Substrate change

[Stefanthegoat]

Hey everyone! I currently have crushed coral as a substrate and am wanting to change to a coarse sand (caribsea special grade reef sand). I have been doing some research on changing substrates and there seems to be two schools of thought: 1) do it slowly in increments, 2) do it all in one day. I was thinking about just emptying the water into a bin, moving my rock (which has all the corals on it) and my livestock into that bin, and then changing out the substrate. Will I need to recycle the tank if I do this? I currently have a 10 gallon tank with one large piece of live rock. The CC is about 3 inches deep. I have a baby clown, a fire shrimp, some snails, two gold torches, a hammer, and some zoas in the tank. I am using an Aquamaxx Prism LED light fixture for light and am currently using a hang off the back filter and a Koralia 240 for flow and filtration. My parameters are: Ammonia- 0ppm, Nitrites- 0ppm, Nitrates- 0ppm, Calcium- 450ppm, Magnesium- 1400ppm, Alk- 8dkh. What do you guys think? Also, if any of you guys use the special grade reef sand, could you post a picture of what it looks like in your tank? Thank you so much!

 

[Diesel]

Knock yourself out on doing it in one day.
You might go through a mini cycle but wouldn't worry about that much, just have about 20 gallon of newly mixed water on hand in case you have to do a water change and some bac's in a bottle.
Make sure you keep the water moving in the bin and the temperature at the same level.
When you transfer it all back in a hour or so keep the lights off for about a hour or 4 as corals and fish can acclimate.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed

Here’s an all at once we just did
https://www.nano-reef.com/forums/topic/385825-issues-after-moving/

 

[Stefanthegoat]

Thank you guys! @brandon429 what sand did you use?

 

[brandon429]

Me personally I use Caribsea wet pack ocean direct. Any of them are ok, just pre rinse any new sand you get before use, thoroughly so it cannot cloud. Rinsing harms no bacteria and even if it did, your tanks bioload is taken care of by the live rock. That thread shows the core steps he took to change it all out and skip cycle. Total irony runs sandbed access

The deeper you clean first pass, the less chance of cycle

Partial action in the name of bacteria preservation turns out to be the cause of the cycle, total irony. That and some fine .25 readin’ API kits

 

[Stefanthegoat]

Before and after. Thanks so much for the help guys!