How to replace sand bed?

[LesPoissons]

Hey all,
looking into ICP test but pretty sure the sand in my reef tank is play sand and the silicates may be part of my ongoing issues. How would you go about replacing the sand bed? Just shop vac it out and dump the new sand in? Do half the tank and then the other half later? How long to wait inbetween? Thanks!

 

[Quietman]

Depends...how much livestock and corals do you have? Fully loaded, mature tank needs to have sand bed swapped out in smaller stages over weeks/months. Newer tank with few if any corals and some fish you can be more aggressive.

Bigger question is why are you sure it's play sand? What level is reported in ICP? There are removal media that are easier than sand bed replacement.

 

[LesPoissons]

Its a 220g 4 year old reef tank with about 20 fish and 20 or so small corals, 200# Live rock. I bought the "reef safe" sand in bulk from LFS when setting up the tank. I spoke to the guy (bc algae issues)) and he said they used "reef safe" play sand from Kmart, but he used it in his own tanks too (at the time). I havent done the icp test yet- ill wait until I do, but I have a feeling now of how it will go. Lol

 

[brandon429]

you should do what the sandbed rinse thread does to replace your sand, any other method doesn’t have thirty pages of successful swaps. Take pics we want your work too

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-official-sand-rinse-thread-aka-one-against-many.230281/

if you follow that exactly your swap will work

I’ll be highly interested to see how much of that you can customize, veer from, and still pull it off without loss. My recommend for a two hundred gallon swap is drain off current water and hold, be removing rocks fish and water, hold each separately. Sand comes out last

study the thread for how we clean rocks before re use. It’s not like how we clean the new sand for preparation in the new tank, small details matter in large tank jobs.

once those two are clean, input the cloudless new sand and refill with water. Add rocks, add back corals and fish. If it’s all cloudless new tank then you did well. If it’s clouding I’ll get the popcorn while reef EMS is called. You have sole control over a cloudy vs clean new tank, fear of what bacteria can do is what sets the stage.

cloudless reassembly cannot recycle it cannot mini cycle.

clouding sure can, make a choice.

the nitrifying bacteria in a sandbed do not matter, live rock is always able to run the same system without sand, instantly we show. The sole risk in your job is failure to clean before reassembly, we have patterned it 200 times there.

 

[Dolelo96]

This is what I did with my 88 gallon. I visually divided tank into 4 sections. Each week, o tank cleaning day, I would take sand out of one section through a 1/2 inch silicon tube. The sand being removed went into a large strainer over a 5 gallon bucket (made it easier for me weight wise to dispose) I did this each week for 4 weeks until tank was empty of sand. I replaced the sand with CaribeSea Special Grade Dry sand. I rinsed the new sand with RO/Di water, then using a 16oz water bottle with the bottom cut off (3/4 full of new sand), I slowly poured new sand in. Cover the smaller end with your finger until you get to the bottom of the tank.
My tank was only 88 gallons and two years old, but doing it this way worked great. There was a video online that I found that showed how to replace the sand using the bottle method). I adjusted the method a bit, because he just rinsed his existing sand and I wanted to replace mine with new sand.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

I would take everything out of the tank and place in bins (including most of the water) and then just rip all of that sand out and replace with new without thinking twice about it. But that’s me.

Whatever bacterial loss you experience will be minimal and corrected within a few days. You really only have good aerobic activity in the top 1/2”...and 75% of that will be on the very top...of your sand bed. Not to mention, you have every other hard surface in the entire system housing nitrifiers, so it’s a minimal bacterial loss.

You could get a decent alk bump, but probably not enough to do anything.