Refugium question

Good morning 3reef,

I have a 20gallon fuge that I need to redesign. It works great but last week I was doing routine maintenance and I broke down one of the walls. This gives me a good opportunity to redesign the fuge.

The question i have though is when i drain the fuge and remove all the sand once i get the new fuge in place and replace my sand how will this affect my tank. I'm concerned it may cause a cycle. what problems do you think i will have if any?

Thanks, Pjracer

 

I'm not saying it's the norm and won't happen to you because there's always a risk when you disturb a bed but I totally moved the dsb in my fuge from a tote to an AGA and never had any cycle.

How long has yours been set up? The younger the less risk imo.

 

Almost a year

 

Keep the sand in water and for every day that passes while you construct the new sump change the water with DT water to keep it going.

 

yup, that works or just store it in a pail and keep it wet if it will only be a few days.

 

Well, if it were me I wouldn’t get too worked up over saving the sand bed. To protect my tank from hydrogen sulfate leaking into my system I would take the old sand and rinse it. I’d keep the top inch or so in order to seed the new DSB. In my opinion its not worth the risk – and once seeded the rinsed sand will be back in action within a month.