Changing My Gravel To Sand Help.

[maxymax]

I just bought this quikrete playsand for my new substrate. I have an 30 gallon established freshwater aquarium with gravel and 10 fish in it with an amazon sword and an anubia. Can you give me steps on how to change my substrate. I was thinking on changing half the gravel to sand and a couple days or a week later I change the other half. Is this a good idea? Any tips would be much appreciated. Thanks for your assistance upon advance.

 

[JohnDyer]

I've tried changing substrate before, and it's honestly a huge pain. I ended up taking out the fish, taking out all the ornaments/plants, then switching all the substrate and replacing everything. It honestly was not worth the effort, and that was for a 10 gallon. Maybe someone here has a more intelligent idea.

 

[OldMan47]

I have seen people try to do a change as you describe and it has worked but it was not without frustrations. A basic approach used is to remove as much substrate as possible then use a lamp chimney or similar structure to introduce pre-washed gravel or sand. The idea is to get the new material right where you want it while minimizing the impact on surrounding items. I have never tried it but it seems to make sense to me. Otherwise I would remove all fish to a 5 gallon bucket and do the change then re-introduce the fish. The fish will experience a bit of stress but it should be within tolerable levels.

 

[kcartwright856]

I've only done a substrate change once, but it was relatively painless. I'll offer my tips.

- Sort out your fish, plants, and decor into buckets.
- Turn filters and heaters off.
- Scoop all of the gravel out with a large fish net. Place it all into another bucket.
- Drain the water with a siphon.
- Place new substrate in tank.
- Replace plants and decor.
- Refill the water in the tank.
- Place the fish back in the tank.
- Turn filters and heaters back on.
- Place some old substrate in mesh bags or nylon stockings, and then into the tank, to help reseed your disturbed bacteria colonies.

I find it best to do all of this in one go, as it does put a bit of stress on the fish. It's better to do it quickly and all at once.

 

[Saltcod]

I've only done a substrate change once, but it was relatively painless. I'll offer my tips.

- Sort out your fish, plants, and decor into buckets.
- Turn filters and heaters off.
- Scoop all of the gravel out with a large fish net. Place it all into another bucket.
- Drain the water with a siphon.
- Place new substrate in tank.
- Replace plants and decor.
- Refill the water in the tank.
- Place the fish back in the tank.
- Turn filters and heaters back on.
- Place some old substrate in mesh bags or nylon stockings, and then into the tank, to help reseed your disturbed bacteria colonies.

I find it best to do all of this in one go, as it does put a bit of stress on the fish. It's better to do it quickly and all at once.

As above... This is how I did it for a 190 litre aquarium. Took an evening but wasn't as traumatic as I was expecting

 

[maxymax]

I only have 1 bucket how will I make this happen with one bucket?

 

[Saltcod]

You will definitely need more to do it this way. I used a bucket for bogwood/filter media, one for plants, 2 for adding the water back in and then one of those large plastic boxes you can get from B&Q, Asda etc. for the fish. You could probably get all these for around a tenner or so.

 

[UKSPEED]

Buy some more buckets

I changed to sand and found it much easier to remove anything. Probably a bit kinder to the fish also.