Teardown weekend

[rev]

Ok,so I am going to change the CC this weekend to LS.I know what I need to do,but I have only a couple of questions.Will my tank start a new cycle?How bad will this be for my fish (FOWLR tank).And finally any preferences on sand?I was going to use the CaribSea fine sand.And last but not least,will my pH suffer from going to CC to sand?

 

[rev]

*bump*

 

[murph]

I just made this change a few weeks ago.
The best advice I can give you is to have enough containers to hold all of your tanks water, inhabitants and LR and also have at least 50 percent of your tanks water volume ready with change water.
I didn't do it exactly like this but if I had it to do over here would be the procedure.
Drain at least 90 percent of your tanks water out into at least a couple different containers and place the live rock in one and inhabitants in another with maybe a few pieces of LR to keep them a bit more at ease. Remove cc to another container and add your sand. Place a dinner plate on top of the sand once in the tank. Take the water from the container with your LR and add it back to the tank pouring it over the dinner plate to avoid sand storm and add back your LR
Fill the rest of your tank with your change water and start up your filtration. If you have established filter media in it this will go a long way in avoiding any kind of spiking. Take a few cups of your old CC and add them in to the top layer of your sand bed to get some bacteria started in there also but this may not be necessary if you are using all LS.
If you start the project in the morning by evening your tank should be clear enough to add back your fish and inverts.
After that monitor very closely for at least a week. Keep a bottle of amquel plus on hand and if you see any kind of rise in ammonia or nitrites you may want to consider removing any kind of carbon filtration and dosing with it per instructions to neutralize any ammonia and nitrites.
Also after 24 hours rinse out your mechanical filtrations filter media in RO/DI water as some sediment will build up in it from filtering out the sediment that was created in your water column from making the substrate change.
Other than that its really not that difficult procedure. Good luck and make sure those power heads are good and secured good, if they should fall you have a new mini sand storm on your hands.
Another option is to establish a fuge first and then your tanks occupants can be housed here while you work on the main tank and is a great excuse to put it all off for another month or so :hilarious

 

[rev]

Ok,got a 40 lb bag of fine aragonite,and a 20lb bag of agra-live.Once again the LFS had the huge 160 gallon bucket of IO for $34 so I bought another one.(won't need it for awhile).Also ordered my RO/DI unit today too.
It's been raining here in Connecticut for a week,and all I have been doing is aquarium stuff (playing with the kids and new puppy too).

 

[murph]

You bought a 160 gallon bucket of water? That must be one big bucket. I can only assume you own your own forklift

Just kidding with ya rev.