I Know ; I know

I have sent an email to my reef store to see what his feelings are on siphoning a gravel bed substrate.

 

since its only a 10 gallon, personally I would just take all the gravel out and replace it with sand... you can get actual aragonite sand for cheap anyways, if you know where to look

 

Adding Sannd

My reef store owner said, if I add sand, I'd have to remove all my coral, live goods, etc. because of the cloud of dust it would raise.

Much of my coral is securely anchored & one of the occupants is a very large beautiful sea anenome. I have no idea how I would get that out. Anyway can I add sand without this mess & the possible clogging of my of filter ?

 

i would think just scooping as much of the gravel out as carefully as possible will work. and when you add the new sand, make sure its really well rinsed so you get all the dusty particles cleaned off, and then add that in slowly to the bottom . you can get away from making a huge dust cloud in your tank. you wont have to remove the gravel thats beneath your LR . you wont have to remove all your goods that way.

 

My reef store said I could not put sand in my aquarium without removing all my corals & other inhabitants. It would cloud the water too badly. Some of my corals are firmly attached & one of my inhabitants is a large sea anenome. I don't see how I could add sand without killing some of my corals, my other inhabitants or clogging the filter.

Then he says siphoning is not the answwer. What am I suppose to do ?

 

Personally, I have dealt with the negative outcome of not doing things the right way the first time (as Im sure many of us have). I would definately siphon the gravel out of there and add sand. As Divott said, as long as you get out the gravel around your live rock and replace with well rinsed (WELL RINSED SO THERE IS LITTLE/NO CLOUDING OF YOUR WATER.) sand. Add it slowly. You shouldnt have to remove everything from your tank as long as you just leave the little bit of gravel under your live rock.
The corals and anemone should be just fine with a little bit of could water. They're not as horribly delicate as you 'd think.

 

I've moved many tanks and never had any issues with putting a new bag of sand in and having clouded water. As long as you have good filtration, the majority of the cloudiness will be removed in a day or so. As long as the water params are good, I've never seen it hurt fish, invertibrates, or coral. If you don't have good filtration, it may end up being a different story.

 

I have done exactly what is in question, minus the use of gravel...i wanted to get rid of the crushed coral. anyways if you rinse the aragonite very well, adding it to your tank will do no harm, do it slowly. it still will get cloudy, don't worry. depending on how much gravel you got in there i'd remove the majority, or atleast what is easy with a siphon or scoop, but i wouldn't disturb everything. When i did it myself i just made sure to have enough water to do a 25% water change ( your situation will make it easy..small tank) make sure to have a some type of mechanical filter going, and i'd replace the carbon and bio-media once the water clears up. In my experience i didn't loose anything....all my corals, anemones (got a few) and fish and inverts all made it through just fine. even my yellow wrasse that was burried in the crushed coral and got scooped from one tank to the other made it.

 

The guy who owns the reef store said adding sand would cloud the water so badly that I would have to remove my corals & all other livestock. Most of my corals are very securely anchored. I also have a sea anemone. I don't know what I would do with that.

One says no sand. One says no siphoning. What am I suppse to do ?

 

seems to me , youve got the choice to make. what ive seen here, pretty much everyone has told you how you can remove the gravel , and replace it with sand. with a little clouding and without havin to pull everything out. now its up to you in regards what to do.

guy