ok.. read sand bed article, should i remove crushed coral??

[melk-man]

The article on sand beds was very informative. I have a 58gal with lots of live rock, 50-60 lbs or so. The crushed coral bed is a few inches thick at the rear and slopes to 2 or so at the front. I have been using a wide tube that goes into the bed to "clean" the cc when i syphon for water changes. I guess this is a bad thing after reading all the good things that go on in a bed. Furthermore.. should i get the cc out and replace with live sand??

[rshimek]

Hi,

My advice - free and therefore worth exactly what you paid for it - would be to remove the cc and put in a DSB. This will be spendy and time consuming. If you think your system is doing well, you might want to wait until some major change is in the offing and then do it all at once.

[melk-man]

thanks.. may not be that hard if i am not taking all the cc out (under the base pieces of live rock). The cc will syphon pretty well.I can do enough to not move the live rock and put in the sand.
However.. i do have a plastic plate thing with window screen below the cc. I could leave that in place, otherwise it would require removing everything and starting over.
thanks

[rshimek]

Hi,

The plate is a problem. It will cause the sand bed to be largely non-functional. It should be removed.