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Coral Vue Hydros

Removing Sand Bed


MuffinMonster

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MuffinMonster

Hello all, good day of reefing I hope!

 

 

Question here, I have an established tank, that's been running for a year about now. I have a 3 inch (ish) sand bed, I'm planning on re-working my aquascape and would like to remove the sand bed and have very little sand on the bottom of the tank. Basically planning on going bare bottom with little bits of sand here and there. Would this be ok to remove in an established tank? Or will it remove a big part of the tanks natural filtration causing a nutrient spike or anything? Curious as to what other people have done. Thanks for any information.

 

 

Thanks all,

Dakoda

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I personally would siphon out over the course of several weeks.  Assuming you are reworking the same live rock I wouldn't be concerned with a nutrient spike. 

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MuffinMonster
3 minutes ago, specore said:

I personally would siphon out over the course of several weeks.  Assuming you are reworking the same live rock I wouldn't be concerned with a nutrient spike. 

I am moving in the next two weeks so I will be moving the tank along with me, I have been siphoning out the sand the last few weeks during my weekly water changes. I do plan on using new cycled live rock, but I wont be re-doing the rock aquascape for at least 3-4 months. I would like to pull most of the sand during the move though. Maybe I should pull half now and let the tank get used to less sand, then pull the rest after a few weeks of adjusting to less sand.

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Five.five-six

Take 25% of what’s left out every other day.   You don’t want to combine the traumatic event of movies with the traumatic event of removing 50% of the biological filtration in the same day.  

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54 minutes ago, Dakoda said:

I am moving in the next two weeks so I will be moving the tank along with me, I have been siphoning out the sand the last few weeks during my weekly water changes. I do plan on using new cycled live rock, but I wont be re-doing the rock aquascape for at least 3-4 months. I would like to pull most of the sand during the move though. Maybe I should pull half now and let the tank get used to less sand, then pull the rest after a few weeks of adjusting to less sand.

Oh.  In that case just toss it when you break the tank down.  You should have plenty of biological filtration in the existing live rock to keep things running smoothly.  

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I've removed a sandbed in one day and replaced it with all new.

 

I had no issues.

 

Liverock is the main biofilter.

 

If it was a dsb it might be a different case.

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MuffinMonster

Thanks for the replies- I may just remove everything during the move then, at least the amount I want to remove. I will be leaving some sand pieces just scattered across the bottom for the look I'm going for. I'm planning on building a rock structure on the left of my tank and making a rock shelf that extends to 3/4 to the right of the tank. Going for the lifted up shelf feel, so I don't want a ton of sand after that so I can throw LPS on the tank bottom and fill the shelf and rock structure with SPS. I also do have a ton of marine pure in the sump chambers that adds a bunch of biofiltration, so removing the sand during the move shouldn't make too big of an impact at all.

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1 hour ago, Dakoda said:

I am moving in the next two weeks so I will be moving the tank along with me, I have been siphoning out the sand the last few weeks during my weekly water changes. I do plan on using new cycled live rock, but I wont be re-doing the rock aquascape for at least 3-4 months. I would like to pull most of the sand during the move though. Maybe I should pull half now and let the tank get used to less sand, then pull the rest after a few weeks of adjusting to less sand.

So you plan on using new cycled LR, but not for 3-4 months.  So you will be using your old LR you have had in your tank all year? (just trying to clarify)

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MuffinMonster

I plan on adding more marine pure in the sump to add more biofiltration in the next couple weeks. I am then going to be ordering new dry live rock from BRS, will then form the aquascape I want and throw those in a bucket and cycle them for 3 months or so. I don't plan on using any of the live rock currently in my tank when I set the new aquascape, I was going to leave a couple big pieces in there though for a month or two to give time for the new aquascape to build up bacteria, but not sure that will even be necessary with all the marine pure in the sump?

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