Hi Triton,
You said:
"
Hello I have a question. I am getting ready to take the crushed coral and undergravel filter out of my tank and replace it with sand."
Good luck, and good choice.
"
What I need are suggestions on how not to kill my fish 3 damsels a dwarf fire angle and a bubble tip anemone"
Well, I'm sure you're planning to keep the fishes and anemones in 'holding tanks' throughout the overhaul and cycling. Tubs or buckets will do. I like to siphon out some old tank water (before catching the fish or any heavy work that might silt it up) to provide 1/3 to 1/2 of the 'holding tank' volume. This reduces the chance of chemical shock. The new saltwater mixed in has to have been 'seasoned' or aerated for at least 8 hours, or allowed to stand a day. It's best to give each fish its own 'holding tank', each with aeration and maybe a saltwater-rinsed chunk of old LR (or some larger pieces of your old coral rubble) for safe measure.
"
also what kind of sand can I use and what is this home depot sand?"
Technically you're looking for calcareous, aragonite sand (clean, whitish ocean beach sand if you like), grain size ranging from 2.0+ mm to 0.06 mm diameter (coarse to very fine). Grain size is critical to the ability of infauna to travel through it. HD
Tropical Play Sand is said to come pretty close to meeting the above spec. The more 'Live Sand' you use to seed the HD Sand, the better.
Actually I'm personally not as obsessed as others over grain size. Scattered rubble shouldn't be too much of a problem (otherwise we should be worrying about live rock, eh?).
"
I also have a little 10 gallon tank that has a filter some cc and a power head and no water in it can I take the water out of the main tank I am changing over and put the fish in it..."
The 10 sounds a little cramped to me. Besides, like I said, it's ideal to separate the fishes and anemone. See previous comment regarding the re-use of old tank water.
"
also I need some advice on how long it takes the tank to cycle with the sand and should I use some of the old water in when I put the sand in the tank or should I just take the under gravel filter and cc out put the sand in and just wait for it to settle please help thanks in advance"
Total strip and clean is what I like to do. When you take that UGF out, you'll pretty much have a real silty mess on your hands anyway. So, new sand, new (but 'seasoned') water.
A 4"-to-6" deep bed is what you're looking to provide. Again, you can rely on using some Live Sand to seed the HD Sand, and/or you can look into the various 'Starter' or 'Booster' Kits. This board's sponsor, IPSF, sells such a kit which basically is cultures of the various beneficial lifeforms that make a sandbed 'live'.
Hard to say how long a new sandbed tank 'cycles', as it can vary with the amount of any cycled biological media you can re-use from the old tank. It can be anywhere from two weeks to a month and a half. If you have very little live rock in the old tank to re-use, I might suggest keeping some old, larger bits of crushed coral in clean, very-fine-netting bags within the aquarium. This will provide some nitrification/denitrification (so-called
biological filtration) while bacteria and other critters fill out your new sandbed, and the bags allow for eventual, easy removal --either at once or in small installments.
I hope this is what you were looking for.
Plan it out carefully, and block off the necessary time to execute.
horge
[This message has been edited by dark horge (edited 01-29-2001).]
