tube to suck the sand out.
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Thanks Mike, this is the consensus that i got from everyone. I'll spread the water change in the course of a month (aiming for a weekly) until all sand are gone. I guess the biggest worry that i have is, since the sand is so course (5mm) hopefully i would have hard time syphoning it out and also getting the clumped chucks out.
 
looks like im shopping for a large shop vac this weekend.

I could remove most of my frags and wrap the others with wet towels. Then drain and vacuum the sand. Any adverse affect on doing this all at once vs syphoning every other week?
 
I cant get them out without breaking it apart. Wrapping it with wet towel will keep it moist while the tank is empty. I remember Charles Delbeek talking about doing same on frags during transportation.

looking at the tank last night, Im actually thinking twice about doing it all at once. it spunded alot easier at first, but may be much more complicated than i thought. I may just go with the original plan of syphoning little at a time during water change.
 
I worry a bit about an ammonia/nitrite and even nitrate spike if you remove it all at once.
First, it is hard to do perfectly, one mistake could stir up a fair amount of crud.
Second, the sand bed is a complex part of your biological filter.
Depending on your setup, the depth, and how established, could be a small part, or could be significant.
But overall, moving it slowly seems a lot safer.
 
I've removed sand beds many, many times without issue, even deep sand beds. The key is to have your plan laid out so things move quickly, if there's a hiccup it costs valuable time.
 
rygh said:
I worry a bit about an ammonia/nitrite and even nitrate spike if you remove it all at once.
First, it is hard to do perfectly, one mistake could stir up a fair amount of crud.
Click to expand...
If you turn off water flow, the vacuum will remove nearly all the tainted water along with the sand :)
 
Or to be totally safe pull out all the good clean water first then remove sand so it can't taint the clean water you already pulled out. Looks like sergio has a perfect kiddie pool!
 
I removed my sand bed in my 240 gallon once before and removed it all at once and I lost a huge amount of fish and lost some coral. I would suggest removing it slowly as mentioned before. And siphon it out. Good luck with that.
 
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