replacing a sand bed

i've been thinking lately on replacing my live sand bed. the sand i have right now is too fine a pieces of it are always flying all over the tank creating a huge mess.
i thought about getting Carib Sea Ocean Direct Live Pacific Black Sand - 40LB. - Decorations - Marine Substrates at BigalsOnline and mix it with some GARF live sand activator NATURAL ALGAE CONTROL FOR REEF AQUARIUMS
how do i do it?
someone told me i shouldn't do it all at once but i'm scared that the new sand will get mixed with the old one and then i basically did nothing.

any ideas will be appreciated ;D

 

Hi Maxxt

can you give us more details about your set up
Dimensions
How long its been set up
current filtration ( rock work, and or other aspects)
current stock list

there are different ways to handle this situation - and the answers to above will affect advice given

if it was a low stocked recently set up tank (less than 12 months) with plenty of live rock

what I would do is
empty the tank and contents into holding containers
remove and discard last inch of water and present sand bed
re set tank up rock work
introduce new sand bed
replace live stock

with an older more mature set up, then removing in in stages 1/4 every other week is probably a better option and replacing with the new live sand as you go

a syphon of a wide enough bore so as to not clog quickly, ensuring you get the water to sand ratio high ( you will want to discard the water as the action of syphoning will release some nasties you dont want to pour back in your tank)


Steve

 

hi Steve!

my tank has been set up for about 7 months now. it's a long (48 X 13 X 21) 55gal. it had ~70lb of live rock. about 17gal sump/refugium. the refugium is about 1/3 of the sump and it is full of cheato. i have a protein skimmer rated up to 100gal, and i sometimes use a filter sock but not always.
fish: 2 percs, diamond goby, foxface, yellow tang, lawnmower blenny, six-line wrasse and a mandarin goby (a bit overstocked i know...)

corals: candy cane, mushrooms, pulsing xenia, toadstool frag, yellow toadstool, spaghetti, ricordea, brain maze, lobo brain, assorted polyps, torch, frogspawn, and some more small pieces.

inverts: CUC (3 kind of snails, hermits), maxima clam, squamosa clam, 2 fire shrimp, tube worm, spiny cucumber.

that's gonna be hard!!!

 

i have alot of stuff in mine and made the mistake of putting gravel in my tank and now want sand so im watching this

 

if you dont want to go through this whole ordeal of doing a new sand bed, you can just overdose on calcium and let it precipitate out to firm up your sand bed. Its not a traditional practice, however I have used it on multiple occasions to firm up some if my very fine beds.
The particles dont get larger but they just become loosley bonded together and dont move as easily in the current.
With time bacteria will also create a large biofilm throughout all of your sand and this will also prevent it from blowing everywhere.