I want to replace my sand

[onthecourt4life@aol.com]

How is the best way to replace sand. i have 2 true percs and a few inverts and i dont have another tank to put them in.

[djnzlab1]

HI,
I believe many people use a bare bottom tank as a quarenteen/hospital tank maybe set up one in another room allow the water to activate, use some filters that are running on the live system and maybe your live rock and then break down the primary tank, you will need to watch for spike in a bare bottom tank no buffer for nitrates and ammonia so don't feed much.
I would cycle your new sand with some live sand from LPS tanks or a freinds tank this will speed the process.
good luck, its gonna be touch and go for the bare bottom tank unless you have a lot of live rock.
DOug

[onthecourt4life@aol.com]

sry maybe my question wasent that clear or maybe im just not understanding what your saying. all i want to do is change my black sand out with white sand in my tank

[coral reefer]

Do you have live rock?
Are you going to replace the black sand with LIVE, new aragonite?
The Percula's should fair much better than the inverts, IMO
What kind of inverts?
Can you bring your livestock back to the local pet shop for a temperary holding til your tank is established once again?

[onthecourt4life@aol.com]

yes i have live rock. no i was just going to seed some of the new sand with some of my old sand on the bottom. I only have a pistol and a peperment shrimp oh and some hermits and turbos. i dont think i can take my livstock back becuase any pet store close to me will not do this

[Tangster]

Remove 1/2 of the old sand and replace with new sand then allow about 4 weeks to stabilize and then replace the other half of the old sand with the new. Don't wash or rinse the new sand add it right out of the bag dust and all . That is if you use a good grade of marine sand something CaribSea Seaflor line then you want dust and all

[msbdiving]

I went through something similar awhile back. Instead of a different color sand, I was replacing crushed coral substrate. I saved about half the water and basically did a 50% water change. I also had plenty of live rock (at least 60lbs in a 40g). I placed about 30lbs of dead 0# white along with 20lbs of aragonite (live). I also placed some of the nitrifying bacteria (sorry can't remember the name) to help offset whatever spike was coming my way. My bioload consisted of: two 6" xenias (have since branched out need to frag again), Green Star Polyps, Mushrooms, 1 BTA, 3 nassarius, 3 turbos, 1 cleaner shrimp, 1 Yellow Eye Tang, 1 yellow tail damsel, and 1 maroon clown. I kept an eye on everything and nothing seemed stressed and didn't have any casualties. I know things are not the same for everyone in this hobby but wanted to let you know it can be done.