Gravel

[Wit]

Could someone please give me some information guidlines about changing gravel in tank. I have 2 tanks and I think one of my tanks is looking a bit dull due to the moonstone colour gravel I agreed to with my partner when I bought the tank back in June (yes I know... how can it look dull when its colour ? )

I think I like the more natural colours of gravel an pebbles and so on and was thinking about getting rid of colour gravel.

Was wondering would I have to move all fish or could I do gravel a section at a time when I do water change and do a second rinse of the new gravel in the water I just removed from tank or am I risking completely upsetting the tank and losing all ??

Advise and your own experience welcome.

Thanks
Wit

 

[soritan]

You can change all at once, if you like, it's just very messy -- lots of detris gets stirred up when you try. Changing a little at a time is tedious and sometimes difficult -- the gravel has a strong tendancy to mix, especially when you're gravel vaccing.

I've been doing it a little at a time, for about a week, on my 10g, and now I've come to realize that my senior's advice is true: it's easier to temporarily remove everyone, pull all the substrate out, lay the new substrate down, and carefully reintroduce. So I'm going to give that a try, myself, later this month.

 

[Torrean]

No personal experience.

IMHO you should do a good gravel vac then remove all the gravel and replace it with the new well rinsed gravel all at once. Soak the new gravel in dechlorinated water and scoop it out with a cup. Then lower it to the glass bottom and dump it out slowly. Keep a close eye on AMMO, NI, and NA levels for the next week and if they peek do a water change. Unless you have an undergravel filter if so your on your own. If you don't do regular gravel vacs you might want to look into AMMO LOCK. It's possible that a pocket of ammonia is sitting in your settled gravel waiting to kill your fish. The Ammo Lock should help offset this.

If you are worried about a mini cycle (which you should be, it is very likely that what I suggested would lead to a mini cycle) then remove half the gravel and use some sort of divider to seperate the old from the new. Two weeks later remove the old gravel and replace with new. I hope I'm right about this. It is really just an educated guess. Run it by a few more people before you do it please.

 

[Tolak]

I've done it before, with fish in the tank, & without. If you are in a hurry to change the look, remove the fish temporarily. Get a large net, or cup with holes poked in it, use this to pull out the old gravel. If you have a syphon hose with a 3/4" inside diameter or larger you can syphon out the gravel.

If you aren't in a hurry, vac the gravel real good every other day for a week. When you think it is real clean, use a large bore syphon hose to pull out the old gravel, just be careful of fish, especially smaller ones. They will zip through the hose in a blink. Torrean pretty much covered gravel replacement.

If you have an undergravel filter, you will have no choice but to pull the fish out. This would be an excellent time to upgrade filtration if you are running an ugf.

Tolak

 

[Wit]

Thanks all for your input on this. I did not really want to move the fish because the only place I could put them is in my Rio 180 and that is not ready yet (Only 7 platies in 180, +1 platy started with whitespot so just treated). I'm in no hurry to do it this week but I will make my mind up about doing it next week when I am off work and will have the time to get it done and keep an eye on the water and fish (good reason not to finish xmas shopping).