Changing From Gravel To Sand

[Keithoms]

Ok, at the moment my tank looks like crap. The white gravel is turning grey and black in someplaces and the plants are messed up.

I want to buy a new filter (Tetratec internals suck, please any recommendations? 16 Gal 60l) and then take out all of the gravel and plants and put sand in and re-plant. Bearing in mind i do have some eco complete stuff under the gravel, how do i go about doing this.

 

[Duck1976]

Ok, at the moment my tank looks like crap. The white gravel is turning grey and black in someplaces and the plants are messed up.

I want to buy a new filter (Tetratec internals suck, please any recommendations? 16 Gal 60l) and then take out all of the gravel and plants and put sand in and re-plant. Bearing in mind i do have some eco complete stuff under the gravel, how do i go about doing this.

I was lucky enought to have another tank as a holding tank at the time I did mine, so had another filter cycled.

All I did was:
Check levels on other tank, move fish into that.
Drian main tank, but kept water with the heater, internal filter media and a powerhead just to keep water circulating.
Emptied pretty much most of the gravel (kept a bit in to keep a slight "riverbed" kind of look)
Cleaned all the Argos Playsand (longest part of the job)
Put it in the tank
Refilled with existing water and got filter going again.
Left overnight
Checked all levels and re-stocked with a couple of the fish
Left overnight
Checked levels again and fully re-stocked tank.

There are a few on here who have done it really quickly. So long as your sand is cleaned and you have somewhere to store the water then you can drain tank, change over gravel, refill, get filter running, get heater running, check levels once it has settled down, restock tank.

Personally I think this is a bit too quick.

 

[Keithoms]

Why save the water? Aslong as its rougly the same temperature then itll just be like a 100% water change. And i can just bag the fish for the 20-30 mins it will take to do it.