changing gravel

[Ima Newbie]

Hi all! I have a cycled 55 gal. tank. Everything is looking pretty good. I'm getting pretty bored with the gravel that I have in my tank and would like a change. What are some good ways to do that? Would it be wise to do it?
Any ideas?
Ima

 

[keeper-of-fish]

hmm its gonna be a pain lol id drain it half way then scoop out the gravel i dunno if that would work to change it mabe ud have to drain it fully we will see what others say because im curious also.

 

[fishboy04]

HEY

Now its not as hard as it seem but this is what i did for my 29 gallon.

1. I bought 3 nice big cheap buckets from the dollar store and put all the new rocks in them. (make sure they are clean)

2. Then i fill them up with water.

3. Buy sum nice big panty hoes fill them up with rocks from your establish tank *two to every bucket*.

4. Do 25 %water changes every three days as if you were doing your tank.

5. Make sure your testing the water after evey week (not after the water changes)(24 hours after)

6. To speed up the process if you have a heater you can put it in the buckets. And all you need is one and try to keep the buckets at 80 to 85 degrees(f) so switch it from bucket to bucket and do it for about 1 to 3 weeks mine only took 2 weeks so if you don't want to try that maybe someone from the wonderful forum has a better way so plz keep me posted.

**********Good Luck**********

 

[aloaring]

I recently changed my gravel but my methos only really works if you have internal filters. I got a bowl and filled this with some tankwater and put the internal filter in that leaving them running so that no good bacteria got killed. Then scooped out the gravel using a jug then repalced it with the new fully washed gravel. The fish all stayed in the tank while we did this. Then put the filters back in and put all the decorations and plants back in. Took a few hours for the water to clear, we put in some stress coat for the fish ( we had no fatalities) and the tank now looks great. Good luck

 

[The-Wolf]

The quick way to do it is drain the tank (keep the water in a suitable container, I use two large pedal bins, brought for just that purpose). Exchange your old gravel with the new. put the old gravel (or some25%, most75%) in to some tights (pantyhose) and lay this on top of your new gravel. Then slowly fill back up.

48 hrs later remove the tights from the tank. hey presto job done

 

[rvm]

I'm with aloaring on this one. I changed mine recently, and because I have an external filter, most of the effective bacteria live in that, not the gravel, so it does no harm to change all at once. I did mine half one day, half the next. All the fish stayed in while I did it, and I had 0 fatalities IME as long as you are not using a UGF, you should have no problems.