olonmv
Valuable Member
For a while now I’ve been wanting to change out my substrate. I started my 13.5 evo in October of 2020 and I started it with caribsea live sand and dry rock. This was by choice. I’ve never had a saltwater aquarium and I wanted to go through the entire slow process of getting to a mature tank. During the time I always loathed cleaning my sand bed because it always would get sucked up when vacuuming. I decided to go with caribsea aragonite because it’s big enough to be able to vacuum without a headache and small enough for my nassarius snails and pistol shrimp to be happy.
Did a ton of reading on how to approach my project. And came across the rip clean method by Brandon429. Seeing that I’ve finally gotten a handle on how my tank parameters work I didn’t want to do a rip clean and just wanted a straight sand swap.
I also wanted to use as little saltwater as possible. And found it a perfect opportunity to try out a 1 micron filter set up I made that Ive been wanting to try out.
here’s my tank before:
I washed my new aragonite in a bucket with a hose bib and tumbled the aragonite for about 45 minutes until my water came out crystal clear. Dumped out the faucet water and filled the bucket with rodi and let sit for about an hour. Dumped that water and refilled bucket with fresh rodi.
I set up a bucket where I would catch the water and sand vacuumed from the tank. From that bucket I pumped water through a 10” canister with a 1 micron filter back into the tank.
After vacuuming the sand out I took a turkey Baster to the rocks and bare bottom while still running the 1 micron filter the entire time. After I was satisfied with the tank cleanliness I ran the filter for about an additional half hour.
During the filter session, I got the rinsed aragonite and drained as much rodi I could from it. Poured about 3/4 of a gallon of pre mixed saltwater into the aragonite bucket. With a solo cup I scooped up aragonite and poured it where I wanted it in the tank. Tank is back in order and all inhabitants look their usual selves.
Tank with new aragonite:
So far I’m satisfied with the results and the haze is mostly due to a small bacterial bloom and looks to be clearing up already.
I will keep tank progress posted.
Did a ton of reading on how to approach my project. And came across the rip clean method by Brandon429. Seeing that I’ve finally gotten a handle on how my tank parameters work I didn’t want to do a rip clean and just wanted a straight sand swap.
I also wanted to use as little saltwater as possible. And found it a perfect opportunity to try out a 1 micron filter set up I made that Ive been wanting to try out.
here’s my tank before:
I washed my new aragonite in a bucket with a hose bib and tumbled the aragonite for about 45 minutes until my water came out crystal clear. Dumped out the faucet water and filled the bucket with rodi and let sit for about an hour. Dumped that water and refilled bucket with fresh rodi.
I set up a bucket where I would catch the water and sand vacuumed from the tank. From that bucket I pumped water through a 10” canister with a 1 micron filter back into the tank.
After vacuuming the sand out I took a turkey Baster to the rocks and bare bottom while still running the 1 micron filter the entire time. After I was satisfied with the tank cleanliness I ran the filter for about an additional half hour.
During the filter session, I got the rinsed aragonite and drained as much rodi I could from it. Poured about 3/4 of a gallon of pre mixed saltwater into the aragonite bucket. With a solo cup I scooped up aragonite and poured it where I wanted it in the tank. Tank is back in order and all inhabitants look their usual selves.
Tank with new aragonite:
So far I’m satisfied with the results and the haze is mostly due to a small bacterial bloom and looks to be clearing up already.
I will keep tank progress posted.
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