adding crushed coral

[Jabis96]

i helped a buddy upgrade from his 65 to a 92 corner and this time used crushed coral instead of fine sand. i love how it looked in the tank. I currently have a 180 and originally had sand in my 125 and didnt like it because it was so fine and was a mess. I was thinking about adding crushed coral to my tank but i dont want to go through the whole process of taking everything out and putting it all back in because its a nightmare. so finally my question is do you think i can add it to the tank without taking it everything out? Has anyone done it? i just dont want to screw anything up lol.
i have a 180 with a 33 long sump ATI BM 250, mag 18 soon to be running neo zeo. Tank has mainly sps some zoo's and palys and lots of chalices. any advice would be great...

 

[onefish2fish]

i hear detritus settles in the cracks of the crushed coral causing high nutrients causing nightmares.


i personally would go shallow sand, deep sand or no sand.

 

[Jabis96]

what about a fighting conch that will sift through the sand?

 

[concept3]

what about a fighting conch that will sift through the sand?

they will work to a certain extent, but crushed coral, due to their looser structure will have a tendency to trap detritus in them. Ya gots to be pretty vigilant in keeping it tidy.

I'm too lazy for that, so I like it bald

 

[daveh285]

Have you seen the RedSea Reef base? it is small round spheres it doesn't pack or blow around like sand and it doesn't appear to trap detritus like crushed coral. I have it in my 95, The smaller snails, and conch keep it clean, and the yellow headed sleeper goby picks it up and runs it through his gills. My PH has also remained more stable since switching to it.Its been running almost two years now.