Changing sand bed

[Coral Chris]

Hey guys!! So i currently have the sugar fine sand bed and I want to change to a courser grade.. Just picked up 20 lbs of Samoa pink . What's the best way to do it with out stressing the system tooooooo much


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[ramsey]

It varies on bioload, how much LR you have, etc. It would be best to just siphon some out each water change and add some new sand.

[Troy Valentine]

^ Good advice

I am in the process of removing my 10+ year old sugar sand for special grade aragonite. I have a pretty heavily stock 240, and I've been replacing it a 1/3 at a time once a week. Like Ramsey said go easy, If you have a deep sand bed currently this could cause a real problem if you were to remove it all at once or even more than a 1/4 at time. If you have a shallow bed I would check for anaerobic spots and make sure you siphon them out completely, like an infection.

[Coral Chris]

It's a small 6 gallon with a few inverts and "a 1 inch red head goby. The sand is live sand .. Aragonite. It's all bagged. If I slowly replace the SB with weekly water changes, what do I do with the sand once the bag Is open ?


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[Coral Chris]

And I have a shallow bed.. About 1.5 inches deep


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[ramsey]

Well, live sand is sort of a gimmick, IMO. The only life in it at best is bacteria which you get for free. Unless, of course, it's real live sand from Florida or something (not the mass packaged bag stuff). Don't feel like you got ripped off though. I still like it because it's not near as dusty as dry aragonite so it doesn't require near the amount of rising. There's also not a big price difference when using it for a nano tank.

If it's dried out, it should still be fine to use. If you're worried about though, you could put it in gallon ziplock bags or a sealed 5-gallon bucket.

I like a sand bed of around an inch and I like to stir it during water changes and lightly siphon it. That's what works best for me but YMMV.

[Coral Chris]

I thought its bad to stir your sand bed because of bacteria die off and releasing any gases trapped in the SB ? Sry I'm still a noobie lol


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[jcnkt_ellis]

You won't kill any bacteria from stirring the sand bad. Also, you won't really have any gases to release either with a fairly new 1.5" thick bed. Gases potentially build up over time within sand beds over 3-4" thick as areas develop within them that are so low in oxygen that bacteria that produce hydrogen sulfide are able to grow.

[ramsey]

^What he said. :)

It's a big misconception to "not touch your sand bed". I was told the same thing when starting out. However, even a shallow sand bed will become a detritus trap. As long as you stir it and siphon it regularly, it won't be a problem and keeps the sand looking good. If you've never stirred it, just take it slow and don't stir up too much detritus or you might have nitrate problems.

[polarbear]

If it’s only a 6 gallon I would personally just pull everything out and replace the sand all at once. I did this in my 14 gallon biocube awhile back. As long as you use the same live rock in the tank the cycle will be small to none. You could also mix a cup or two of the old sand with the new to seed it.

[Coral Chris]

Thank all of you for your input. Greatly appreciated.. My sand bed looks pretty good. I have a 4 inch corner area that gets some detritus build up due to low flow. Considered switching from my 185 gph pico Evo to a 240 gph hydor koralia but not sure if that will be too much flow. I guess I'll try and see what happens.. After all it's all a learning experience


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