Thinking about crossing over to the **** community!

[J_Gard88]

So, I currently am running a Waterbox 105.4 Frag tank with crushed coral as the substrate for the past (almost 2 years) And I have a plan to temporally transfer my inhabitants to another tank while I clean out all substrate in main display and go bare bottom. My question is, has anyone else done this and will / can this completely throw my system into chaos?!?

 

[J_Gard88]

They blocked the word "Newd" (spelt the correct way) Btw, just so nobody takes my title the wrong way. LOL just a pun...

 

[blaxsun]

They blocked the word "Newd" (spelt the correct way) Btw, just so nobody takes my title the wrong way. LOL just a pun...

Guess you should've tried "nudi".

 

[Gtinnel]

They blocked the word "Newd" (spelt the correct way) Btw, just so nobody takes my title the wrong way. LOL just a pun...

The weird part is that it isn’t blocked on the title in the list of threads.
Sorry I have no idea about your question though.

 

[NowGlazeIT]

Hilarious. To answer your question I’ve seen many post about people advising others not to go bare bottom if you’ve already established a system with sand. It’s better to start out bare bottom to avoid the swings that follow.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

So, I currently am running a Waterbox 105.4 Frag tank with crushed coral as the substrate for the past (almost 2 years) And I have a plan to temporally transfer my inhabitants to another tank while I clean out all substrate in main display and go bare bottom. My question is, has anyone else done this and will / can this completely throw my system into chaos?!?

I think if you just leave everything in the tank but remove a small section of substrate during each water change, you should be ok. This wouldn't release any more "gunk" than stirring up a small section of your sand each water change, which a lot of folks do on a regular basis.
Once you've gotten the majority of the substrate out, then maybe you'd need to move your livestock and clean out the rest.
That's how I'd do it anyway...

 

[Reef Rhino]

I think if you just leave everything in the tank but remove a small section of substrate during each water change, you should be ok. This wouldn't release any more "gunk" than stirring up a small section of your sand each water change, which a lot of folks do on a regular basis.
Once you've gotten the majority of the substrate out, then maybe you'd need to move your livestock and clean out the rest.
That's how I'd do it anyway...

Agreed. That is what I am doing each week to slowly remove sand bed from a 75g that will then all be moved to a 90g bare bottom FOWLRandC. (andC = FOWLR, but added then added a ton of soft corals)

 

[chipchipbro]

I would do it slooooowly.. Yeah, with each waterchange remove a bit of sand.
But would not remove all the sand in one session - no way.

If you do it, do it real slow.

 

[Dburr1014]

So, I currently am running a Waterbox 105.4 Frag tank with crushed coral as the substrate for the past (almost 2 years) And I have a plan to temporally transfer my inhabitants to another tank while I clean out all substrate in main display and go bare bottom. My question is, has anyone else done this and will / can this completely throw my system into chaos?!?

After reading all the replies, the one caveat to this is if you have been stirring the sand currently, you can definitely be more aggressive taking the sand out. Even still, slowly for me, would be six water changes it would be done.

 

[Powderblue85]

I’d be interested to see how your water tests each time you remove bits of sand with each water change. I’ve thought about going bare bottom as well but have about 50 pounds of sand in the tank currently.

 

[gbru316]

has anyone else done this and will / can this completely throw my system into chaos?!?

I've found barebottom tanks to be entirely different than tanks with substrate. The sand adds quite a bit of stability to a tank.

Removing it can absolutely throw your system into chaos. Will it? Hard to say. Things will definitely change -- whether they change enough to be considered "chaos" is impossible to answer. If you're set on removing sand, you can reduce the odds of chaos by adding ceramic media to make up for the loss of bacteria colonization sites.