Wrong Sand Substrate - What's the easiest way to fix this?

[WallysWorld]

Just set up a Red Sea Reefer 170 a week ago and I'm already regretting my sand selection. I've got Bahamas Oolite. Its too fine, and the flow in the tank is blowing it all around. I don't even have my powerhead turned on yet!

What's the easiest way of swapping this out for something a little bigger so that I'm not moving drifts around every day?

 

[dbl]

If you don't have any livetock in the tank, you could just do a water change with a wet/dry vacuum and remove the sand. Then just put your new sand in. Yes, you'll essentially be restarting your cycle but problem solved. M

 

[lejeune981]

I had to do something similar last year.. I moved my system to a new tank.. and tried using a special sand blasting sand.. it was tiny glass beads.. the prettiest white cokir.. and looked amazing in tank... well.. it acted like quick sand for any snail or hermit that ended up on it..
I didn't have any fish at the time.. just inverts and a few corals


I ended up pulling all my live rock (150 lbs)
Tried to siphon the beads.. it didn't work.. so I made a little scoop..and a 5 gallon bucket.. and ended up scooping it all out by hand.. then put new live sand in.. and rock.. then corals and inverts once the water cleared..

Only loss was my gsp that was stuck to the glass of the tank...

 

[billwill]

I’ve put courser sand over top of finer sand in areas that were getting too much flow. Depends on how deep your sand is though

 

[AlexStinson]

I would just siphon it out. I had the exact same sand and it really wasn't a big issue to siphon it out with some 1" hose.

 

[WallysWorld]

Thanks for feed back. I found a couple of YouTube videos showing people removing their sand. It really amazing what you can find on YouTube! I'm planning on siphoning it out tomorrow.

 

[Bayareareefer18]

Thanks for feed back. I found a couple of YouTube videos showing people removing their sand. It really amazing what you can find on YouTube! I'm planning on siphoning it out tomorrow.

If you remove the siphon tube and just use the hose it works great. If you can't do that just buy some cheap vinyl tubing from home depot

 

[WallysWorld]

Success! Whole process was easier than I initially thought. Used a vinyl tube from Home Depot and a couple of buckets, and siphoned the old sand out in about 15-20 minutes. Had new sand and tank filled back up and filters running in about 90 minutes total. Easy Peasy.

 

[WallysWorld]

I thought I'd upload a photo of my tank after the sand change. I initially filled the tank two weeks ago. Photo was taken the day after changing the sand. My water has never been so clear. The previous substrate always caused a slight haze. Much happier!