Substrate - Need Help~

[lutz493]

Set my tank up in early Oct of last year - Being new, my sales guy talked me into buying a crushed coral substrate.
After reading this board for the past couple of months I have come to the conclusion that I should have just done Live Sand.
I decided this past weekend to add a couple of Anemones for my clowns. Before the purchase of my Anemones my tank consisted of lots of LR and my fish.
My LFS told me that I would need to have sand if I wanted the Anemones so they can attach. With that being said I purchases 20lbs of Live Sand which now sits ontop of my Crushed Coral.
My LFS said doing this would not be a problem.
I'm concerned that the sand could be trapping some bad things in the CC.. Is this possible?
Right now the sand sits about 1 inch ontop of the CC you can actually see where it seperates.
The look is bad and I want to fix it.
Can I mix the CC and Sand I have in there now making a sand/CC substrate and then add another 10-20lbs of LS ontop of that?
Am I best to remove my LR and fish, completely remove the substrate in there now and add all LS? If I do remove all the LR/Fish and my 2 Anemones when I replace them back into the tank is it possible for me to run into problems of water quality?
My water quality is good atm and was concerned that removing and replacing can screw things up....
Thanks for the help on this issue.

 

[wrassecal]

As you've found cc and sand don't mix well. cc will trap detritus and the sand won't be able to perform it's function. I would change it all out if I were you....been there myself....big job but worth it. Whey did lfs say you needed sand for you anenomes? What kind are they? If they are carpet then they are known for digging their foot into sand. They are also known for eating fish.

 

[lutz493]

Thanks for advice.
To be honest I forgot exactly what the names were. They are both long tentacle. One is Green tipped with a pink foot. The other is entirely purple with a cream foot.
Ok here is my question then......
I have ruffly 75lbs of LR in there right now. I would just take it out stick it in a rubbermaid bin put the fish in some buckets. Do I want to save any of my water? Does it matter? I do not have another tank to move stuff to so I would need to basically drain the water, take out the rock.
Put the Live Sand into the tank, reset the LR, fill it back up - Put the fish and Anemones back in..... Will this be ok?
I have a 10 Gallon I use for water changes I would just throw the pump/heater on and stick the Anemones and fish in there.
Do I need to worry about anything or do anything special to ensure the life of my stock?

 

[worm]

I would save most of the water, but would also have new water waiting ...just in case.
I would remove all the sand and if somehow you could sift the LS out of the CC, that would save you some $$.
Once your tank is empty, I would place the heaviest/largest pieces of LR on the tank bottom, add your LS, then the smaller pieces of LR. Reason being is that if you have gobies that work the subtrate, they will actually build caves in you LS against your LR, and if they should get deep, it's possible they rock the LR against the glass. I'm sure you know where I'm going.
OH, for the sake of saying, make sure you have a heater in the containers that are holding fish/inverts....
It is going to be time consuming and some elbow grease will be needed, but hey, you learned something here, and you could help others in the future.
Isn't this a great hobby!!??!!
Good luck and keep us posted