Any Recomendations

[charles bentley]

Hi, i set my marine tank up with gravel (i no bad mistake), but I have naw bought some argonite sand naw. How would you swap this over, I shouldent swap it all at once i dont think because of the bacteria in the old gravel..... any suggestions? thanx

 

[rabbut]

By set-up do you mean it has fish in already? If so, what filtration method are you using, UGF, Berlin (live rock, flow and protein skimmer), or bio-mechanical (using a filter), other?

In most cases, you can swap over in one go, but obviously there are cases where it is unsafe to do so

All the best
Rabbut

 

[charles bentley]

live rock, flow and protein skimmer, and bio-mechanical (using a filter).

 

[rabbut]

OK, any fish yet?

 

[1entra]

if you have no fish or stock then simply take out the LR and replace the gravel with the sand. if you do have stock then depending on how much stock you have you could take stock out of the tank and place into a large tub/container (filled with tank water) and stick a heater in there. then remover live rock and replace the gravel with the sand and put LR back in. let it all settle (possibly overnight), ge water back up to temp and intorduce stock back into the tank.

the second option is going to be more time consuming so hope you haven't got any stock in yet as will save you some effort!!

 

[charles bentley]

I have 3 fish, blue tang, canary top wrass, and a pyjama cardinal, also 2 turbo snails.

 

[seffieuk]

Well, you could syphon up all the gravel, then place the new sand in a bowl and lower slowly, then tip the sand out - you going to get a bit of sand storm but much less than if you just tipped sand in

or

catch fish and inverts, place in a tub with heat and powerhead - leave lr where it is - get the gravel out and replace with sand, think that is what i would probably do, less stressful for fish (i find the easiet way to catch fish is with a glass then put your hand over the top when you have caught it

sounds like a recipe

seffie x

 

[1entra]

I would personally recommend doing it properly and getting the fish out of the tank and putting them in a tub with a heater and possibly a powerhead (although i have done something similar in the past without use of a powerhead and the fish all survived with minimum stress). i would also remoove all the LR in orderto get all the gravel out easily and then replace and let things settle (possibly overnight) before adding livestock back...

Good luck with it all ad let us know how you get on...