saltwater to freshwater

[supersam]

I was to convert my saltwater tank into a cichlid tank. It has some live sand in it but mostly playsand. for filtration it has a empror 400. I would like to keep the sand in there, but I'm guessing I'll have to take out all the lava rock and protein skimmer.

what do you think?

 

[taylorhedrich]

What size is your tank?
~Taylor~

 

[colegamby]

id say you pretty much have to take everything out or at least clean it very well. Probably want to get new sand too. and you dont need a protein skimmer for freshwater.

 

[supersam]

oh sorry it's a 55g, I kind of figured i'll have to get new sand.

 

[gadazobe]

It has some live sand

I'm sorry - I know nothing about salt water tanks - what's live sand?

Back to your question - you'll have to change the sand, there are quite a few scaleless fresh water fish that can't live in a salt environment - and you don't need a protein skimmer. Lava rock is quite porous so I would imagine that there's quite a bit of salt in them, probably best not to use them either.

 

[jflowers]

It has some live sand

I'm sorry - I know nothing about salt water tanks - what's live sand?

Live sand is sand from the sea that has organisms and stuff that are needed in SW tanks, much like live rock.

You could leave the protein skimmer in, but seeing as you need and SG of over 1.006 for it to work there is no point. As for the filter, you will have to cycle the tank again as the beneficial bacteria in SW tanks is different to that in FW tanks.

Jon

 

[gadazobe]

Live sand is sand from the sea that has organisms and stuff that are needed in SW tanks, much like live rock.

Thanks

 

[parker313]

It has some live sand

I'm sorry - I know nothing about salt water tanks - what's live sand?

Live sand is sand from the sea that has organisms and stuff that are needed in SW tanks, much like live rock.

You could leave the protein skimmer in, but seeing as you need and SG of over 1.006 for it to work there is no point. As for the filter, you will have to cycle the tank again as the beneficial bacteria in SW tanks is different to that in FW tanks.

Jon

Ditto. Other than keeping the filter itself, heater and tank, you're pretty much just starting from scratch b/c all of the bacteria in the live sand and in the filter media isn't the same as what the FW fish need.