Gravel

[waterdrop]

Its a good thing though - you stir it all up and siphon a bunch of it out and then the filter takes out more... then you do it again and in a well-maintained tank it stays at an ok level, with nice clear water.

Hopefully you've lowered your water level as much as possible to facilitate the gravel removal?

~~waterdrop~~

 

[rdd1952]

Simplest and easiest way to remove sand or gravel is to remove the vacuum end of the hose. With just the hose, there is a tremendous amount of suction and you can suck out the sand or gravel (provided the gravel isn't larger than the hose). You will probably have to put the water back in a couple times but it works great. Jut don't get the hose tooclose to fish or plants or it will pull them in too.

 

[waterdrop]

Wow, great tip RD! Do you usually hasten the process by taking out big scoops first and then use the suction method for the last of the gravel?

WD

 

[rdd1952]

If you have sand, that would probably work without stirring up all the trash although, I have always just sucked everything out. But with gravel, if you start removing scoops, you will probably end up with all the trash in the water. Using the hose pretty much eliminates the trash as it goes straight to the drain bucket. You may have to let it settle a little each time you put the water back in though so that you aren't putting the trash back.

 

[Dan81192]

Just make sure that when you ptu my gravel in you do it carefully and make sure it is fully cleaned before use. best way i found was get a baking sive and run water throguh until it goes through crystal clean. with sand its alot harder. i put it in tank and just emptied tank several times until clean.

 

[Hallett]

Do you mean like the gravel cleaner hose because the suction on that isn't incredibly powerful? I have devised a plan. This is going to happen on Thursday (my day off). Get the fish out and place them into a bucket filled already with tank water and place the tanks heater in the bucket to keep the temp up for them.

Then get the gravel out, plants etc. Add the new stuff not sure what to get yet something sandy I expect (not play sand). I was just wondering if I should change the water like say 75% after doing all this. Not sure how much that'll effect everything I know its going to be pretty stressful on the fish. Don't want to destroy my bacteria either. If I keep my filter submerged in tank water that should be ok?

 

[sirichmond]

We have sand in our tank like a meutral colour got it from the lfs so it was not the really dirty stuff but the besr way i found to rinse it clean eas to put it into a pair of tights that way there is constantly fresh water going thru and you dont loose any sand!

Good luck with the change over

 

[waterdrop]

Do you mean like the gravel cleaner hose because the suction on that isn't incredibly powerful? I have devised a plan. This is going to happen on Thursday (my day off). Get the fish out and place them into a bucket filled already with tank water and place the tanks heater in the bucket to keep the temp up for them.

Then get the gravel out, plants etc. Add the new stuff not sure what to get yet something sandy I expect (not play sand). I was just wondering if I should change the water like say 75% after doing all this. Not sure how much that'll effect everything I know its going to be pretty stressful on the fish. Don't want to destroy my bacteria either. If I keep my filter submerged in tank water that should be ok?

The suction on a siphon will be directly related to how much height drop there is, so the higher the tank and the lower the bucket, the better. For moving sand or gravel, I would think a shorter hose without connectors or other obstructions would be better in case any rocks are still in there in the end. Of course, be sure you have already obtained the new gravel or sand prior to your operation!

If you have a cannister filter it should be easy to keep it running by just putting its hoses into the bucket. A HOB may be more difficult as it may need a straight surface to hang on, so you may need to be more creative. If you can't run your filter, just be sure to keep the media submerged in tank water.. you can even refresh the tank water manually if the process is taking a long time. Good filter bacteria takes pretty long to die off. Probably a small die-off percentage starts only after an hour of it not getting fresh oxygenated water and ammonia. If your tap water has reasonably good tests, your fish should not be too stressed by a large water change where you re-condition (dechlorinate/dechloraminate) the water and do a rough temperature match with your hand (technically making assumptions here, but assuming fish not to unusual!)

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Hallett]

Thaanks for the advice I don't think i'll be able to keep it running but I'll deffo be able to keep it in a bucket of tank water. How many bags of sand do you think i'll need. I had about 3 bags of gravel not sure about how much sands required and if i should line the bottom with anything first.

 

[waterdrop]

no clue, I always just sort of look at the bags in the LFS and guesstimate...

 

[Miss Wiggle]

we switched our tank over to sand this weekend, looks loads better. just used playsand, it takes a fair bit of washing but it's not too bad, here's my little step by step guide

1 - get about 3 times as much sand as you want to put into the tank
2 - get half a bucket full of sand, run a hose pipe into it and stir it all up so the sand is mostly floating in the water, you'll get a load of scum rising up, when the water level is at the top of the bucket remove the hose pipe and scoop off the scum from the top, give it 2/3 minutes and most of the sand will settle, if you put your hand in the water it's easy to tell when most has settled. pour off the water form the bucket, you will loose a load of sand too, don't worry about this. The actual clean sand particles will sink quickly, all the other bits of debris will stay floating longer so you'll end up getting rid of most of the mank.
3 - repeat this process several times, you'll only get the sum the first 2/3 rinses, then you'll start to see loads of particles of debris being washed away.
4 - keep repeating this process until the sand settles within a few seconds and there's no debris left on top of the sand, you'll loose a lot of sand in the process, don't worry about it. You can expect about a third of what you started with.

repeat the whole thing until you have enough washed substrate for the tank.

this is best done in the middle of the day in the summer....... done it at 10 at night in the winter once and it was very very cold!!

 

[waterdrop]

better yet, done on the beachhouse deck with beach below, in swimsuit with beer in hand!

 

[Miss Wiggle]

lmao, all right for some isn't it!! I have to do it out on the pavement outside my house, at least it was fairly warm yesterday although i started at about 4pm so by the time i was done it was just starting to cool down a bit.

 

[waterdrop]

we've had a week of hot where at least two days were 101F

 

[Miss Wiggle]

it's been warm here too, Ian reckon's it's been peaking around 40oC but it's been quite chageable with it, keeps randomly raining loads.

did that yesterday, lovely drive through the countryside, saw there was a classic car show on so thought we'd pop in, queing up and the heavens opened, i was only wearing flip flops, cropped jeans and a vest so we decided to leave it for another day!!