adding sand to a setup tank

[Jack]

ok, I have liverock in my tank. It's all cycled and I am going to be putting in 300lbs of Caribsea sugar sand in it. I have 3 fish in there and 20 blue legs and 20 snails might come in the mail before the sand goes in there. How do I go about putting in the sand??? HELP!

[DJ88]

Jack,

How do I go about putting in the sand??

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Veeery carefully.. ;) :D

Seriously tho.

How I went about this in two other tanks was by doing the following.

</font><ul type="square">[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif"> Drain some water out of the tank. Make a rough estimation on how much water the sand will displace. Use the sand bed calc on RC to see how deep your sand bed will be. remove less H2O than this and hold it in a container for now. </font>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Get a large diameter piece of PVC that is taller than the depth of your tank. 2" or larger. </font>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Make some sort of large funnel that the end of it will fit inside the PVC tubing. </font>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">place the tube in your tank. Slowly pour sand into the funnel. Fill the tube as much as possible. </font>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">SLOWLY raise the tube up out of your tank allowing the sand to flow out. DO this very slowly. if you go too fast you will turn your tank into a huge milkshake. </font>[*]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">Repeat until done.
</font>[/list:u:bcb29ce070]<font size="2" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">You are going to get lots of sand raised into the water column, but not as much as if you poured it in directly.
It will settle.. honest. run some quick filters on Ph's if you can. with filter floss. change regularly. another trick you can do is take some ph's and send the outlet deep under the sandbed. Look at this picture for an idea of how to set it up.


[ 29 March 2002, 18:11: Message edited by: DJ88 ]

[Jack]

Hey thanks Darren. You are always there when I need help, it rocks. I heard about that funnel trick, but the way I heard it was that you just poured it on the bottom, not "raised the pipe" which seems like an even better idea.

On the sand bed calc I think I was looking at 5inches sand bed depth which is great. This is going to take a long time to add this sand :( but oh well it will be worth it.

I also heard about you guys and that powerhead in the sandbed trick. I might try that.

I have 2 qestions:

1) With any "milky sand storm" that might happen, will it harm anything like my snails, hermits and fish? What about their breathing throught the gills?

2) Should I turn off most of my powerheads to decrease cloudyness?

Thanks

[canadawest]

You shouldn't have too much trouble with the milky water and the inhabitants. Twice I've added fine grain sand to my existing fully stocked tank, and both times it was milky for several hours and none of the inhabitants seemed any worse for wear.

The fish tended to hide in the corners, or where there was circulation during the "snowstorm" but otherwise were ok.

I recommend turning off most of your powerheads to allow the finer silt to settle rather than circulate around. Also it helps to keep your skimmer running during the milky phase, as the finest grains will be removed by the foam and the tank clears up much quicker.

After a couple days the sand will get a bacterial coating to weigh it down, and it won't blow around as easily anymore.