Simplicity help

ackermsb

ackermsb

Member
Current: 180G FO tank running for years w/ 7 fish
If I decide to keep the crushed coral for the bottom of my tank and upgrade the lights, and put LR in the tank, can I still vaccum clean the tank or will I cause too much of a disturbance. I am really trying to be economical about the situation and am not looking to keep really elegant corals or clams
 
sea goblin

sea goblin

Member
yea...you can probably get away with leaving the crushed coral in there. And vaccuming it will be a necesity inorder to keep the trates down. Corals and Inverst do not like very high trates at all. So as long as you can keep the CC clean you should be good to go. If you do decide to change though there are several kinds of play sand the people on this board have used, the best being south down, but quick crete will work well too. These run at under $5 for a 50 lbs bag usually. Just something to think about.
Sea Goblin
 
ackermsb

ackermsb

Member
If I want to this type of sand would I have to still vaccum it or would I need the cleaning crews. this would be a little more difficult since I plan on getting some eels.
Also, can I switch the sand with the fish in the tank if I am "careful"
 
sea goblin

sea goblin

Member
If you do decide to go with sand then you will want to get enuf sand to creat a 4 inch deep sand bed. This will allow you to not have to vaccum it. You can change the sand with the fish in the tank, just do it parts and try to use a cup or some other method to get the sand to the bottom of the tank without it clouding all over the tank. Doing it in parts will help allow the tank adjust to the new sand being placed in and give the bacteria time to colonize the new sand and keep up with the bio load of the tank. As far as a clean up crew with eals most everything will be eaten by an eal, so i dont know what to do about that. Try asking in the agresive forum and maybe they can suggest something.
Sea Goblin
 
sea goblin

sea goblin

Member
ummm. If you can do it in like thirds or a quarter maybe. Take out a quarter of the crushed coral, all on one side, then fill in the area with the sand. let it sit for a week or 2, then take out the next quarter, and add in the sand to that part. The thing is that you will probably end up with some of the crushed coral left in there, but you will get out like 98% of it. This is the method i used. Some one else might have a better answer on how to do this. Maybe you could do a search on the board for "changing out crushed coral" or "switching to sand", some thing like that, and see if anyone else has done this and posted about it.
Sea Goblin
 
sea goblin

sea goblin

Member
The problem in doing that is that the crushed coral that you have in there right now is what the bacteria in your tank used to colonize on. So by removing it all and then adding the sand would remove so much of the bacteria that the tank would cycle again. So by doing it in the parts gives the new sand to colonize with bacteria and take the place of the crushed coral's job
Sea goblin
 
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