Change To Sand-Sand-3reef Forums

jeremy79 · 05-09-2007, 12:51 PM

Ok, so I want to change my substrate to sand. Here are a few questions that bother me though:
1. If I do this, I was going to keep most of my water and move all my stuff and livestock to a seperate tank, then remove my crushed coral, then add sand, then return my water back into the tank, then the livestock. Will that be ok?
2. Will I need to buy live sand or can I buy normal sand or would live be better?
3. Should I just put new water in the tank and dispose of the old.
4. Or should I just forget the whole idea and only pretend I already have sand in there? lol
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks alot

glampka · 05-09-2007, 01:05 PM

You should get rid of the cc. Use live sand but put your rock in first. That way if you ever get a burrowing fish your aquascape won't come tumbling down. Be careful when adding the water to keep the cloudiness down. No problem using the old water. You might want to take the time to do a water change while you're at it.

jeremy79 · 05-09-2007, 01:19 PM

Hey everybody, I noticed a lot of topics like this one so you can disregard mine! Thanks for the response though! I am on my way to get some sand. Wish me luck that I dont kill everything!

coral reefer · 05-09-2007, 01:45 PM

What kind of sand are you thinking of getting? Aragonite sand, marine white plain or something like playground sand? IMO, you are going to want something like oolitic or another small sized grain aragonite based substrate due to its buffering capability and other important features!

jeremy79 · 05-09-2007, 03:36 PM

i got aragonite. just got done changing water, mixing salt, and put my rocks and sand in...waiting on it to clear so I can arrange the rock
hope my livestock will be alright for a few hours... but from what I can see so far the sand looks great! much much better than the crushed coral

djnzlab1 · 05-09-2007, 05:55 PM

HI,
I would let that new system settle a bit before adding additional animals, it has to recycle that new sand , MAy be a couple pounds of live sand from another healthy tank, most sand in stores sold by the bag isn't as viable as live sand in a cycled tank.
Doug
It may take a month or so for that new system to cycle.

nemo79 · 05-09-2007, 06:31 PM

Well I have crushed coral and I like the look. My 20g sand constantly gets disturbed by the flow but my crushed coral stays put. The problem with crushed coral is that it got a bad rep because most people don't clean theirs.