10 g nano, 9 months old. Switching substrate...?

Jmdumbeck · May 16, 2012

Hey folks! I previously had a 26g bow front with sand, and moved within the last year. Started up just a basic 10g with Carib Sea Aragonite 'Seaflor special grade reef sand' with grains anywhere from 1.0 - 2.0 mm in size. It's much bigger than what I'm used to, and I honestly hate the stuff. I miss sand! Is there any sort of safe, non-destructive, and semi-neat way to siphon out all of the substrate and replace it with sand, without tearing the entire tank apart? I was thinking about siphon out the gravel, and slowly lower cups of the sand into the tank once it's been rinsed thoroughly. Any better ideas? I don't want to crash anything by taking away that much lovely bacteria, but not sure what else to do. Heres a pic of the tank too.

Saltgator · May 16, 2012

Nice DT. IMO, I would siphon out the substrate you have now as you stated. Maybe leaving a thin layer on the bottom to help seed the new sand, but doing this may cause the larger pieces to find their way to the top of your new sand. I'd leave the rock work as it is and allow the new sand to form around it, thus keeping them in place if a crab, snail, or gobie was to burrow. I went from the same "seaflor" that you have to a fine sand and now with tropic eden reef flakes. The sand was nice, but too much of a sand storm and would find it's way onto my corals. GL and maybe someone might have a better approach than I typed.

Jmdumbeck · May 18, 2012

Thanks! Good advice. Yeah I just rearranged the rock a little bit this morning. Hoping to switch it out today at some point. Hoping I don't mess up the water too badly. Any thoughts on the placement of my Koralia? I like to have a nice circular current around the rock formation so it helps keep yuck off the substrate. Not sure if this is the best method..

Saltgator · May 18, 2012

Jennymkemp said:
Thanks! Good advice. Yeah I just rearranged the rock a little bit this morning. Hoping to switch it out today at some point. Hoping I don't mess up the water too badly. Any thoughts on the placement of my Koralia? I like to have a nice circular current around the rock formation so it helps keep yuck off the substrate. Not sure if this is the best method..

Without a wave maker for my corals, I have 2 3200 gph off brand (similar to koralias) pointing at each other causing erratic currents switching every time. IMO, I'd try situate it from a back corner pointing towards the middle upper of the front glass. This might give you a swirl that bounces off the glass and ''hopefully'' around the rocks (I guess I'm terrible at descriptions). If possible, I'd possibly try to pick up another one and point them at each other from each side for plenty of movement. Good luck and I might be wrong (I tend to go against the grain on my reef).

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typicalwhiteazn · May 18, 2012

Imho, get a rubbermaid/container/spare tank. Place live rocks and inhabitants into temporary housing/container. Siphon n save as much of the tank water. Then removed all that sand/gravel. Rinse the tank using tank water to save any bacteria on the tank's surface.

After u empty the tank u have the option of...

.... filling the tank back up with original water, live rocks and inhabitants. Then slowly introducing pre-rinsed live sand

Or

.... putting desired level of pre-rinsed live sand and then the water, rocks and inhabitant

Idea is tediously rinsing live sand so it doesnt cloud up immediately. Just watch your ammonia levels and nitrite. Do regular water changes to avoid crashing

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Jmdumbeck · May 18, 2012

I always worried that I'd be really cramming my 10 g with stuff if I had 2 koralias. Guess not huh? Haha. I will try that sometime, and I like the idea of transferring everything to a small rubbermaid temp tank to swap out stuff. I've never done that before, so hopefully I won't make a complete mess. Maybe I'll take pictures along the way. Thanks everyone!

Jmdumbeck · May 21, 2012

Here are some pictures from the 'process'. Moved all the rocks to one side, siphoned out all the gravel I could, then came the fog-storm. Turned out pretty good I think!

spacetime · May 31, 2012

I've never been able to add sand to any tank without a fog.

I notice I'm a bit late with my two cents.. but for any future persons wanting to change sand beds it may be helpful.

My advice is to take out the sand bed with your weekly water changes. Fill up your water change bucket by siphoning out sand only. Takes about a month or two more depending on how good you are with the siphon tube but slow is the way to go. Ideally, and I have no research to back this up, the tank will compensate for the loss of substrate over the time it takes to get rid of it. I've even read that many people do this periodically to change out their substrate, but adding new to replace the old moving from left to right. I know from experience that after a year that stuff is packed with the worst smelling everything.

Glad it went well!