Another sand removal question
 

When we started our 55 gl sw tank, we left the gravel from the fw tank in the bottom and piled the sand on top. I want to restart this tank so the sand gravel mix has to go. So, if I remove this mix, add new dry sand am I going to recycle the tank? Bit of a debate going on here in my house. My plan is to remove the rock to a bucket with tank water, remove sand/gravel, put rock back. Minimal time for rock to be out of the tank-basically tank to tub/tub to tank.

I don't have a deep sandbed, will put this mix in water as well to try to get some of the sand back in tank to seed, lots of good stuff in it.

Anyone see any problems have suggestions?

if you remove the rock from the tank, then yes, you will get a cycle of some sort.....might be nothing more than a hiccup, but also might be more......

why not just siphon the sand/gravel over a couple water changes....this approach shouldnt cause you any issues.....just need to be a little more patient this way

Depending on how long the tank was running there could be some really bad gunk in the sand. Are you planning on removing all the water first? Then put out the sand / gravel mix, wash out tank & put it all back in?

If the rock is staying in water, you should be fine. As long as you don't have a huge fish load, I wouldn't expect you to see any issues.

The tank was set up in march 2011. Transferred almost everything to other tank in march this year, left the lr sand, a couple soft corals and a cuc. The eel stirred up all the sand/gravel under every piece of lr which is why I want to get it out. the eel is gone, no fish now.

I was planning on removing most of the water to a tub for the rocks and removing the sand. If I can reuse some sand great but it's not required. I'm just hoping to cause minimal disruption.

Ugh Doug, you said patience....

You should be fine as your keeping the rock in water.. Just give it a good swish in the tank before you put it in the bin.

people sometimes get in trouble reusing sand. I've reused sand, but wash the heck out of it.. Which means it needs to cycle again.. But new sand needs to cycle too::mrgreen:

Dam, I just lost the debate based on this post.:twised:...I didn't think new sand would cause a cycle, good to know. I have a new bag of dry sand to use, needs to be rinsed. Don't think I want to chance reusing the current sand, just enough to reseed.

I wouldn't risk reusing the old sand to reseed the new
You're asking for trouble if you put disturbed, unwashed sand back into the tank

I like the idea of you not removing the LR and siphoning out some of the bed a bit at a time - say with 3 or 4 WCs or something

Once it's all out you can then be sure your LR is all the way down and add your new sand

New sand won't really cause a cycle as it should be pretty lifeless and inert, but it does need to cycle to become "alive". It's all the "live" in your old sand that's going to die once disturbed that causes problems.

Thanks for the help. I'm going to start this morning.....as soon as I get motivated and finish my timmies.....

I just removed all the sand in my nano 15 gallons and replaced it by brand new sugar size white sand. I did not have any cycle. I have 2 small clownfish and a small leopard wrasse.

I did not have a lot of sand though in a 15 gallons, so maybe in a larger tank the sand bed play a bigger role in the bio filtration.

Well, I started to remove the sand and by the time I removed 15 gls of water, I barely made a dent. Plus the gravel kept clogging up the hose so I decided I would let the tank cycle again, removed the rock to bins with water and a heater and removed it all today. The glass was a mess so I scrubbed it as I went along as well. Easier to do with no water swishing about everywhere. Tank is still cloudy from new sand, I added back as much of the clean tank water as I could, plus added in new water. I can't see anything ATM and will test starting tomorrow. at least there's no more ugly gravel and pink rocks everywhere....:mrgreen: