Day one of my 60 gal. make over

[Mr. Ono]

I have replaced all of my old substrate with new 120 lbs. of Carib. Aragonite and 40 lbs. of Fuji Live sand. I have a 4 plus inch bed in the tank now. But an error on my behalf caused me to add the last 40 lbs. of Carib Argo. to the tank when it was nearly full. And of course you know what happened next. See photo.

Prior to adding the extra 40 lbs. the tank was 50 % clear already after just one night.

So a few words of advice to all who want to start a sand bed. Add an extra inch in depth when dealing with dry mix.

Secondly use a tarp to cover the sand when adding your seawater. I picked up a 9' by 12' tarp at the hardware store for about 3 dollars. It will speed the clearing time of your tank. That is unless you make the same error I did with the sand bed depth.

When the tank clears I will post another photo, maybe tomorrow, fat chance of that

[cath]

Hey Mr. Ono-

Tell me more about why you're doing the make over? What kind of substrate are you replacing, etc, etc?


I'm mulling that over for my tank too.

[karsco]

Mr. Ono, been there done that. I slowly added sand to my 60 gallon tank to go from a 2" bed up to a 5" dsb. The DSB has been going for about 6 months now and I am really happy with the results. My nitrates are finally down, and it seems like I have a much more active sand bed in the form of worms, pods, and plankton. This is the healthiest tank I have ever had, and I believe part of this is due to the DSB. Anyway good luck, I think you will be happy with the end results....

[Mr. Ono]

Hi Cath, I most likely would not have done it except a friend wanted live crushed coral sand for his fish only tank he was starting up again. So I figured I could kill two birds with one stone. Get rid of my crushed coral and get a little money towards sugar size sand.

But of course I am out $125 right now, my "friend" doesn't have time now to work on his tank, but I did get some great arago and some Fuji Live Sand. Still have some Fuji left.(see photo). That is going into my new and improved Refugium. Well when I get the 2 used 20 gal. Plexis I need for my sumps.

The tank is clearing nicely, I can see the back plexi wall already. So tomorrow I'll post a pic. The dark grains in the top photo are from the Fuji Live Sand I mixed with the arago.

Jim at Pure Carib. Arago. was a great help with the tips aobut how to add saltwater to the tank.

[Brooke]

We had good luck using a garbage bag over the sand, then adding water. The resulted in almost clear water.


Good luck with the tank...it will clear up!

Brooke

[Mr. Ono]

Hi Brooke, my tank was just about clear after 10 hours but I checked the sand bed depth and it was at most 4 inches deep so I added more sand to the tank.

But today I have a tank again

[Mr. Ono]

Looking good

[Mr. Ono]

tommorrow my Mix and Match from IPSF shows up.

[mapster]

looks like everything went smoothly, congrats. I like the low profile tank, must be easier to do "chores". Keep up the good work and keep us posted.

[MontanaRocknReefer]

Gotta like that white beach sand look in your reef tank! Great works! Johnny

[Mr. Ono]

I like the low profile because I do not want to use MH lights. The bottom is only 10 -12" from the PC fixture. Right now I have 4 X 55 watts on the tank. May up grade to 8 x 55 watt if I get into hard corals.

I have a 45 gal. tall and You get your whole arm wet cleaning it. And i mean whole arm, all the up to the "pit".