Advice request

[srt]

hi everyone.
for the last few years my 55 gallon saltwater aquarium has only had a couple fish, some crabs and a couple snails. the substrait is crushed coral. i just got done upgrading to vho lights and would like to get started on turning it into a reef tank.
i am giving serious thought to getting rid of the crushed coral and putting in sand but i am not sure how to go about doing it. the tank is split into two sections connected by two tubes. i was thinking i could move everything to one side, scoop out the crushed coral, and add the sand, then repeat on the other side. i am not sure how this will impact my two damsels and all the crabs/snails.
another thought...a friend of mine has a tank with crushed coral that he seeded with a few pounds of live sand and things are doing well in his tank.
i figure it is best to deal with this right now before i start adding live rock and other critters.
if anyone has some ideas i would love to hear them.
thanks
steve

 

[a&m aggie 04']

if i were you id get all the CC out, you wont regret it. If you can get some southdown sand at your local Home Depot then you should use that. If not get some aragonite sand from you fish store and seed it with some live sand from an established tank.
If you plan on getting any fish than the damsels, then the damsels should probably go-- unless the are green cromis' (they are more docile then other damsels) The damsels will harrass any new additions.
Adding sand to your tank is going to create a dust storm for about a week. So if possible id move all inhabitants to another tank (friends).
HTH,
Mark

 

[thomas712]

Yep get that crushed coral out of there, and use sand. Not sure of the tube thing can you tank a pic of it? Once that is done you can move onto the liverock. do you take good care of the crushed coral. Sorry but my brain would like to know what your nitrates are at.
Thomas

 

[srt]

one of the damsels is the sole survivor of my wife's ex husband (was her husband at the time) cleaning the front of the tank with windex. the windex contaminated the water and killed off all her live rock, anenomea (is that the correct plural?), coral, fish, etc. eccept for this one damsel. he is about 9 years old now. i dont know what kind of damsel he is but he is all blue with a small dark spot near his tail. the other damsel is almost 4 years old. i forget what kind of damsel he is as well. he is purplish with a yellow tail. they chase each other around but dont really harm each other. for now i am content to have them be the only fish in the tank.
here is a link to a site that sells the same model tank i have. i dont have a pic of my tank to post.
http://www.selecthomedecor.com/showp...oc=&listpage=1
i was thinking i may be able to stuff a ball or inflate a balloon or something in the tubes to isolate one side from the other.
about taking care of the crushed coral...um...well...for the last 5 years (since my wife and i met each other) there hasnt been a strong interest in developing the tank. we keep the water level up and feed the fish regularly. we have added a few invertabrates over the years and tried adding some fish that the damsel made short work of and that is about it. we test the water once in a while and everything always tests fine. it has been a while since the water was tested so i dont know what the nitrate level is right now. the crushed coral has never been cleaned and there has been no water change.

 

[cb]

As old as your damsels are you will never be able to add another fish to that tank.
they are very territorial and they established their territory a long time ago . But adding corals and other inverts should not be a problem. I am not sure how your tank is set up but when we upgraded and added more sand to our sandbed we used coolers and saved all the water from the tank and put the fish in the cooler with the powerhead and put the new sand in the tank then set a 2 1/2 gal bucket in the tank and added the water back in trying not to disturb the sand too much and our tank was clear by the morning. We added the fish back in that night though and it only took us a couple of hours to do the whole transition.

 

[srt]

i am kind of attached to the damsels. they are both older than our dogs and i dont want to get rid of them. after watching them kill 2 fish a few years ago i have no intention of adding more fish while i still have them.
i never considered adding the sand while the water level was low. that should work. i have a 22 gal container and a couple large coolers i could use to store the water.
how much sand should i get? the floor of the tank is about 13x24 on each side (13x48 total)
thanks
steve

 

[cb]

I don't blame you for not wanting to get rid of the damsels. I have 4 in my 40g and I really like them they have personality in fact damsels are the only fish I do have. As far as the sand goes it depends on how deep of a sand bed you want. I have 40g long which measures 12x48 and we added 60 lbs of yardright and then added about 15lbs of live sand on top of that and our sand bed is about 3 1/2 inches deep.HTH

 

[cb]

I almost forgot to Welcome you to the board.

 

[srt]

Originally posted by CB
I almost forgot to Welcome you to the board.
thanks!!
well, my wife and i went shopping and we ran by the home improvement store and bought some sand. i was not quite sure how much to get so i got 3 50lb bags. at $1.89/50lbs i figured what the hey.
i removed about 40 gallons of water into storage bins, moved all the critters and rocks and scooped out all the crushed coral. i dumped one bag pf sand in each side and the sand bed is about 4-5" deep. i am not sure if it will compress at all when it settles or not. this seems perfect, i have one more bag if i need it now i am just waiting for the sand to settle. bleh, i am tired now.
thanks for the advice everyone. i will let you know how things go.
steve