tristanumd
New Member
hey all,
I have been browsing this board for a number of months soaking in others knowledge and I finally have a tid bit of my own to share...
Yesterday afternoon I made the big plunge and decided to get rid of my crushed coral substrate in my 29 gallon and replace it with 40 lbs of live sand. I was a bit worried about this undertaking.. losing fish to stress, making a huge mess, etc. I just wanted to let people know how it went for me, who is still very new to this hobby:
The whole ordeal took about 3 hours with preparations, the actual ordeal and then cleanup, & making enough saltwater to replace what I lost. First I got a 5 gallon bucket and a box. I put my fish along with my few frags of coral in the bucket with tank water and then wrapped my live rock with paper towels and put them in the box.
Then I was basically left with a tank of water and some crushed coral on the way to the trash. Basically I scooped up everything i could into a waste container trying not to stir up everything. Well, everything got pretty cloudy and looked like a total disaster. I realized my powerhead was still plugged in which wasnt helping so I unplugged it and got the rest of the CC out without too much trouble. I cut open the bags of live sand and set them in the tank with water. By cutting open the bags when they were submerged I found that the sand settled out rather quickly.. I'd say within an hour. Then I basically just dropped everything else back in and cleaned everything up.
Overall I'd say this project was a lot easier then I expected it to be, my corals opened up fully within an hour or so and I didnt have a single fish casulty, in fact I wish I would of done this long ago when I first realized how misinformed the LFS guys can be...
I have been browsing this board for a number of months soaking in others knowledge and I finally have a tid bit of my own to share...
Yesterday afternoon I made the big plunge and decided to get rid of my crushed coral substrate in my 29 gallon and replace it with 40 lbs of live sand. I was a bit worried about this undertaking.. losing fish to stress, making a huge mess, etc. I just wanted to let people know how it went for me, who is still very new to this hobby:
The whole ordeal took about 3 hours with preparations, the actual ordeal and then cleanup, & making enough saltwater to replace what I lost. First I got a 5 gallon bucket and a box. I put my fish along with my few frags of coral in the bucket with tank water and then wrapped my live rock with paper towels and put them in the box.
Then I was basically left with a tank of water and some crushed coral on the way to the trash. Basically I scooped up everything i could into a waste container trying not to stir up everything. Well, everything got pretty cloudy and looked like a total disaster. I realized my powerhead was still plugged in which wasnt helping so I unplugged it and got the rest of the CC out without too much trouble. I cut open the bags of live sand and set them in the tank with water. By cutting open the bags when they were submerged I found that the sand settled out rather quickly.. I'd say within an hour. Then I basically just dropped everything else back in and cleaned everything up.
Overall I'd say this project was a lot easier then I expected it to be, my corals opened up fully within an hour or so and I didnt have a single fish casulty, in fact I wish I would of done this long ago when I first realized how misinformed the LFS guys can be...
