removing sand from existing tank

[Guppy Breeder]

whats the best way to do it? i want to remove my sand bed and go bare bottom as i have tons of flow and my sand is getting kicked up and im worried about it releasing nasties into my water colom, any advise would be appreciated

 

[melev]

How old is the sandbed?

 

[Guppy Breeder]

roughly year and a half but i use to have real bad phosphate issue( feeding wrong type of food) but now i dont and i wanna keep it that way

 

[melev]

You can turn off the pumps and scoop out whatever is in reach. Then siphon out the rest. Your rockwork will likely shift, so you may want to move your corals to a holding container with tank water. If you go that route, you can seriously breakdown the tank.

1) Corals in a frag tank vessel
2) Rock in a clean vessel keeping it submerged in tank water
3) Scoop out / siphon out all sand. Clean the tank.
4) Reset the rockwork and corals with tank water from #1 plus new saltwater. (The rock in #2 can be shaken in that saltwater to get rid of detritus before moving it into the tank again).

As long as the rock stays submerged 99% of the time, you won't have any cycle. Have plenty of new saltwater ready for this project.

 

[Guppy Breeder]

thanks marc, ill get more water before doing this project

 

[Guppy Breeder]

thanks again for the help marc removed my sand yesterday and love it bare bottom.

 

[melev]

Sure thing. Glad it all worked out.