how to remove grave for LS

[rdanford]

I currently have in a 1.5 inch gravel base. I bought it at pet city, it's just a real basic large gravel, now since i've learned more I want to have a live sand base of 3 inches. What do I do with the current gravel, and is it possible to put in the live sand without recycling the tank. Thanks for any advice. Royce

 

[newreefers]

When I went from cc to ls, I put all my rock in a cooler, bought a new dust pan, cleaned it well and kinda shoveled it out into 5 gal buckets, and added the live sand. My tank didn't go through a cycle. I didn't know what to do with the cc so I threw it away.

 

[jagermeister]

I recently switched from cc to a sand base and received some excellent advice from these boards. Your current substrate probably has all kinds of benificial bacteria in it. You want to try to keep this bacteria. In order to do that you can get some pantyhose, cut it up, and stuff it with the old substrate making a bunch of balls, about the size of a softball or so. Add all these balls to your aquarium after you've added your sand. This will seed your new sand bed. Then slowly remove a ball now and then until they're all gone. I did this over a period of a month. Tank didn't cycle again or anything!

 

[rdanford]

thanks for the advise....i'm going to start this afternoon.