Bad Sand

[mikesilverado8888]

So I hate the way my Sand looks I thought it was going to be real fine but it actually is super chunky call the company and it's just a bad batch. My question is has anyone ever change out their live sand?

 

[TheEngineer]

You sure can. How old is the sand bed? Anything in the tank?

 

[mikesilverado8888]

Oh it's probably about a year old and yes

 

[TheEngineer]

And you just noticed it isn't the grain size you want? Where've you been!?

You need to remove small amounts at a time until you get it all. Then start to add the new sand the same way.

 

[mikesilverado8888]

And you just noticed it isn't the grain size you want? Where've you been!?

You need to remove small amounts at a time until you get it all. Then start to add the new sand the same way.

I noticed it right a way but did do anything about it. I was think the same thing little bit at a time. Thanks

 

[mikesilverado8888]

Now has anyone done this?

 

[hatrix11]

I had the same thing happen to me. The thing is the big chunks rise to the top as time goes on, also the big chunks get brown or get algae on them so it takes a while before you realize this isn't the sand bed you hoped for. I plan on upgrading my tank in less than a year so I'm just going to deal with mine. Let us know what you end up doing though!

 

[saltyphish]

In the process right now. Take your time and remove small portions at a time. I do it during my water changes. I have been removing my sand from my 29 Biocube over 2 mths. Almost done. I will probably just use a funnel and hose to add new sand. I am thinking if going with black sand this time.

 

[brandon429]

I'd even pose a specific biological benefit to doing it all at once vs slowly, although slowly is completely ok and more common and it's fun to state seemingly controversial things in order to make a bio point


Cycling and mini cycling is the heart of the issue here, not the sandbed. It actually looks nice, your tank is 100% nice

Kimba, a poster in the nano reef forum right now, has such a tank. it would be easy to swap your tank to bare bottom or sand due to smaller tank and low fish bioload.

 

[brandon429]

Here's a sand swap for a larger tank coming up scroll bottom of this linked page

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/n...ive-rock-no-shrimp.214618/page-2#post-2635034

If his xfer works, yours is good to go. yours would be:

Take out all rocks corals and fish and hold in bucket etc

Drain out all the water and discard from current tank

Old water used again isn't required for safety, match temp and salinity in the new water if you want to use clean water. I'd use all new water...some waste will be put into suspension by removing the current rocks. If you want to use old to save time or money that's fine, separating your corals and fish away from the current sandbed before you disturb it is key.

rinse new sand madly before inputting, even if it's wet pack sand, as covered in my link above. fill up new tank with water and circulate it a few hours with the cloudless perfect new sand chosen. Put everything back into new tank water that was temp and salinity matched to the old, it's now sitting on perfectly clean sand you wanted.

Your current sandbed factored with the current pictured bioload is 100% redundant unneeded bacteria (and detritus) so it doesn't matter if your new sand is dry or wet or none (bare bottom)

 

[jujuman16]

What if you run a scooper through it? Like the ones they sell for reptiles for like $5-$10. You don't have to do all the sand at once, maybe a scoop or two a day do you don't cloud up the tank or stir it up too much. Might be easier than the trouble of removing all the sand. It looks to me like fine sand with big chunks scattered around. Unless you are not happy with all of it...

If you do replace it all, i would sift it so you don't end up with the same issue.