How to change CC to live sand?

Well my tank is about 4 years old- I bought it on Craig's list a month ago and I want to change my CC to live sand.

Did any one have done that and what is the procedure.

 

I removed everything. Kept the fish, corals, live rock, and as much water as possible in buckets and such. I cleaned the sand a little (some disagree with this). Then put the sand into the empty tank, added the saved water, then added back my live rock. I adjusted the temp, then added the fish and corals back. Worked pretty well. I used argonite sand, but not live sand. good luck, it's a pia.

 

i did this with my tank a while ago. i took the cc out in sections, taking out the full depth of each section. i waited a week or two between each removal to allow any mini-cycle to clear.

once it's all out, then put in DEAD sand (save your money!!). you'll have a cloud that takes a few days to settle, and you'll need to dust off the rock & coral with a PH several times as it does. once your sand bed is in, you can seed it with a little live sand from someone else's tank (my local reef shop sells a pound scooped from their holding tanks for 4 bucks - i just scatter it around the bottom) the dead sand you put in will already seed itself from the tank/LR, so i don't think the live sand step is truely necessary, i just did it to be cool.