Replacing sandbed for goby..

[Sarabeth3412]

I have a 20 gallon cube that’s been established now for mid-2021. I’ve always had a sand bed that had the coarse live sand. I got the live finer sand today in the mail and want to replace the current sand bed with the finer sand for the sake of my golden head goby. That said, since it’s live sand and my tank is established with nutrients in the sand bed, I don’t want to shock my system by doing a complete swap of the sand. Does anyone know the best method to do this? Should I rinse the live sand with RODI then just replace? Should I rinse and do 1/2 change? Advice is much appreciated as I don’t wanna kill my tank and all the hard work I’ve put in it. Thanks!!

 

[laezur]

I wouldn't rinse live sand, but I also wouldn't look to replace my sand because you're going to remove some bio-diversity and potentially unleash any bad stuff hanging out under the sand bed in terms of toxins etc I believe. It's going to probably cause some form of mini-cycle

 

[brandon429]

You need to do it all at once it's not a shock. Doing it partially is dangerous. Here's two threads, copy the first one, the other one shows fifty pages more of the same science so you can see you have it down safely

EMERGENCY - Substrate change

Hi all, I’m really confused and need advice. I currently have crushed coral in my flu all evo 13.5g which due to a month in hospital the sand bed got so badly stained I can’t clean it and it looks gross. It’s a mixed tank with a clown, fire fish and 2 cardinals. I’ve ordered caribsea live pink...

www.reef2reef.com

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

The best way to prepare your sand for use in a transferred reef tank, an upgraded reef tank, a reef tank under invasion etc is to put the sand in sections in a bucket and TAP WATER rinse it outside over and over with the garden hose until all the silt / waste is ejected, expect hours of work per...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[C4ctus99]

It might not be worthwhile, I have had the course aragonite sand and a diamond goby that sifted it fine. I do know that if you completely replace the sand bed then the goby won’t be able to get any nutrients from it and may cause feeding issues. I had one goby die cause the tank sand was too new and he never tried to filter it. Do you have pods or anything in the tank?

 

[C4ctus99]

You need to do it all at once it's not a shock. Doing it partially is dangerous. Here's two threads, copy the first one, the other one shows fifty pages more of the same science so you can see you have it down safely

EMERGENCY - Substrate change

Hi all, I’m really confused and need advice. I currently have crushed coral in my flu all evo 13.5g which due to a month in hospital the sand bed got so badly stained I can’t clean it and it looks gross. It’s a mixed tank with a clown, fire fish and 2 cardinals. I’ve ordered caribsea live pink...

www.reef2reef.com

For some reason I can’t see the URL in your post until I quote it, maybe it’s cause I’m on my phone

 

[brandon429]

You would feed the goby food pellets they don't live on sandbeds. There aren't much nutrients for use in reef tank waste beds like there are in the ocean, worms and bugs etc

 

[brandon429]

You would rinse the new sand. That's what the fifty pages is for, so you can assuage any doubt about skipping the prep rinse in the new sand marked live. It's specifically not live with goby food, you'd rinse it so you don't destroy your new tank with unrinsed sand clouding. Fifty pages/ perfect tanks/ must pre rinse

 

[C4ctus99]

You would feed the goby food pellets they don't live on sandbeds. There aren't much nutrients for use in reef tank waste beds like there are in the ocean, worms and bugs etc

My diamond goby did eat pellets on occasion, the next one I got wouldn’t touch them, several people were saying that they filter feed the sand for copepods and other stuff for food and pellet feeding can be hit or miss but ‍

 

[brandon429]

they may want the thawed frozen food options etc, but any goby in a common reef tank mid size/nano tank if stopped being fed would starve on sandbed fare it's too thin. whatever it's eating in her tank currently it'll continue eating as it turns over the new rinsed sand. he's just doing that due to evolutionary training but it's not that much nutrient missing

 

[Sarabeth3412]

My goby eats frozen food, pellets, etc. I have copepods too. I know he doesn’t live on the sand bed. I just feel he’d be more comfortable with the finer sand and I personally just want to change it. I wish I would have started with the fine. I’ll read through the links provided and see what I can find. I just didn’t want to harm anything in my tank. Thanks everyone!