need advice on changing out crushed coral for sand

[darkslayer414]

so here's the deal...i have a 90g reef that's been up for almost a year now. i have 200pds LR and 3inch deep crushed coral. i would like to take out the cc and put in sand.
my question is if i do this....will the tank have to cycle again because of all of the new sand? and will any of my fish/corals die?

 

[fau8]

It depends what filtration do you have and are you using a sump?
If you have at least 1 pound of live rock per gallon you should be fine, however you will spike your nitrates when you disturb the cc. If you have a deep bed you will also lose your anerobic bateria but this should be off set by the live rock.
Adding the sand is no problem, but I would use packaged live sand because it will not cloud your water.
I don't think I would attempt this if your current setup doesn't have a decent sized sump.

 

[canareef]

I've read a few threads about this subject recently and everyone has had pretty good success with the change. The common practice is to do a small percentage at a time say 25% every other week this allows for benificial bacteria to seed the dead sand. You may see a small spike from disturbing the CC but shouldn't be too bad if you only do 25% at a time and follow with a couple water changes and just watch your levels. A couple good ways to add the sand with out causing a dust storm is to rinse the sand and then put into ziplock bags submerge the bags and then slowly tip the bag over and dump out the sand. Another good idea I've read about is too use a pvc pipe which would help keep the dust down.

 

[lil.guppy]

If you do small amounts every couple of days you should be fine. I would siphone all the sand in a 4'' by 4'' area into a bucket. I then used a plastic sifter and sifted through the sand from the bucket. I put the crushed coral into another container. Once I figured it was gone, I would scoop the sand up and put it back into the tank. This way that sand never reached air. Make sure you filtration is really really good becuase your tank will get cloudy for a few days.
Now when I did too much at once it started a bad ammonia cycle.
Like I said, little bits at a time wont hurt.

 

[darkslayer414]

well i have a 55gallon refugium...240g rater skimmer, cheato, and my copod breeding ground...
as for doing 25% at a time...my rocks are all stacked on top of each other. so for me to take cc out each day and add sand would be hard because i would have to take out basically all of the rock. so my only option is to do it all at once.

 

[veni vidi vici]

Take everything out LR ,live stock...... And change it out.Have some fresh salt water on hand to do a water change.Put LR and sand back in then fish after you test and the dust settles.You can keep your LR and Livestock in storage bins with a heater and some flow for a few days if needed.

 

[fau8]

With a 55 gallon refugium I would go for it. I do not think you will encounter any issues, your sump should easy be able to adjust to the change. I would as mentioned be prepared to do a 20 % water change should your water spike.

 

[canareef]

Originally Posted by Veni Vidi Vici
http:///forum/post/3003939
Take everything out LR ,live stock...... And change it out.Have some fresh salt water on hand to do a water change.Put LR and sand back in then fish after you test and the dust settles.You can keep your LR and Livestock in storage bins with a heater and some flow for a few days if needed.
+1

Better safe than sorry.