Removing live rock, replacing substrate.

[frankdontsurf]

My 10 gallon has about 16lbs of live rock. It's too much live rock - I feel my tank is cramped and my coral placement ability is limited. Obviously removing half of my rock would cause a shift in balance of the microfauna and all that other good jazz but! If I did it little by little and ended up with my substrate and 5lbs of rock would it still be fine? Can I get away with 10lbs of sand, and 5lbs of rock, as opposed to my current 16lbs of rock and 10lbs of sand?

 

One of my LFS has a tank with ric's and yumas, the substrate is what seems to be a gray/dark gravel. I would like a substrate like that so that my corals can attach to it, plus I love the look.. Does anyone know what substrate this may be??

[Subsea]

Ten pounds of sand, by itself, is more than enough to provide biofiltration for your 10G tank. I would not remove both sand and rock at the same time. Add your sand first. Wait one month, then remove as much rock as you desire.

Patrick

[brandon429]

My 10 gallon has about 16lbs of live rock. It's too much live rock - I feel my tank is cramped and my coral placement ability is limited. Obviously removing half of my rock would cause a shift in balance of the microfauna and all that other good jazz but! If I did it little by little and ended up with my substrate and 5lbs of rock would it still be fine? Can I get away with 10lbs of sand, and 5lbs of rock, as opposed to my current 16lbs of rock and 10lbs of sand?

 

One of my LFS has a tank with ric's and yumas, the substrate is what seems to be a gray/dark gravel. I would like a substrate like that so that my corals can attach to it, plus I love the look.. Does anyone know what substrate this may be??

For me the defining factor is one unreported detail

 

Fish loading

 

In a coral only tank or a tank with inverts a reduction in half your live rock wont matter, the substrate is enough surface area to prevent ammonia detection alone. I'm reading you have ten pounds of cycled sand, that would actually carry pretty decent fish loading as well

 

But if we are talking a high fish bioload style Berlin system with no extra surface area external (filters, plumbed refugia or sumps bio balls ect) and maybe just a skimmer sure there is a critical breakpoint where internal surface area matters. Since most tanks don't fit that description, packed that heavy, you have 90% chance that simply lifting out a few lbs of live rock causes nothing to your tank provided there are no side variables like kicking up clouds of waste etc

 

Just cleanly lifting out and removing some LR, nah its ok. The nitrification abilities of just a little average cured live rock is quite amazing, plus we are factoring in sand as well

 

Look up online to see if they are using seachem onyx substrate

 

Typically used in high pH cichlids tanks, and much like Tahitian moon sand commonly employed across both marine and fresh setups.

[frankdontsurf]

Thanks!

 

There is only one fish, a 2" maroon clown with a voracious appetite. I did forget to mention I have a Marineland 350 bio-wheel hanging on the back, I have the chambers filled with live rock and a bag of purigen in there as well, topped off with polyfill that is replaced weekly (I do wc every 7th day).

 

I was thinking to break up the live rock into rubble to get more into the filter (currently its just a few of my smaller display pieces), should be somewhere around 3lbs maybe 4. Then I have one large piece of LR I want to keep in my display (should be more than 5lbs total), the rest I guess I'll have to store. I would like to replace the substrate but I think that will be more trouble than it's worth.

 

If that Onyx is 10-20mm than yup that's the stuff I'm looking for.

[SantaMonica]

Yea I was going to say the same: Sounds like not too much feeding, there for not too much ammonia/urea that needs to be filtered. Probably just the sand would do it.