Sand bed maintance

[cracker]

@brandon429 I'm about to start removing the sand & replacing from a 180 gl tank. For reasons beyond this question, This sand bed has seriously turned to rock. I'd guess 70 % , I plan on siphoning a section at a time with new water added .

So should I remove all the sand then replace it all or remove a section & add ( well rinsed) new sand to that section ? Any Op's would be appreciated !
Thanks to Bitfix for tagging to your thread !

 

[van7271]

Remove a little at a time. Going to fast might upset the balance that has already been established.

 

[brandon429]

Post a tank pic cracker and we'll make a custom call

It's ok to work in sections but we never do in the big reference thread, we remove and replace or go bare bottom all at once as long normal amounts of live rock are being used the bacteria in the sandbed simply doesn't matter, it's incidental/extra beyond what it takes to run the bioload of the system.

 

[cracker]

Post a tank pic cracker and we'll make a custom call

It's ok to work in sections but we never do in the big reference thread, we remove and replace or go bare bottom all at once as long normal amounts of live rock are being used the bacteria in the sandbed simply doesn't matter, it's incidental/extra beyond what it takes to run the bioload of the system.

Thank You for the reply. I really can't get it all out at once. I can remove the the sand,will take a couple of secessions . Then replace all new sanf at one time however that will take a lot of rinsing work . I will get some pics tomorrow . I want sand in this tank. I have another tank that has no sand.

 

[PhreeByrd]

cracker, do you know why your sand has solidified? Usually this happens from kalkwasser dosing. And usually it can be broken up fairly easily without replacing it.

 

[cracker]

I'm not really sure. A brief history, So this was a fish only at the time still. A buddy threatened to give me a Big Long tip nem. Figured my clown pair would like it. Alk & Ca was real low (mid 6's) so I started dosing & Kalkwasser in the ato. All slowly, taking my time . The alk wouldn't budge but all the sand rocked up. So I'm not sure .

 

[cracker]

@ Brandon429 here are some pics for you . a full tank shot & some closeups of a bunch of rubble & slabs of hardened sand. The toad needs to be moved but the base is fussed to the sand slab. I can get any other pics you would like Thanks !

 

[brandon429]

Hey that's minimal sand to deal with, and a very nice tank it's not all blackened with decay so it's not super dangerous to work with.

If you search out hardened sand here in the chem forum and at Randy's rc chem forum going back nearly 20 yrs you'll see the hardening matter discussed as a mixture of organic matrix + precipitation at the locus of the compaction. The organic fraction of the accretion is detritus, which we loathe so much in the work thread so if you clean the tank out, then detritus is reduced again till next removal time.

I know many old and detritus laden sandbeds don't get accreted but when it occurs, 50% of the cause stated in the chem forums was detritus waste/organic loading in the bed and the other portion was whatever factors come together to form calcium carbonate lock-in at the location

If it helps any, somewhere in the sand rinse thread early section is me noticing a little lump of accreted sand in my own tank and taking a pic of it and discussing the accretion phenomena even though I don’t dose anything. I have seen it lots of times in large tanks where they were dosing kalk yes agreed too.

 

[cracker]

Thank You ! I plan to remove as much hardened sand as possible . There also a lot of rubble & empty snail shells . once this is done I'll figure out my next steps. Also I do notice the hardened sand has a grey color to it. So I say it is a good assessment this was a bacterial thing not chemical. I thought it was all the 2 part & kalkwasser I was adding. A last observation, I didn't wash the silt from the sand before I added it. Thank You Brandon for the advice