Mini restart for my tank?

[laezur]

Things are not going so hot at the moment.

I’m looking to get rid of the sand I currently have, it’s a super thin layer of probably less than 1 inch in some places, and is made up of mostly crushed coral. It’s ugly. I’m looking at buying a couple inches of nice sand today, would I be able to just scoop this old crap out and place a nice new layer without causing too many problems?

Second question: I will also be looking to start again on my rock work. I was thinking of buying new rock (not live rock) and redoing some of the scape.

I was going to keep one or two pieces of old rock in the tank to seed, and put the rest in the sump to act as biological filtration. How much of an issue will this all cause me? Will I cycle too hard and kill everything, or will it be fine

 

[Bucs20fan]

Do you currently have fish in the tank? If so, there is likely debris and nutrients stuck in the sand that will be put into the water column. If this is what you want to do, my advice would be remove the fish into a different tank for the time being, and then re do everything you want. Keep the rock that you already have wet in a bucket while you change the sand. Once you are finished, undoubtedly add a bacterial supplement to jump start things, no matter how you do it you wont avoid another cycle so however you decide to go about it youll have to watch ammonia very closely.

 

[laezur]

Do you currently have fish in the tank? If so, there is likely debris and nutrients stuck in the sand that will be put into the water column. If this is what you want to do, my advice would be remove the fish into a different tank for the time being, and then re do everything you want. Keep the rock that you already have wet in a bucket while you change the sand. Once you are finished, undoubtedly add a bacterial supplement to jump start things, no matter how you do it you wont avoid another cycle so however you decide to go about it youll have to watch ammonia very closely.

Yes there are some fish in the tank, I can move those temporarily that’s fine. Thank you I’ll watch everything closely.

 

[laezur]

Do you currently have fish in the tank? If so, there is likely debris and nutrients stuck in the sand that will be put into the water column. If this is what you want to do, my advice would be remove the fish into a different tank for the time being, and then re do everything you want. Keep the rock that you already have wet in a bucket while you change the sand. Once you are finished, undoubtedly add a bacterial supplement to jump start things, no matter how you do it you wont avoid another cycle so however you decide to go about it youll have to watch ammonia very closely.

Just to follow up, I have a bottle of prime I use for my freshwater tank, would that one be okay to use for this?

 

[Bucs20fan]

Prime is great for saltwater as well, Prime should be used in an emergency generally in a display tank. It is commonly used to help reduce water changes in quarantine but most of us have used it at some point or another to combat an ammonia spike if we could not do a water change. Best advise is to reduce the stress on your fish as much as possible.

 

[Obsessed with fish]

Replacing the rock is throwing away good bacteria, if you take out your rock your tank won't be as cycled anymore, meaning an ammonia spike is possible. Be careful.

 

[Bucs20fan]

+1 ^ Just be cautious and attentive to the tank, and remember more fish in our hobby die to ammonia than any other singular cause. Wish you the best of luck, keep us posted!

 

[laezur]

Replacing the rock is throwing away good bacteria, if you take out your rock your tank won't be as cycled anymore, meaning an ammonia spike is possible. Be careful.

I’ll be putting it in the sump, so shouldn’t be too bad?

 

[laezur]

+1 ^ Just be cautious and attentive to the tank, and remember more fish in our hobby die to ammonia than any other singular cause. Wish you the best of luck, keep us posted!

Will do! I’ll do everything as carefully as possible, I love these little guys but I can’t stand the state the tank is in at the moment it needs fixing. My fault for not having it how I wanted it when I got it setup

 

[Bucs20fan]

Good luck! I hope all goes well and according to plan! We expect updates!

 

[Obsessed with fish]

I’ll be putting it in the sump, so shouldn’t be too bad?

If your putting it in the sump your safe, good luck and I hope all goes well.