I am swithcing CC to LS

dicemanj

dicemanj

Member
A couple of questions on switching CC to LS.
I have read about southdown sand, how do I know it is southdown sand, does it say it on the bag.
My 55 gal has about 40 lbs of LR, 1 shrimp, 1 shroom, and 1 anenome, and 1 blue damsel. Is it best to put all this in a couple of buckets with tank water while I switch out the coral to sand.
Does the southdown sand need cleaned first, how do you do this.
Is one 20lb bag of live sand enough for a 55 gal.
Will this start another cycle, I will put the water from the buckets back in.
I am doing this today, any and all help is appreciated.
Jason
 
lestregus

lestregus

Member
IMO, if you have another tank you should move the anemone, shrimp, and the shroom to another tank (i dont like damsels LOL) because your water wil be cloudy for several days and that is not good for inhabitants. esp. the anemone. i shouldnt cycle again but the #s may rise for a few days because of all the junk that is going to get stirred up when you take the CC out. HTH
 
salty rob

salty rob

Member
I did this yesyerday. I used a 50 lb bag of southdown from home depot. I puled my fish out & put is temp tank with heater & bubbler. I removed about half the water and all LR, then poured the sand atop the CC. This gave about 2-1/2" of sand. It tool about 2 hrs for the tank to clear up. I ran a filter to speed it up, cleanout of the filter twice during the process. The water looked horrible for the first hour. A couple beers later it started to come around.
I put the LR back & brought it up to temp & checked all chemistry. I put the fish back late last night. All were well this morning and the tank never looked better.
I am adding some LS once the fed-ex guy delivers this afternoon.
Had lots of input from people on this board. It was very educational. This is my first opportunity to actually offer input.
Lots of luck.
 
salty rob

salty rob

Member
The home depot sand was incredibly clean, with regard to non-sand debris. I pilled out a small splinter of wood from a 50 lb bag.
 
T

thomas712

Guest

Originally posted by Salty Rob
I did this yesyerday. I removed about half the water and all LR, then poured the sand atop the CC.
Ouch. Here is what I envision happening down the road to you.
The CC will rise above the sand. This of course will need to be vaccumed again due to its excellent ability to trap detrius and uneaten food, this of course leads to nitrates.
Meanwhile your sandbed will start to develope those anerobic areas over time.
If you accidently break into the sand bed and those anerobic areas you could cause enough problems to kill much of your tank.
Mixing the sand and crushed coral does not give you the best of both worlds, in fact it defeats the purpose.
Thats my opinion, and good luck to you.
Thomas
 
T

thomas712

Guest

Originally posted by dicemanj
Thanks for the responces so far.
What about cleaning the sand?
With enough water circulation and good skimming you will not likely have to clean your sand bed. There are times that you may get cyno on the sand bed, but that can be sucked up or even gathered carefully and scooped up.
Thomas
 
dicemanj

dicemanj

Member
By cleaning the sand, I was thinking before I put it in the tank?
Also is there another type of sand that can be used besides southdown. My building stores do not carry it. Is there a certain type of sand I could look for. I would rather not buy all the sand from the LFS, very expensive.
 
silentshaw

silentshaw

Member
i will be switching from cc to sand today. i was able to find aragonite sand at th LFS for 1$ a pound. it was carib sea aragonite sand, not sure if anyone has used this type but i figure it will be better then the cc.
 
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