Removing a discusting old sandbed!

[jimmyzhou]

Thank you, crazy how much this is worrying me. Just keep thinking of all the things that can go wrong with disturbing old sandbed. I’m going to pull put just 6 square inches at a time during waterchanges, even if it takes me a year.

U be fine do it slow that’s all

 

[maroun.c]

I’ve been doing the carbon dosing for over two years, Bio Pellets worked great at first almost too well. But then they were not getting no3 below 25-30ppm and tried different manufacturers, doubled the quantity, changed reactors but to no avail. So I switched at Christmas to NoPox. That took a while to show any significant reduction, then it suddenly dropped to 8-10ppm I’m dosing at max dosage of 3ml per 100l on a auto doser which doses every hour during the night and every other hour during the day. I’m actually really reluctant to remove the sand, it’s scare the detritus out of me! lol But I just feel it’s going to be a increasing pollutant as time goes on, totally my fault for not setting it correctly at first and then thinking the microfauna would do the work for me. Hoped if I act now before the start off ‘old tank syndrome’ effect. Would love if I could find a product that could remove the fine mulm in the bed though, be amazing if I did! It was a real eye opener just how much brown sludge/silt is trapped in it.

I've had a tank that struggled from.low flow and had some detritus in sand and on rocks and looked overall dirty. I used Fritz Monster 360, and dosed every week instead of every other week as they advise and also fixed the flow, it cleaned up the tank in few. Weeks.

 

[1979fishgeek]

I've had a tank that struggled from.low flow and had some detritus in sand and on rocks and looked overall dirty. I used Fritz Monster 360, and dosed every week instead of every other week as they advise and also fixed the flow, it cleaned up the tank in few. Weeks.

I would love to get hold of some, but can’t find it in the UK.

 

[Streetcred]

I have removed a lot of sand from my 210g. I did it over many water changes because it was going on 7 years old and nasty too. No issues. Go slow and you should be fine. Just takes time and lots of water changes.

Same here ... 12 year old 500gal with very deep sand bed ;-) Recently, the water currents shifted slightly and the bed got moved around quite dramatically ... NO3 through the roof and sps struggling ... will have to accelerate the bed removal.

 

[chicago]

Go slow . Forget the python. Go to box store get 8 feeet of 3/4 or larger hose. Put in hot water in sink water to relax it. Get Woden dole rod at box store. Lowe’s ect. Attach it with cable ties. Get twenty Gallon garbage can put in plastic bag. Contractor bags. Get a symphony going and empty into 20!gallon garbage can. The larger diameter hose will Drain fast and take a Lot of sand with it. Consider optional roller they sell at Lowe’s for the garbage Can to move around or use pump to empty water to sink. Toss old gravel in the garbage bag. Repeat at next water change. Safer and cleaner to do in stages.

 

[ChuzUThisDay]

We removed the sandbed from our 125 gallon several months ago. We saw that it was going to take months to remove a little with each water change. We placed a filter sock inside a gallon jug inside the sump. We then ran a hose from the tank to the filter sock. As the filter sock filled with sand and sludge, water overflowed into the gallon jug then into the sump. Water continually flowed from tank to sump to tank and we changed and emptied socks as they filled with sand and sludge.

Over the course of a few hours, all but the smallest amounts of the sand were removed and the tank was minimally cloudy.

The larger diameter hose that can be used the better. This will vacuum sand faster as well as not get stopped up with shells, rubble, etc.

One note if you go this route, check your filter socks for snails, hermits, and other cuc members.

 

[Bunnee911]

@brandon429

 

[TinyChocobo]

We removed the sandbed from our 125 gallon several months ago. We saw that it was going to take months to remove a little with each water change. We placed a filter sock inside a gallon jug inside the sump. We then ran a hose from the tank to the filter sock. As the filter sock filled with sand and sludge, water overflowed into the gallon jug then into the sump. Water continually flowed from tank to sump to tank and we changed and emptied socks as they filled with sand and sludge.

Over the course of a few hours, all but the smallest amounts of the sand were removed and the tank was minimally cloudy.

The larger diameter hose that can be used the better. This will vacuum sand faster as well as not get stopped up with shells, rubble, etc.

One note if you go this route, check your filter socks for snails, hermits, and other cuc members.

Wouldn’t this just result in all of the nastiness within the sand making it into the water or does this only happen when the sand is left exposed?

 

[ChuzUThisDay]

Wouldn’t this just result in all of the nastiness within the sand making it into the water or does this only happen when the sand is left exposed?

Some of it did get stirred around and cloud the water, but the vast majority was caught in the filter socks. The lights went off shortly after we finished, so it's hard to say when the tank cleaned up, but the next day it looked great when the lights kicked on. Having the Jebeo powerheads on full blast in else mode seemed to have kept the nastiness suspended enough to overflow into the filter sock over night.

Some on here suggested the partial removal method, some recommended the all at once method, and for us the all worked.

 

[brandon429]

In our sand rinse thread where we do swaps, cleans and removals I like to pair sand removal or cleaning along with full water changes where possible (nanos) but for large tanks it’s hard to score 125 new gallons all at once

It’s also possible to drain off all the current water into Rubbermaid trash cans and then reuse it after the bed is pulled/rinsed or replaced

We show there that with any normal sized live rock stack, the bacteria in a sandbed are not critical to nitrification (meaning your tank handles current bioload just fine with or without sand) and that keeping waste out of suspension where possible is the safe mode both for crash prevention and future algae dealings

 

[chicago]

I can lend some additional information.. i tried once to use a filter sock and pumped the water back in as it flowed into the garabage can.. the nitrate or what ever was stored in the sand bed. just made its way back into the tank... I really really want to stress and save you the heart ache... i would not do it all at the same time.. anything in this hobby that is done fast usually results in negative results... slow.. is usually better.. my 2 cents.. if you really wanted to go faster.. you can ... go to home depot.. get like five garbage 20 gallon ones.. mix up 5 batchs of salt new...water.. i perhaps remove larger sections ..... your really want to toss the water that comes up with the sand as you remove it.. run some tests on that water and let us know what the results are... good luck

 

[MartinWaite]

I would love to get hold of some, but can’t find it in the UK.

Surely it's Fritz Monster 460 you need for saltwater and you can get it from Charterhouse Aquatics who will post it out to you. Good luck.

 

[Beth Villmow]

That’s what I’m doing. I ended up filling a entire 150litre water butt only taking out 6sq inches of substrate. It’s gong to be long a process with only 1,800 inches left! Lol But rather do it that way than take all the rock and coral out!

 

[Beth Villmow]

Personally, I think that is the best way to reach your goal of no sand at all.I have have been wrestling with the same problem of high nitrates and phosphates causing me to have a bad red algae issue. After cleaning and vacuuming the sand,I also cleaned out my filtration system really well. All of that at once caused my tank to crash,die,croak. I shed a bunch of tears and now I'm adding corals and fish slowly as I remove the last of my sand bed during water changes . Seems to be working much better this way. Eventually I hope to put in a new sand bed but not until I know my nitrates/phosphates are staying where they should be. Good luck with yours and let me know how it turns out

 

[Capitol Reef Corals]

I recently removed all of the sand in my system to lower nitrates and phosphates...and it worked! I removed whatever I could siphon out with a 10% water change weekly. I highly recommend to do it slowly with your water changes. I also recommend that you get a block of marine pure and put it in your sump to replace some of the surface area you're going to remove where beneficial bacteria was certainly growing. Also, watch out for your rock work as you get to removing the last bits of sand. There could be sand under your rocks holding them up, and once you remove them the rock structure could break apart - happened to me. Besides that I don't think there's too much to worry about! Good luck!

 

[RobertP]

NO3 at 8-10 and thats bad? Sorry but that is great. I had to pull my filter socks to get mine over 5. NO3 is not an issue unless it gets over 60.
PO4 at .05 is good as well. Remember corals need both of these to thrive.

 

[1979fishgeek]

NO3 at 8-10 and thats bad? Sorry but that is great. I had to pull my filter socks to get mine over 5. NO3 is not an issue unless it gets over 60.
PO4 at .05 is good as well. Remember corals need both of these to thrive.

It’s not terrible, but it’s not good in a SPS dominated tank, the levels are enough to start browning the colour in my Acropora and even Porites are not poping how they were. It’s just a personal preference to tackle the issue now before it increases further, plus if I remove the sandbed now I reduce the amount of nutrients potentially released. The more detritus that accumulates the larger the nutrient sink...the larger the problem.