I want to remove ALL my sand..

OCDP · #1 09-05-2006, 04:06 PM

I have the siphon ready to go... my only real concern is the fact that I'm remocing "all" the sand, so I am figuring that I will disrupt something.. at the same time I just cleaned my entire sandbed a week or so ago, so it's pretty gunk-free.

Will it hurt anything if I remove all my sand in one shot? I just know that my SPS will look and do better without all the nutrients in my tank.

TIA.

muck · #2 09-05-2006, 04:15 PM

How much sand? depth?

OCDP · #3 09-05-2006, 04:20 PM

Hmm.. definitely not a DSB. I'd say no more than a 2" sandbed .. probably closer to 1 and a half or so.

muck · #4 09-05-2006, 04:22 PM

How old is the sandbed and when you say you cleaned it last week, what does that include?

OCDP · #5 09-05-2006, 04:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by muck

How old is the sandbed and when you say you cleaned it last week, what does that include?

Sandbed is approx. a year and a half old. I cleaned the sandbed with large air tubing (siphon) .. worked incredibly well. But seeing what came out of the sand just made me want to get rid of it. Pretty nasty stuff.

andrewsk · #6 09-05-2006, 04:41 PM

IMHO I would just pull it and be done. 1-1.5 inches is not enough to act as much of a bilogical filter in any way. It is just a nutrient sink.

Keith

muck · #7 09-05-2006, 04:43 PM

I don't have first hand experience with removing a sandbed from an existing tank but I would at the very least run LOTS of carbon.

Maybe someone with more hands on knowledge will chime in.