Water Changes

[drock77]

I have recently after a year of suffering swapped my substrate from CC to LS and i couldnt be happier. I have a 58 oceanic and when i used to do water changes i would vacume my CC. Now with the LS how do you recomend me doing water changes? Also, my nitrates are still present any suggestions.

 

[bang guy]

How Live is the sand and how deep is the sand bed?

 

[drock77]

the sand is about an 1 1/2 in deep and when i changed the substrate i put the cc i panty hose in my sump. i have been taking out one bag at a time every week.

 

[bang guy]

The bed isn't seep enough to remove Nitrate IMO and if you've never added real live sand to the bed then you're not going to have the proper critters to maintain the sand bed for you. Until you get a good supply of worms & other sand bed infauna you're going to have to vacuum out the detritus manually.

 

[drock77]

I bought live sand, how deep should it be?

 

[bang guy]

For very fine sand, sugar sized, denitrification starts to happen at about 2.5", deeper for more coarse sand. That's probably good for a very light bio-load, 3"-4" for a normal bioload.
The diversity of sand bed infauna is critical to proper functioning so recharging it once in a while is a good idea. Buying some or just swapping with fellow hobbiests will usually be all that's needed.

 

[reefnut]

In addition to the infauna critters, snails such as nassarius, cerith and maybe ONE conch would also be good additions IMO... but not until your sand bed matures a bit.