Changing to a new substrate
- Thread starter mraysberg
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Following....about to do the same!
I’m about to move and was going to take everything out of my tank, clean it, put some of the old sand back in then spread the new stuff on top. Was hoping this would help seed the new substrate. I’m going from fine grain sand to tropic eden Reeflakes. Tired of it blowing around all the time!
I’m about to move and was going to take everything out of my tank, clean it, put some of the old sand back in then spread the new stuff on top. Was hoping this would help seed the new substrate. I’m going from fine grain sand to tropic eden Reeflakes. Tired of it blowing around all the time!
Auquanut
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How big is your tank? How long has it been running? Do you have a lot of rockwork? I've never done it myself, but I've read where people will remove the old substrate slowly to reduce the impact on the ecosystem before replacing it with the new. The longer the substrate has been in the tank, the higher the impact. I'm sure you will get better advice soon.
Mattman1977
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This is a loaded question. How to remove the sand is simple and all that’s needed is a siphon hose and ball like you pick up from petsmart. Pull a siphon with the ball and yank it off where all you have is the hose and suck away. Larger hose works better of course.
Now like what was mentioned earlier how old the sand bed is will say how fast you remove it. Depending on age you might consider taking it slow and even going bare bottom or light dusting for awhile if the rocks were covered in sand to allow the trapped N or P to be released and of course you will want to do weekly 10-20% water changes to keep everything going smooth.
Just my $0.02
Happy reefing
Matt
Now like what was mentioned earlier how old the sand bed is will say how fast you remove it. Depending on age you might consider taking it slow and even going bare bottom or light dusting for awhile if the rocks were covered in sand to allow the trapped N or P to be released and of course you will want to do weekly 10-20% water changes to keep everything going smooth.
Just my $0.02
Happy reefing
Matt
here is a 100% way it will work for all tanks, 23 pages of doing that switch job:
the ironic/hard to believe part is the tap water rinse of your brand new sand (the new Fiji pink is tap rinsed for 30 mins/however long it takes/ to cloudless perfection before you install it, rinse any sand you buy with tap unless its live sand from TBS with real animals in it. no other live sand you buy has real animals, it has bacteria that stick to sand grains even after light tap rinse, you don't install cloudy sand as it only hurts and never helps)
read here
www.reef2reef.com
do the job all at once if you want the safest mode.
the ironic/hard to believe part is the tap water rinse of your brand new sand (the new Fiji pink is tap rinsed for 30 mins/however long it takes/ to cloudless perfection before you install it, rinse any sand you buy with tap unless its live sand from TBS with real animals in it. no other live sand you buy has real animals, it has bacteria that stick to sand grains even after light tap rinse, you don't install cloudy sand as it only hurts and never helps)
read here
Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread
If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...
www.reef2reef.com
do the job all at once if you want the safest mode.
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