replacing crushed coral with live sand

My first newb mistake was setting up my 10 gallon tank with crushed coral. It is going ok, doing a light gravel vac when I do my weekly water change.

But I am wanting to slowly replace the gravel with live sand to avoid any potential problems. Can I take out a little bit of gravel at a time and replace it with sand?

I was thinking of siphoning out the gravel and using a funnel with a hose to add a cap of live sand with minimal sand storm.

will this work if I do it a little bit at a time?

 

how long has the crushed coral been in the tank tharsis
if its less than 6 months old and you have been vacuuming it regularly
how deep it is - the shallower it is, the less potential for problems there are IMO

I do not believe you will create any issues by removing it in stages it is a good idea, as naturally at present it is contributing to your biological filtration, by accomodating bacteria
thus removing it all at once, could create a temporary spike

having said that
when I changed out my tank, I removed all the contents, water, rock, livestock
and then threw away all the established sand, and re set tank up with all new dry sand

if you do it as per your suggestion, I would suggest taking 4 weeks to do it, 25% each week

Steve

 

It would be best to swap out all at once, else the crushed coral will just mix into the sand.
Use dry sand, live sand will cause cycles.

 

Its only been set up for about 6 weeks, I used cured rock from my lfs so the cycle was really short. The gravel is about 1 1/2" thick.

I think I will do it in stages to minimize the potential ammonia spikes, I also have alot of rock so I think the spikes will be pretty minimal. My LFS sells live sand from their fuge attached to their 180 gallon display tank, so it is quite good sand and shouldn't really cause any mini cycles.

 

if its been in less than 6 weeks and you have a lot of rock,
then I would do exactly what Packleader advises above
its not been in long enough to be an essential part of your filtration system
it will be more convenient for you, and you wont have mixed sand and crushed coral in areas

Steve

 

cool...thanks for the help guys. I will do it one shot. Looking forward to it, on top of the potential nitrate issues, i find that the coral is just unappealing...especially in a small tank like a 10 gallon.

 

If you use sand from a fuge you will definitely have mini-cycles and nitrate issues. The sand in a fuge is loaded with nitrates that are being processed. That's the point of a refugium. Stir that sand up (like in a transfer) and all those nitrates will be released into the water column.
Use dry sand. The current bacteria load in your rocks will be plenty to seed the sand. Just rinse it real good before you add it.

 

ok, I just assumed that the sand would be loaded with denitryfying bacteria so they would just pick up where my gravel left off without missing a beat.

But dry sand will be a lot easier to deal with, no rushing back from the store frantically trying to switch it all out.

 

My tanks been running two years with crushed coral and I have 0 nitrates, highest I've ever seen it was <5 ppm.

 

i just finished switching from crushed coral to dry sand from marcorocks (not live) in my 28g nano. i did portions at a time and did not experience a cycle. be careful tho cuz adding sand will make your water cloudy and can stress your fish. try to use a cup or a pvc pipe to add sand instead of just pouring it in