I've been thinking about redoing the aquascape

I've been thinking about redoing the aquascape

I think it's pretty and all... but it's a pain to find good spots for coral placement. Live and learn, eh.

so I want to completely rebuild - perhaps even add some additional, interesting, base rock or bones or something.


I have a crushed coral substrate. I have 0 nitrates and phosphates. I'm not interested in changing to sand until I upgrade the tank size in about a year or two when we move.

I am concerned that rearranging my rock will greatly disturb the CC substrate and release all kinds of nasty.

I have poked around and noticed areas of the bottom of the CC are solid - limestone forming in a way :-/

So I am further concerned about breaking this up to make sure my rock is 'on the glass'.

Should these concerns stop me from rebuilding the rock structure? I would want to change it pretty dramatically, not just rearrange some upper level rocks.

Wondering if I should just wait until I move tanks in the future...

Thoughts?

 

I'd say go for it. If your really worried about all the nasties its going to kick up, put your current stock in a quarantine tank, re do the rockwork, then do a decent sized water change.

Don't forget before and after pics!!

~Will.

 

By changing your rock work, you will be disturbing your CC and may cause a mini cycle. If I where in your shoes, I would do it right from the start. Clean the CC and then play around with the LR. Or since your going to change out that tank a yr or so, just wait until then. Again, if I where in your shoes, I wouldnt be using CC.


Luna

 

Go for it, i just did mine and its loads better, makes the tank look bigger, lots more caves, and plenty of coral places, as long as you don't literaly stir up the sandbed or cc in your case it should be fine, i'm glad i did mine and don't regret it, take a look if you have not already its under, general,New Aquascape...

 

I think it depends how deep your CC substrate is and how dirty it is down deep. If it's been maintained well (vacuumed regularly) or is very shallow I wouldn't worry about it but like Luna said I would be concerned about kicking off a mini cycle by disturbing it.
Since your bottom layer is solidifying I'm not sure I would trust disturbing it, there is potentially a lot of junk trapped down there.

JMO

 

I also feel that any problems you have with this (mini cycle) would come from the CC area being disturbed

a year or 2 is a long time to put up with something your not 100% happy with and for this reason alone I would be tempted to do as follows

follow the procedure for moving a tank

strip down tank , locating corals in tubs, buckets etc
remove rock - again locating in large tubs or yes toy boxes (cleaned)

remove the CC - throw away half of it and thoroughly clean the other half

once tank is empty - rinse it and re fill with your saved water
re do you rock scape adding new base rock
add the CC you saved ( the reason I said to throw 50% away is this reduces the possible problems by 50% this is just a feeling on my part not sure about the science involved.)

if you have a cannister filter - use Purigen or some other chemical filtration media , which will provide a nice insurance for you against any mini cycle

Steve

 

I'll preface this by assuming you have ample water movement that if/when you stir up muck--at least 2/3 of waterborne detritus makes it to your filter floss, and not back down to the gravel bed. I trust that's the case, or else you'd probably not have a very sucessful reef tank. You've been around for awhile, so you have the game "down" as it were. IMO if you take it slow, you'll avoid a lot of problems, and probably be OK.

I would start by taking a turkey baster and blasting the LR, maybe do half the tank in one day, change out your mechanical filtration, then the other half, changing out the mechanical filtration after each time (wait until the water clears before pitching the floss).

Then once the rock is good and "clean," use a gravel filter and vacuum your CC substrate when changing your water. If done properly and slowly enough, you should be able to get pretty close to 100% of the muck out without getting ANY of it into the water column. I can't stress enough to go slowly. Take your gravel vacuum and push, wiggling it to the very bottom glass, then wiggle more as the gravel starts to rise and fall in the column of the vacuum. When finished with one spot, go to the next spot, like cutting out biscuits, making each "round" as close as possible to the last adjacent one. Depending on the rate of vacuum and the diameter hose you use (I had a 5/8" diameter hose att'd to mine back in the day), you might only get a 12"x12" section done per 5 gallons of water changed. If you're diligent, and do this daily, you should:
1. be done in less than a week,
2. not disrupt the efficacy of your bacterial filtration,
3. have a cleaner, healthier tank at the end,
4. have no issues moving around your LR when the time comes.

Again, take it slow, and you really shouldn't have any issues. It's like tank maintenance, just done in a slightly condensed fashion.

BTW, if you find that much of your CC has fused together over time from dissolution/buffering your tank--abort, abort, abort.

Good luck!!

 

If i was to "redigger" my rocks i would drill a bunch of frag holes into it (And also do exactly what sparky said). You could try that.

 

After much prodding, I have decided that too much of the substrate is solid.

I will leave it alone until I switch tanks. Not going to stir up this hornets nest.



But that got me wondering... well two things.

• apparently my vast collection of snails is not very funtional in stirring CC. ceriths, nassarius, etc. They burrow... but they ain't stirrin.
• Wondering if maybe a fighting conch would do the trick...

Just an update...

 

wise choice

Saltwater Aquarium Invertebrates for Marine Reef Aquariums: Super Tongan Nassarius Snail
they like to burrow