Sandbed

[Dan9]

I want to switch my sandbed from crushed coral to sand. The reason I want to do this is because I want something that is finer so I can get a sand sifting goby or mandarin eventually. The guy at my LFS told me that I should do the switch if I wanted this goby I was looking at. How should I go about taking out the crushed coral? Also, how should I add the new sand as I do have five fish in the tank currently? Any thoughts or input is appreciated.

[kpcollins31]

Drain as much water as possible from your tank into buckets, coolers, or whaterver else you have available and put your livestock into these buckets (you may stir up some nasty stuff when removing the crushed coral). If you have enough space, I would also remove the rocks just to make your life easier.

Turn off all your filtration and take the crushed coral out. If you did this correctly you should have nothing left in the tank except some dirty water. I would completely remove all this water. Then put the new sand in and add roughly 20-30 gallons of fresh saltwater (well mixed at the proper temp). Re-aquascape. And lastly, get your livestock and previously siphoned off water back into the tank.

Good luck.

Kevin

[HumanIMDB]

I just did this myself last night, but because I only have a 10g going right now, I just bought a new one for $17 and did the move that way. The whole process took just over an hour after everything was prepared.

So far all inhabitants are doing just fine.

This article might help - <a href="http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=120579" target=_blank>Sand Bed Swap Article</a>

Also, <a href="http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=937822" target=_blank>here</a> is the post I made asking for advice.

[mg426]

When I Changed from CC I did it half one week half the next. You can pour the new sand in the tank through a piece of 2 inch PVC tubing to help keep the sandstorm down.