Substrate change

[TimD]

Hi all, I’m really confused and need advice. I currently have crushed coral in my flu all evo 13.5g which due to a month in hospital the sand bed got so badly stained I can’t clean it and it looks gross. It’s a mixed tank with a clown, fire fish and 2 cardinals. I’ve ordered caribsea live pink Fiji but have read so many conflicting posts on what to do to swap it out. Should I do it a section at a time or all in one go, tanks been running a year. Please help!

 

[brandon429]

Doing it in sections is dangerous though many choose that way


the safest way is any single example from this giant substrate swap thread:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/official-sand-rinse-and-tank-transfer-thread.230281/


every job there uses tap water on the new sand before use, plain as day each job outlines the preps step for the new sand. Please take pics of your swap and update there on last page, we have been collecting the work examples for six years there in jobs just like yours


do not buy bottled bacteria for the job.

 

[TimD]

Doing it in sections is dangerous though many choose that way


the safest way is any single example from this giant substrate swap thread:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/official-sand-rinse-and-tank-transfer-thread.230281/


every job there uses tap water on the new sand before use, plain as day each job outlines the preps step for the new sand. Please take pics of your swap and update there on last page, we have been collecting the work examples for six years there in jobs just like yours


do not buy bottled bacteria for the job.

I’m even more confused as my LFS has told me you can’t use live sand doing a swap as it would spike my parameters

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

I’m even more confused as my LFS has told me you can’t use live sand doing a swap as it would spike my parameters

People at the LFS can say some silly things..

 

[Midrats]

The larger grain size of crushed coral tends to discolor and doesn't stay white. If you want white substrate go as fine as your flow will allow. The "live" sand on the shelf at the LFS is a rip off IMO. If you want real live sand order some diver collected stuff that has been shipped in water. I'd just buy some dry special grade reef sand or Tropic Eden sand.

 

[brandon429]

Since your lfs doesn’t have a fifty page thread of proof, and they want to sell you things, you’d default to the web nerds idea


simply click n absorb all that tap rinsing


your lfs couldn’t pull off two million in successful bed changes if someone paid them two million bucks

also, post this thread on their Facebook page, then link that here so we can watch comments. The job of a lfs is to sell bottled bac to every human on the plant, three times over

 

[TimD]

Since your lfs doesn’t have a fifty page thread of proof, and they want to sell you things, you’d default to the web nerds idea


simply click n absorb all that tap rinsing


your lfs couldn’t pull off two million in successful bed changes if someone paid them two million bucks

also, post this thread on their Facebook page, then link that here so we can watch comments. The job of a lfs is to sell bottled bac to every human on the plant, three times over

Thanks Brandon my newest best friend. Reading through the threads as we speak and feeling reassured by listening to people who do it for the love and not just the money.

 

[brandon429]

I secretly love lfs but I need an online nemesis to do battle against so they’ll do

 

[TimD]

I secretly love lfs but I need an online nemesis to do battle against so they’ll do

Sands coming Tuesday so starting to prep already, wish me luck and if I’m not too stressed I’ll post pics

 

[NowGlazeIT]

I’m even more confused as my LFS has told me you can’t use live sand doing a swap as it would spike my parameters

Clean Live sand that hasn’t died in shipping would be fine. Finding that close by sounds like the real feat

 

[brandon429]

the honest breakdown of how we do it:

Removing sandbed bacteria we can see doesn’t impact a reef tank negatively


the key is the detritus waste in the grains, thats the kill risk that BRS doesn’t know about nor most LFS’ they are too focused on bacteria to see the mud as the risk


so by working in recommended partials, to preserve bacteria they told us we need some folks up well dangerous detritus and kill things, they are on our page one as a warning link


so we did opposite, knowing that live rocks instantly handle the same bioload as rocks + sand, rock is this stuffed with bac in all reefs

we are removing the dangerous part while no fish or corals are in the tank- that’s why those are all disassembly jobs vs using shop vacs in the running tank. We remove corals and fish away from the upwell event

we tap water rinse to total perfection, entire point of the thread, for two reasons:
When re using old sand, tap is free and we can rinse hours to eject all waste, final rinse in RO to eject the tap. Sand is now new again, and cloudless


we pre rinse all bagged sand, including wet pack, because twenty links on page one shows folks who skipped rinsing new sand and hated reefing. We rinse new sand for cloudlessness. And because sandbed bacteria even from the bag do not matter, total clarity of the new build is what matters. We don’t collect any examples where caribsea wet pack live sand in a bag wasn’t pre rinsed in tap water to total clarity, final rinse in RO. We handle new sand exactly like old sand for 100% safety.

 

[Dom]

I’m even more confused as my LFS has told me you can’t use live sand doing a swap as it would spike my parameters

It is rare that you can trust the advice of the LFS.

I'm curious: What solution did your LFS provide to deal with your problem? I'd bet that they tried to sell you something.

 

[TimD]

Clean Live sand that hasn’t died in shipping would be fine. Finding that close by sounds like the real feat

I actually live 5 mins away from the sea but it’s the English Channel so the sand looks more like mud

 

[brandon429]

My recommend is to use new and pre rinsed ocean direct bagged sand from caribsea it’s perfect grain size for a nano

 

[TimD]

It is rare that you can trust the advice of the LFS.

I'm curious: What solution did your LFS provide to deal with your problem? I'd bet that they tried to sell you something.

No they don’t try that hard to sell stuff to me as I only use them for rodi

 

[NowGlazeIT]

I actually live 5 mins away from the sea but it’s the English Channel so the sand looks more like mud

That would be good for a fuge haha not the tank.

 

[Quietman]

If you want to swap out sand bed, you have all the posts and help in the world above.

I have "top dressed" my sand bed many times to clean up some algae when I've left it for a month or two or stain that I found unattractive.

When I do this - I will suck up the top layer affected areas only. Normally I do not do a deep vacuum job the same week to reduce how much sand I remove with the stained/algae. I suck it up with a hose into a sock in the sump so I don't remove the water from the system (that's probably not optimal but it works for me and I don't have to make new water). I do put a new sponge for the next day to pick up any stirred up debris and I'll add a new bag o' GAC as a precaution (mostly because any cleaning disturbs the softies).

But this comes with a few pre-conditions. I have soft/lps tank so nothing too sensitive. I have a shallow sand bed (1-2"). I normally stir up sand bed every few days (if not daily) and vacuum it at least monthly. Meaning I don't have a sink hole of sludge in the bottom of my tank just waiting for me to release into the water column to wreck my tank. I haven't found a month of neglect causes any excessive build up. I do have high flow on sand bed as well.

I've taken out up to a liter of sand (I have a 24" by 20" sand bed) at one time as that was all it took to remove what I wanted and not really a limit I imposed. It's not much but makes all the difference appearance wise to me.

I replace with new rinsed (tap) crushed coral sand (I like the big sand better, but I have done with smaller aragonite). I just pour it on top and spread it around and have a new looking bed.

 

[brandon429]

My lfs is a good group too they sell me great water for my old nano. Fish pros in Lubbock / honest crew yep

 

[TimD]

My recommend is to use new and pre rinsed ocean direct bagged sand from caribsea it’s perfect grain size for a nano

I went for the caribsea pink Fiji alive, was this a mistake?

 

[brandon429]

That was my second option :) all my old picos online used pre rinsed Fiji pink