Originally Posted by
Sancho
It may go through a mini cycle. The last time I did this I transfered all my water and live stock to a large Rubbermaid container and put a power head in the container. I put my live rock in a separate Rubbermaid with fresh salt water. I used my shop vac to get all the sand out. I than rinsed my live rock in DI water. My tank was very established I feared that there may be detritus built up in my rock and did not want to add that back to my tank. I Put the tank back together using most of the water I took out of the tank. Aside from all the critters that probably lived in the sand I had no losses. Although the tank did go through a small cycle which was easily managed with water changes. It was like setting up a new tank was cloudy all night but cleared in the morning and everything lived. There may be other ways to do this but this worked for me. There are ways to lessen the cloudiness I have heard others using plastic sheeting, trash bags, ect on top of the layer of new sand while adding the water.