gravel to sand

[noop]

one of my cories died last week, i don't know why. i'm worried it damaged its mouth on the heavy gravel in the tank, and i decided to change at least part of my tank over to sand

the guy at the LFS told me where to find some river sand but we were unsuccessful (nearly got lost). so instead i got some from a lagoon and i washed it thoroughly inside a pillow case. then i started removing gravel from one end of the tank. as expected loads of gunk came out and it was a big mess. i've removed about 1/4 of the gravel. i removed some water, vacuuming out as much gunk as i could, and then replaced the water, and repeated

i decided not to put the sand in today, as the fish have been stressed enough. most of the dirt has settled now though

i've got a large empty plastic bottle, which i've cut the bottom off. to put the sand in with as little mess as possible i'm planning to put the bottle into the tank upside down, and pour the sand into it. this should allow me to aim the sand aswell as reducing the amount that goes into suspension

i'll have to keep an eye on the pH as i reckon the sand has plenty of CaCO and the water's already alkali

i'll let you know how it goes

 

[noop]

it's all finished!

the empty plastic bottle thing turned out to be a waste of time as the sand didn't cloud for long at all and i ended up just placing the sand with the scoop i was using to pick it up

now the front right third of the tank is sand, and the cories love it. i was also pleasantly surprised to see the pleco playing in it. he loves to move the sand around with his tail, cheerfully covering any unfortunate fish that happen to be sitting just behind him in sand

 

[crazie.eddie]

Be careful with your filter, it could get damaged even with a grain or 2. With the pl*co moving around, it may kick some up to the filter intake.