going barebottom

[ckyuv]

so today ima start syphoning the sand out of my tank, i have a pistol shrimp i can not catch and it would be easier if he couldnt hide. question is, does the sand affect bio filtration so much that i should only do a small amount at a time? i will be going to florida in a few weeks and dont want to hurt the tank before i go

[jestep]

I would definitely do it slowly. There's a lot of filtration that occurs in the substrate. This one's debatable, but if you have a ton of detritus in the substrate, you can cause problems releasing too much of it while messing with the sand.

[ckyuv]

ok my plan is to remove all of it with a siphon hose and put a filter sock at the end to catch it and put the water back n the tank, best way i could think of lol

[(Bio)³]

ok my plan is to remove all of it with a siphon hose and put a filter sock at the end to catch it and put the water back n the tank, best way i could think of lol

make sure your not releasing a bunch of nitrate/ammonia build up.

[teg]

depending on how dirty the sand it, reusing the water is not a good idea. I would at least replace 30-50% of the water

[Woods]

There is also very beneficial bacteria in the sandbed that has been established as part of your current environment. Removing it all at once can alter that balance and cause problems in the short term while trying to refind that balance within your system. There are a lot of factors that go into that equation with bio load, depth of sand, length of time it has been established, etc. I would be very cautious about removing it ALL at once. Mentioning the beneficial bacteria doesn't even begin to touch on the other micro organisms and micro CUC that exists within your current sandbed that is aiding your tank at this time and removing all of that will alter that balance regardless of whether you stir the sandbed while removing it or not. I believe that there are others on this forum that have done this "all at once" removal and have had issues so maybe someone has personal experience they can share with doing this.

[ClarkiiCircus]

This might sound strange and "freshwatery" but my suggestion would be to first use a gravel/sand vac in the sandbed to suck up a lot of the nasty stuff trapped. That also takes out water, and is similar to doing a waterchange during the process. After you have gravel vacuumed then I would suggest removing the sand in small portions. During this time, be sure you're extremely confident in your filtration, as the number of denitrifying bacteria is going to drop significantly. Have your water tested frequently! If anything is out of whack, stop removing, and wait a few weeks for bacteria to re-establish somewhere else, then continue.

[victoly]

if it were me, I'd think really hard about making a big change like going BB before you leave the tank in someone elses care. It'd be pretty devastating to come back to an algae farm.

[(Bio)³]

I'm still offering room in my tank if you want to rehome the shrimp after catching him!

I found it easier with sand to vacuum out a shrimp... it pulls the ground out under them and sucks them right in.

[FarmerTy]

if it were me, I'd think really hard about making a big change like going BB before you leave the tank in someone elses care. It'd be pretty devastating to come back to an algae farm.

+1 I see disaster in trying to accomplish this and leaving it in someone's care while you are gone.

I'd be extremely worried about removing all the beneficial bacteria from your sandbed. To me, its the equivalent of starting your tank over. You'd be cycling your system again and would have to wait for the balance to strike again between the denitrifying bacteria and your bioload.

If you do it slowly, you may have a better chance of not starting a cycle... but if it was my tank... slow would be over the course of a 6-months to a year for the change. Anything quicker to me is too much of a risk.

In my opinion, definitely don't do the whole filter sock/vacuum hose idea. Your intent would be to remove the sand and put back nice clean water but just remember, you'd be disturbing the sand bed and that nice clean looking is chock full of nitrates, phosphates, hydrogen sulfide, and fine particle detritus. I would caution against it in my opinion.

[(Bio)³]

FWIW last time i saw someone mention doing this they did 1/4 of the tank at a time and almost crashed it. Had they not had emergency mixed saltwater on hand for rapid changes they would have nuked their tank.

[cMidd]

this is pretty tough to do, you could think about getting a small tank for your current fish/corals when doin this...again, it's gonna be tough to keep that thing balanced out during a cycle and with bioload

[bimmerzs]

If it's 1" - 2" I would do the filter sock idea. Before starting I would have a bottle of either some Dr.Tim's nitrifying bacteria or Fritz product(not a fan of fritz), enough water for a 50% water change, poly filter, cheap ammonia alert strip and a bottle of prime on hand. Start running polyfilter, suck out all of the sand returning the water back to the sump(so you don't remove more SW than you have onhand), perform 50% WC, add the Dr. Tim's and a bit of prime then turn the skimmer back on. I would do a normal waterchange in a couple of day's and check the poly filter color. Definately do this at least a week before leaving out of town and make sure that whoever is watching your tank, knows what they are doing.

Cheers,