CC to DSB.. All at once or little by little???

[daluminum]

Who has done this conversion.. I want war stories from both sides to see which way is easier. Pulling out everything in the tank and taking out gravel. or shoveling out some CC adding sand and waiting.. What about water? take it all out? or just dump the sand ontop of the CC.. who has done what and how did it go? cus.. grr.. moan.. I really dont want to do this.. but I guess its better than having the CC build nitrates.

 

[puff(er) daddy]

Well I had sand at first and that I added cc over top of it. So what I did was get an ordinary kitchen food strainer and put it into the water and filled it with the mixture of cc and sand. Then shook it until it was just cc inside of it. Dumped it into a bucket until the cc was gone. I did a area of 7"x7" every two days to reduce cloudyness.
When adding sand to a tank with existing water use a long pvc tube(I got that off this bb it works great.)

 

[daluminum]

huh.. why did you add CC to a DSB? I decided Im going to leave me CC and just use frequent water changes and cleanings. But why add more? just want to see the different sides of the story. THX ~DAniel

 

[bentrue]

i just did this 2 weeks ago. i chose to do it all at once. here is what i did:
i took all of the water out of the tank except for the water that was in the CC, so all but about 2 inches of water. i put this water into a LARGE rubbermaid tub , along with my LR and fish. i transferred the LR to the tub as soon as there was enough water for them to be totally submerged.
i then cleaned out all of the CC, which is not fun at all, cleaned out the entire tank. dried it out, then added the LS into the tank. then i took a CLEAN trash bag an laid it across the top of the sand and weighted it down with some pieces of LR. this is so the water will not stir up the sand as much when you pour it back in.
then water goes in about half full, trash bag comes out, the rest of the LR goes in and is arranged. livestock then goes in as well,and the rest of the water is put in. this is a great time to do a water change as well.
this worked out well for me, cloudiness was gone in less than 2 hours, and no caualties to the livestock as of yet. i got this method from a post on here a month or so ago.
hope that helps ya!

 

[cyn]

I wish I had seen this post before I did the change from cc to dsb. I did siphon off most of the water, replaced my base rock, and added the water back. Immagine trying to build a house in a snow storm! I had to put all my LR back by feel! So far my poor midas has survived, but he is definatly not happy. Thanks for the great advice BenTrue! People like you make this board the best.

 

[tiffany]

I had gotten rid off my dsb and replaced it with cc becasue I thought the dsb would hold nitrates. I am thinking about putting the dsb back, but what is the plus of the dsb over the cc?

 

[fshhub]

we sifted out the cc a little at a time and added sand at the same rate, just to make sure to avoid any spikes
TIFFANY
the dsb is mother natures way of eliminating nitrAtes, through bacteria and detrivores, the cc can trap debris until it breaks down, teh dsb hold much more bacteria which converts nitrates into nitrogen gas which then bubbles out of your system

 

[psumba]

Tiffany
Your from my neck of the woods...
I just moved here and I am looking for a good aquarium store - with a nice focus towards reefs. Where do you go?
I went to 2 last week - one should even be called a fish place and another was so so.
Thanks for the help.

 

[option720]

I did the switch a week ago and it went really well. First i took all the LR out and put in five gallon buckets. Then i drained the water out of the tank, filling the buckets with the LR. Then i put the fish in a bucket of water i drained out. I left about 2 inches of water above the cc. Then i scoped out the CC and put about 10 pound in a nylon stocking and put it in my sump(to avoid a recycle of the tank) Then dumped the sand in let it sit for a minute or two then put the rock and water in. Waited an hour or two and put the fish back in. It was that easy. Oh yeah....turn off all pumps and powerheads.

 

[josh]

DA:
Question for ya, what are your nitrates now? Is everything going well in the tank as is? It seems a lot of people are switching when everything is going well. That is a lot of work on you and stress on the animals for sometimes nominal gains. Just my .02
Josh

 

[jond]

I just did this two nights ago, here is what I did:
1) 5 gal. water change using a piece of garden hose. This will allow you to suck out the CC. (you have to work fast) This removed about half.
2) 1 week later, about 4 gal. siphoned removed the rest of the CC. (very small amounts left, you don't have to get every piece)
3) Just after the above step, I added 35lbs. of Florida Keys LS. Since I only have a 37gal. tank I used all LS to help avoid a cycle. Here is the trick. I removed no rock, corals or fish. Use a 1 1/2" piece of PVC pipe w/ a large funnel duck taped to the top. Hold the pipe just off the floor of the tank and add the sand using the pipe. It will still cloud the tank bad, but you can get the sand where you need it without taking eveything out of your tank.