As of yesterday, I had four tanks (75g, 2x 20g long, and a 30g square) that contained aragonite sand substrates. Suffice it to say that I’m not happy with any of them. I have two other tanks that contain pool (silica) sand (75g and 55g).
Over time, I have honestly felt like my fish are more active and look better in the pool sand tanks. The tanks with aragonite are relatively new (~8 months) and I have had more fish problems with them than with pool sand tanks. Maybe it’s a coincidence. Maybe it isn’t.
Recently, I have been operating on the assumption that it’s not a coincidence.
Regardless, I decided to remove all the aragonite from that tank today and replace it with pool sand. I did that in situ – meaning I left the sole occupant (a male occie) in the tank while I made the change. I did that mostly because the tank contains about a dozen shells and I wasn’t sure which shell he was in. I tried to find him but I couldn’t. I could have removed all twelve shells to a container while I did the change, but I decided to just move the shells around while I did the swap.
There wasn’t much aragonite (maybe 1/2 – 3/4″ total depth) in the tank, so it didn’t take long to scoop it all out. I replaced it with only about 1/4″ of sand. In my experience, Aragonite sand creates a very milky-like cloud when disturbed. So scooping out what amounted to about a gallon and a half of aragonite really clouded up the water.
I filter the tank with a Sicce Whale 500 canister filter (yes, that’s lots of filtration for a 30g, but I adjust the flow rate so it’s not a whirlpool), which I left running while doing the swap. I also employed one of my DIY bottle filters that I filled full of floss to help catch fine particulate that got stirred up. I knew that the two together would minimize the cloudiness.
Afterward, I cleaned the Whale thoroughly. The entire process, which took about an hour, also resulted in a 50% water change. You can see from the photo above that the tank is still a bit cloudy after about three hours. I removed the bottle filter once I filled the tank up, otherwise most of the cloudiness would probably be gone. I don’t have much fine mechanical filtration in the Whale media baskets.
It should be pretty clear by tonight when I feed all my tanks. We’ll see tomorrow what the sole occie thinks about the new substrate. I doubt he’ll come out tonight after I turned his world upside down for a while.