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Changing substrate

1K views 17 replies 7 participants last post by  pmarkj 
#1 ·
Hi all i have been wanting to change the substrate on my 70l tank would i need to change all the water as i dont want all the water to be murky cheers
 
#6 ·
I think it is more clear to call it substrate as opposed to sand so some one new doesn't put in silica sand in a calcium carbonate based substrate.
Silica sand will cause algae bad if what I heard is correct.
Haven't done it myself but....
 
#7 ·
I just made that same change a week ago. I only replace part of my crushed coral so far. I also didn't remove all the Crushed and put live sand on top of what I didn't remove. Then I rinsed the sand REALY well, and I slowly lowered it into the tank in a container. My tank didn't have the slightest bit of cloudiness. :)
 
#9 ·
You wont need to change the water but i would think adding the new substrate will cause it to cloud up. You will have to wait a chunk of time for that cloudyness to go down but it will go down.

Try to lay something in the tank to pour the sand into to try to control how cloudy it wil lbe.
 
#12 ·
You wouldn't need to change all the water. I would suggest removing the current substrate little by little over a few weeks so as to not shock the system. When you buy your preferred sand make sure to rinse it well, that will help some with the cloudiness. As stated above, using a pvc pipe and pouring it down will help as well, so that the sand's not floating all around. An HOB filter with some floss will also help catch floating particles.
 
#13 ·
+1
Rinse it very well. Most likely there will be clouding no matter what you do. But the extent of how much will depend on how you pour it in and how well it's rinsed. When removing my sandbed I did it over a period of several months during each water change
 
#16 ·
It really depends on how deep the sand was and how long the tank has been set up. Removing it all at once may be perfectly fine in some cases and terrible in others. The majority of the bacteria lives in the rocks, but some does live in the sand as well (more if you didn't clean your old substrate often). Just make sure to test to make sure you don't see any spikes. Having something like Prime on hand would be good too, just to be on the safe side.
 
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