changing sandbed? good idea at this stage?

[akashi]

MY 29 biocube has been up for a month and some change now, starting out i already had some dead live sand that was in the darkest parts of my closet for about a year and a half, and already i dont like the sand, its really fine and gets blown away easily, i came home tonight almost to find my zoas on fragplug burried under sand, i was thinkinh about scooping putting my 2 clown fish, zoas snails gsp, in a 5 gallon bucket for about 30 mins while i scoop as much sand as possible out my tank and replace it with

fiji-pink arag-alive sand what do you guys think about my method and

do you know any better steps i can take to make the a successfull sandbed change

[Roshan8768]

siphon it out with a hose during water changes and do small sections at a time. No need to remove inhabitants

[Clown79]

Syphoning it out during water changes is the easiest way to remove it and with fine sand(most likely oolite) its even easier.

 

The harder part is replacing it.

Fiji pink arag is a nice size sand. I have it. Doesn't move easily with the current but its nice to vacuum...i have the black sand in my 10g and its a PITA to vacuum!

 

My only concern is a possible spike in a young tank.

Definitely test your params

[akashi]

Ok this doesn't have to happen over night but each weekly water change can I suck out water until I get to where my egg crate is showing I know that'll probably take a month if I do 2-3 water changes a week and when I get to my egg crate on the bottom is when I'll add that Fiji pink sand

[Clown79]

I see no issue doing it in stages

[akashi]

Yes that will be my way of changing my sand bed, hopefully i do it right

[akashi]

im stuck at this point, ive been removing my sandbed for about a month now and im at the last layer of sand where its just crushed coral and wont get sucked out, i want to put my shop vac in there and get the rest of it out but idk where i would put my 2 clown fish 1 torch coral and colony of zoas at, i have a 29 biocube so idk where they could go, maybe the back chambers until i finish?

[fishfreak0114]

In a bucket might work?

[seabass]

^ This.

 

5 gallon buckets or a heavy duty plastic storage container. Take the opportunity to clean out the entire tank (back chambers and all).

 

Remember, save any water that you want to keep prior to disturbing the sand bed. Once it's disrupted, discard the remaining water.

[akashi]

seabass, the tank has been up for about 2 1/2 months still a very young tank

[akashi]

every thing went good, i removed corals and fish into a 5 gal bucket for a while, dry vac the sand out took about 12 gallons out of the tank witht he dry vac, took another 5 gallons out and did like a 20 gallon water change. when the water was low, i added the new live sand, tried to get most of the snails on the rock, im pretty sure a few of them got burried, saw a few champs actually digging their way back up through the sand. gonna do a 3 day of no lights to let this cynao calm down its been outta control lately since the sandbed was almost gone,