gravel change

[leah9798]

Hi! I have a 44 gallon hex , it was a birthday present for my son, and he picked out green gravel(better than the purple he originally wanted). Anyway, of course he could care less about it now and I hate the gravel!! I want to change it to natural. I know it's risky because of the bacteria and I did a search and read the other replies.

I have read 2 different responses. The first is to just put the new gravel on top and the second is to divide it up and do it slowly. I have absolutely no problem just putting a thin layer on top just enough to cover the green gravel. I was wondering though where exactly the bacteria is. Is it just on the top of the gravel or throughout? and if you put a layer on top is that gonna smother the bacteria(don't they need oxygen?).

Can you have too much gravel in a tank? Mine is already pretty thick, I'd say about 4 inches. I really would prefer just putting it on top so I'm not stirring my tank all up and stressing out my fish digging and scooping and chasing them with a net. Thanks!! I'm very excited!! Leah

 

[MAM]

i don't see why you couldn't just add it on top in a thin layer, but every time you vacuum, unless you just skim the surface (which means youre leaving a lot behind to rot below), youre going to bring up some of that green. what i'm doing is just removing a small area (a couple of inches square) (have black right now, switching to natural too), pushing the black back from it, and add the natural. it DOES stir stuff up, so i do it mid gravelclean/water change. that way i can change out most of the floating stuff. the stuff it swirls up settles within a few hours. its a long process but my tank is just too small to use a divider or anythign like that. so far its working. its going to take a while, as i just do a small spot once a week. you just can't do it all at once, as you know, because you'd have no more bacteria left.

 

[teknikz]

my tank started to leak....so i was loaned 1 and put everythin from my tank into the loaned 1....then when i got my new replacement tank.....i decided i wanted sand instead of gravel.........so thats what i did.......and the gravel is still in the loaned tank but my fish are in the new tank with the old water.....and i havent had even the slightest rise in nitrite or anythin

 

[Mogo]

Wow, 4 inches of gravel? That's way too much, and you should have a maximum of two inches IMO. Maybe others feel differently, but I think this much depth would make it difficult to do good gravel cleans, and besides, you're greatly reducing actual water volume.

 

[leah9798]

Oops!! Well, I went and measured it, it's not even but about 3 inches instead. It's about an inch and a half over the black on the bottom. Maybe I can remove little by little then add the other on top? Leah

 

[Cian McLiam]

I would say 3" is still too much, unless your willing to make a commitment to heavy maintenance almost daily. From my expierience, the gravel is the trash can of the tank, the more gravel, the bigger the trash can. I have about 2" in my main tank, but I use a battery gravel cleaner everyday and a good siphon 3 times a week during water changes. That really is the trade off, more gravel = more maintenance, so I would be wary of putting new gravel on top of old. I'd say a better plan is to replace the gravel in stages. Even with the maintenance above, the filth at the bottom of my tank when I had to move house recently nearly turned my stomach!!

Ken

 

[leah9798]

I agree. I just bought some gravel but I'm only going to do about an 1/8 at a time. I think at first I'm just going to push the old gravel to the other side and remove it slowly. It seems to have worked for others so wish me luck.LOL. Leah

 

[Moe]

I changed all of the gravel in my tank at once. I took out about 50% of the water in the tank then I took a pair of old pantyhose and placed about one-third of the old gravel, dirty as it was in the stocking. Then I removed all the rest of the gravel. I refilled the tank left the stocking with the old gravel in the corner of the tank. I did this with all the fish in the tank. I did stir up quiet a bit of dirt but it cleared by the next morning. I made sure that I had not cleaned the filter or filter pad for a week before and after the gravel change. I kept a close eye on the water parameters for the next 2 weeks. There was no problem ammonia and nitrite remained at 0. Whenever you change the gravel there is going to be a mess I wanted to get it all over with at one time. It worked for me.

 

[guppymonkey]

I would say 3" is still too much, unless your willing to make a commitment to heavy maintenance almost daily. From my expierience, the gravel is the trash can of the tank, the more gravel, the bigger the trash can.

I have about 2 " in my tank and its not deep enough for any of the plastic plants I have. The bottoms keep showing! Every day (and sometimes twice a day) I have to move the gravel around the plants so that they don't look (as) bad. I don't even have any big gravel mover fish, just a few tiny cory cats.

 

[Mogo]

Guppymonkey,

I'm assuming the plastic plants you are having trouble with are the kind with the plastic cup type bottom and not the kind with the weighted base. Here's a little trick to prevent this from happening. Pick up some 1-2 inch suction cups from your local hardware store. Drill a small hole in the knob type thingie, making sure not to pierce the actual suction cup thing. Make sure you use a bit that's about the same size, a teeny bit smaller than the stalk of the plastic plant. Jam the plant into this hole, and stick it to the bottom of the tank. I've found that most of the time the plants stay stuck in their suction cups, but if you have one that keeps popping out, use a dab of silicone to keep it in the hole.

 

[leah9798]

Well, now I'm bummed. I did change some of my gravel and now my ammonia is .25. So, now I may have completely screwed up my tank and I have gravel that looks funny. I'm praying it will go away and not get any worse in the next couple days. If it does I almost figure I mine as well finish it if I'm going to have an ammonia battle on my hand. I will use the pantyhouse next time. Please tell me all hope is not lost. Leah

 

[yhbae]

I'm reading this thread with a great deal of interest since I want to change my gravel too (from blue to natural).

Just curious, just how much bacteria are there living in gravel vs the rest of the tank? Assuming most use sponge media in their filters and other objects that provide surface areas (rocks, plastic plants, live plants, driftwoods etc), should removal of gravel cause that much changes in bacteria levels? Even if there is a small spike, it _should_ adjust pretty quickly given the massive existing population of bacteria...

 

[leah9798]

Hi yhbae!! I was thinking the same. I have many many plants rocks slate. I have read that people can cycle their tank in 24 hours using established filter media and some gravel or rocks from an established tank. It makes me wonder because if thats possible, then changing gravel shouldnt be that much of an influence on bacteria. There is debate of whether the most bacteria is in the filter or gravel, but who's right? LOL I wish I knew!!!

I think my ammonia has been compounded because I tested my tap water and the ammonia is 1 out of the tap. I had just done 2 PWC's within 2 days. So, the ammonia I'm testing may actually be detoxified ammonia that hasnt been removed by the bacteria yet. It's only been 2 days, I'm just going to be patient and hope for the best . Good luck to you!!! Leah

 

[Tolak]

I just changed all my gravel last week, due to a problem with my stand. Used a piece of 3/4" hose to siphon out the gravel with some water into a bucket. I read about this trick on this site last week after doing a search, and thought I'd give it a try. Worked great with minimal clouding of the water.

To rinse the new gravel I took a plastic cup and drilled some holes in the bottom, filled it with gravel and poured water through it. Tank was nice and clear by the next morning with ammo & nitrites at 0.

The owner of the LFS told me that any time you move the gravel around in a big way you risk an ammo spike, and when he goes on service calls for tanks he always pretreats the water with ammo-lock. I did'nt bother doing this, figuring any ammo being released was being sucked out with the gravel. It worked out well, and all my water tests come out good.

Tolak

 

[yhbae]

Hi yhbae!! I was thinking the same. I have many many plants rocks slate. I have read that people can cycle their tank in 24 hours using established filter media and some gravel or rocks from an established tank. It makes me wonder because if thats possible, then changing gravel shouldnt be that much of an influence on bacteria. There is debate of whether the most bacteria is in the filter or gravel, but who's right? LOL I wish I knew!!!

I think my ammonia has been compounded because I tested my tap water and the ammonia is 1 out of the tap. I had just done 2 PWC's within 2 days. So, the ammonia I'm testing may actually be detoxified ammonia that hasnt been removed by the bacteria yet. It's only been 2 days, I'm just going to be patient and hope for the best . Good luck to you!!! Leah

I'm not sure about the duration of cycling but I have 4 tanks in total. 3 of 4 never really went through any meaningful cycle as I used some gravels from the first tank and transferred the media (or squeezed water from it) from the first tank.

In some cases, with lots of java moss, I never detected ammonia or nitrite at all but nitrate is slowly building up so I guess it is cycled... (This happened in a small tank - 10g with some fries).

I guess at the end it is up to the % of bacteria living on the gravel in the tank. This cannot be huge.

Since I do have sensitive fishes in my tank I'll change a little at a time to make sure ammonia/nitrite never get chance to show up in any significant amount. (Hopefully plants will take care of them if they show up).

Leah, good luck with your "operation" as well!