Advice please! Just removed my substrate, when do I add new??

Had crushed coral substrate (quite coarse) just removed it all (sucked it out with a pipe during water change) - ended up being about 40% water changed out of the system...

I bought a bag of playsand from toys r us (same as Warr uses, nice fine particles and light in colour!)

Do I add it today or wait a few days?

 

Matt it would not matter when you start replacing. But I would wash it well, place in a drum with salt water and a power head circulating the water. Only put the pump in when everything has settled. When you place in the display use a 110 mm pipe and pour down it to create as little as possible disturbance.

 

alfie, do u need to wash it in salt water, could u not run fresh water thrugh it to clean it, then drain that?

 

Yes by all means wash it in fresh water and drain well afterwards.

 

Guys, some advice, clean the Toys r us sand probably. It is white sand, when you get it, it is beige. Even though it says washed, it has loads of muck in it. I had to clean it 5 or 6 times before it was perfectly clean.

use a large bucket and hose pipe, keep churning then let settle, drain water off and repeat till sand is White

I would hate to know what the brown stuff is and I am sure your tank wouldn't like it either.

 

Yup, when I saw it it looked so cream (compared to warr's), but washed it about 7x with tap water, and did last wash in SW.

 

I need for my DSB, but when I call Toys r us and Reggies it didn't state it was silica sand, you think its safe?

 

The playsand they sell at Toys 'r us is safe to use. It looks almost cream in colour but with a GOOD wash, comes out white

 

shot, must pic some up, what about mixing (say 50-50) with some live sand collected from the shore?

 

Yeah obviously if you seed it with live sand it'll help get your biological filter going, I kept some of my old crushed coral in the tank for this same purpose.