Substrate change

After alot of good advice from members Im thinking I need to change my substrate from gravel to all sand, mostly to benefit my Cory’s I have a few questions about how to do this safely as I will not be able to remove the fish from the tank. So questions are
1 - do I change a but at a time, then after a week more etc?
2- will sand raise my levels. I already have hard water and a ph of 8?
3 - Will live plants still be ok in sand if i use root tabs?
3 - is the aqua sand from somewhere like maidenhead aquatics good enough?
4 - am i correct in thinking about 2.5cm deep and to rake through it weekly to stop gas bubbles.
Thank you for all your help

I only know the answer to number three. Yes, plants can survive in sand. I have an anubias, an Amazon sword, and dwarf hair grass in my 20 gallon, and they are thriving. It wasn’t one of the questions, but my cories love CaribSea Supernaturals, and don’t recommend using seachem flourish sand, it is very rough and one of my cories got columnarius and died from the rough edges. Good luck with your tank!

You'll have to remove all live stock from the tank in order to change the substrate. What is the GH of your water? To my knowledge, Cory's are a soft water fish. You having hard water could pose a problem for you keeping them

Kay131366 said:

1 - do I change a but at a time, then after a week more etc?
2- will sand raise my levels. I already have hard water and a ph of 8?
3 - Will live plants still be ok in sand if i use root tabs?
3 - is the aqua sand from somewhere like maidenhead aquatics good enough?
4 - am i correct in thinking about 2.5cm deep and to rake through it weekly to stop gas bubbles.

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1 - I would do it all at the same time. It will go pretty quick
2 - sand should be inert and not have any effect on things like pH. Just make sure you are getting sand and not marine sand (which would alter your water parameters)
3 - you can grow plants in sand with root tabs, or use plants like java fern and anubias that you attach to wood or rocks in the tank and then you can just use a liquid fertilizer
3 - b(?) - see note above - any inert sand (not marine sand) should work but please WASH THE SAND first. Put it in buckets, run hose water through it, agitate with your hand, dump the water out, rinse and repeat like 10 times. Seriously. If you don't do this you'll have cloudy water and all kinds of dirty particle looking stuff in your sand.
4 - you'll probably need to go about twice as deep if you are going to put plants in the sand.

I did this not long ago on 2 of my tanks, didn't remove the fish just took out about 80% of the water then i used a pooper scooper (unused) to remove the gravel and added sand that i washed thoroughly.

Did it all in one go.

It didn't alter my water perimeters at all (i used play sand) and yes you can add live plants with root tabs.