Adding more sand

[anjiro]

So, I was wondering if you can add sand to an established tank. Its 2 months old now and I've got a pair of clowns in it and a few softies. got rid of the rest of my fish (sold or gave away) and a yellow gorg. I want to make the sand bed deeper. Its an inch right now. Is there any way to do this. Clowns are out of the tank right now, in QT for ICK will be out for 4 weeks. Any advice please?

 

[flower]

Here is what I would do:
remove the coral into a safe dark place for a few hours. They will close up and not even notice much. Add the sand carefuly and let it settle. About 2 to 3 hours. When it is all clear return your coral.
accliment them just like when you first got them, just to be safe.

 

[anjiro]

as for reacclimating the corals, how do you do it, most people recommend 30 min float and then add but what is really best?

 

[flower]

When I return coral after I have had to remove them a while I just add a little of the other water from the tank and remove the water they were sitting until it is good and mixed and the same temp. Then I put them back into the close to original place as I can.
They do still stress a little but seem to come out of it just fine. I have never lost anything.

 

[anjiro]

So I plan on adding the sand this after noon, but will the settling sand hurt the liverock in anyway? I could pull it all out and place it in a rubbermaid bin as well

 

[eric b 125]

when you add the sand, use a piece of pvc and dump the rinsed sand through the pipe. it will direct the sand to the bottom of the tank, rather than out into the water. it will help minimize the sand storm

 

[florida joe]

How much sand are you adding? Remember what you are covering is area with colonized nitrification bacteria on it. Make sure you are not adding so much sand that you are impacting your filtration. Also you can put the sand in zip lock bags lay them on the bottom and open and slowly dump out the sand

 

[jennln]

When my tank was a few months old I managed to add about an inch of sand to the already existing sandbed in the tank. I used regular aragonite sand (rinsed well) and the ziploc bag method described above. I only added the sand to 1/4 of the tank about every 5-7 days to give the tank time to adjust and for the newly added "dead sand" to start the process of becoming live sand. I'm not sure if this was the best way to do it, but it worked well for me with no ill effects to my tank and no influence on my tank levels. Just go slow