Live sand from the beach / ocean

[felipe]

I have CC right now and am battling nitrate problems ( constantly hovering around 40).
No amount of water changes seems to them lower.
I want to switch to Live sand, and thought of the following:
1) Remove all LR, and put it all in a big rubber maid container.
2) Remove all CC from the bottom, while keeping fish inside the tank.
3) using a thick clear PVC tube with a funnel at the top, start adding the sand in. This will make the sand go straight to the bottom, hopefully not clouding the water too much so I won't need to remore the fish and other hard to catch animls from the tank. I will take my time adding the sand to avoid cloudiness and not to stress out the livestock in the tank.
4) Put rock back in.
Does this sound like it would work? Anyone ever done this before?
And by using sand from the ocean, I won't be losing a lot of good bacteria.
Felipe

 

[turningtim]

It would be a lot less stressful for the fish to be removed and place in a temp home (rubbermaid) with powerhead, heater and the LR. If the tank is empty then you should have no problem in catching the fish. The rock should be put back first on the bottom with the sand funneled around it.
If you use beach sand it may be contaminated! I would not use beach sand! If you have an ample LR then this will seed the sand.
JMO
Tim

 

[felipe]

I just think the process of being caught ( twice) would really stress out the fish.
Also, if I use ocean sand ( not just beach sand) do I still run a risk of it being contaminated?
Thanks,
Felipe

 

[turningtim]

Originally Posted by Felipe
I just think the process of being caught ( twice) would really stress out the fish.
Also, if I use ocean sand ( not just beach sand) do I still run a risk of it being contaminated?
Thanks,
Felipe
The sand storm that you WILL create will be way more stressful and possibly harmful to gills and such. On a large change like this you will stir up the nastiness in the old substrate. and no matter how hard you try the sand will get to the water colum. Yes tranfering with the PVC will reduce this but it will still happen. Besides by moving the LR out you are removing the fish's hideing areas.
Personnaly I would not use ANYTHING that I wasn't sure was safe. The use of inexpensive sand or other questionable sand to me is just not worth the risk of killing my animals. I would much rather spend the cash and get what I know is the right/clean stuff. That way you have a good base to start with and will exclude certain things if you have a problem.
JMO
Tim

 

[maryd]

Regardless of how careful you put the sand into the tank, it still makes a sand storm in there. I removed my fish and LR for a day while I changed my CC to sand. I didn't want them to be inhaling all the dust from the sand. I used the pvc pipe too then decided that was a waste of time since it was hard to do (maybe I'm too short) and it still made a cloudy mess. My fish had a nice vacation in rubbermaid containers, one with the LR the the clowns by themselves.
You could still bury some little critters if they're still in the tank and once it's gets cloudy, they will be harder to find.

 

[pfitz44]

I did this begining of the year. Your gonna want to take all the water out as well, because the water quality will go down the tubes when you start scooping up your CC. It took me about 4-5 hrs to do my 55.

 

[spanky13]

I just swichted out part of my cc. Read on another message board that someone had done it. Took out a little cc over about a months time, once I had about a 1/4 of the cc out. Did water for a vaccuming and water change, cleaned the bare bottom really good, did partial water change. Then I used a 1 1/2 piece of pvc pipe just a little longer than my tank, slowly and I mean very slowly by the little paper cup I put in the sand. Did not cause a sand storm and all the fish seemed happy no sand on live rock or nothing. Going to take out a little more cc and countinue to put in the sand as I do my water changes.