To convert or not to convert

Charvelguitar

Charvelguitar

Member
Anyone ever convert a reef tank from crushed coral substrate to sand? I have a 120g with about a 2" crushed coral bed. Not sure how many lbs of live rock but i know its alot. So i guess what i'm asking is, if you have done this, how did you do it? I don't have a tank to move all my livestock into. Can you do something like this to a stocked tank in a way that wont cause a system crash?
 
I've never done it, but I think there are two ways to do it.

#1, small sections at a time. This way you replace small amounts at a time to keep the amount of bad stuff minimal. Takes a lot of time, but it is safer.

#2, don't do this option, see below
 
I replaced my crushed Coral with sand all at once, lost every fish in the tank and couldn't add anything for at least a month after that. Had a crazy nitrate and ammonia spike.

If you do replace, definitely do it slow over a period of a couple of weeks or so.
 
I agree with Kratos, this is going to be hard on your tank. I have a 28 gal nano cube, a fraction of your tank, and I ended up messing with my sandbed and lost most of my tank. I was lucky enough to have a friend hold some of my stuff. Ended up emptying the entire tank, and starting from scratch. Took the crushed coral out and tossed it and then got brand new powder sand.

Now if you can safely store your fish at a LFS or something, then I say go for it. The sand is so much better in my opinion. If you can't remove your livestock beforehand, then don't do it.
 
I do have another 120g fish only but it has my stars n stripes and Fox face in it. I suppose it would be easier to find shelter for them and redo that tank then transfer everything over.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
 
You could always get a bigger tank and move everything into that with a fresh new sandbed.......... ;)
 
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