cc to sand question(sorry, I know this has been asked before)

[crossan]

HI, I am about to change from crushed coral to sand. I would like to know if anyone has any good advice about this? I plan on keeping all of my water and pouring it back in when I am done. I have 10 scarlett hermi crabs and a serpent sea star. Can I change it all at once if I keep the water?
Thanks!

 

[1journeyman]

Do you have a lot of live rock? If so you will be fine, if CC is it you probably shouldn't do all at once for fear of removingall of your beneficial bacteria.

 

[pbienkiewi]

how big is your tank ? When I switched, I split the bottom into 1/4. Change 1/4 of the cc every couple of weeks till it was gone. No biggie if you miss some cc. This way the new sand will age some and get some of the benifitial bacteria + all the other goodies that the CC had in it.

 

[crossan]

I have a 100 gallon tank with 60 pounds of live rock in it.

 

[aztec reef]

If its like 2" of CC then i would remove 50% now and the other 50% in a week..But if it's more than 2" of CC then you'll need to take it longer than one week ..

 

[ifirefight]

Originally Posted by Aztec Reef
If its like 2" of CC then i would remove 50% now and the other 50% in a week..But if it's more than 2" of CC then you'll need to take it longer than one week ..
Ive seen this asked many,many times. I know most people scoop it out..but what about a smaller wet/dry shop vac? You get the CC and the water all at once. Just wondered if anybody has tried that approach?

 

[wifishman1]

ive swiched over when i had my 75 i did all in one day.i had about 130# of lr and i think 90# cc. i had no problems....well besides the clean up after

 

[driedbrain]

I had this problem except visa versa. I had sand and wanted to switch to crushed coral. I have a 45g deep. I had only 20lbs of sand and I just added 20lbs of of crushed coral on top of it. I have had the tank up for 8 months now with no probs except cloudy water initally.

 

[al mc]

I did the cc to sand switch in all three of my tanks about 10 months ago. I did it all at once BUT I put a couple cups full of the cc in 'filter bags' (when I ran out I used a pair of my wife's old nylon stockings. Used one for each 25 gallons of water (just made that up) and put them in the corners of the tank. Then removed one every 5-6 days. Never had a nitrogen cycle spike or any problems.

 

[pagoona]

I did this about a month ago. First, I transferred all of my rock and livestock to a Rubbermaid tub with a heater and a powerhead. I tried to keep as much water as I could. Then I dumped out all of the crushed coral, rinsed off my sand and added it to the tank. I had water ready for a water change so I added the new water on top of the sand and I waited a day or so for the sand storm to clear up. I slowly began adding everything from the tub back to the tank. I watched my levels closely and I saw no spike.