How do you change gravel?

[aloaring]

My 29 Gallon Planted tank has really dodgy gravel at the moment- being half multi coloured stuff and half natural stuff and I feel that it is too big (when i was a newbire didn't realise gravel was so important) If I wanted to change it what would be the best way without harming the fish or causing new tank syndrome?
Can it be done?

 

[Richard]

it can be a messy job 2 do

personally what i would do in yourr case to avoid loosing alll of your helpful bacteria is to change the gravel in several stages.

I would be inclined to remove the fish to another tank because your water most likly will get very dirty and may peak your nitrites due to releasing all the trapped waste.

Depending on tank size i would remove 1/2 or 1/3 of the gravel you currently have then replace that with your new gravel therfore the old gravel still has the bacteria and will colonise the new gravel.Then i would do a large water change to bring the water back into safer parameters whilst also getting rid of a lot of the dirt that was disturbed.

If you need to put the fish back into ther tank may be an idea to test your water before you do just to make sure its safe for them

can repeat this process the following week for the remainder off the gravel in which time the new gravel should hopefully now contain the bacteria so you wont get problems like new tank syndrone

this worked for me when i was changing gravel over in 1 of my tanks that uses an undergravle filter which i presume u have.If its not an undergravel and its an internal or external filter you can disregard all of the above and change all the gravel at once due to the bacteria being mainly in the filters themselves and not that much in the gravel.

hope this has been of some help anyway

good luck if you do decide to go through with it

 

[aloaring]

Thats a great help! I have internal filters so i can do it all at once, my only concern is that i don't think theres enough room in my other tanks for the fish. Do you think it would be okay to put my tank water in buckets and then put the fish in them. So once i replace the gravel i can then return the water and the fish?

 

[Richard]

seeing as you have internal filters best way is probably to empty and save as much water as u can into buckets you could keep the fish in the buckets i guess as shouldnt take a masive amount of time to do the tank.

It would also pay you to put the filters in another bucket and have them running this will allow water movement over the media keeping the bacteria alive as turning filters off for a length of time will kill the bacteria.

once you have removed as much water as you wish 2 keep you can get all your gravel out then empty the remainder of the water and clean the inside of the tank out.

next part is putting you new gravel in or sand even if you really feel like a change then dump your water back in put filters back in then once its all settled down your fish

 

[aloaring]

Thanks thats really good advice. Think I will go through with it as i really feel the gravel is too big for my fish especially the botias as well as spoiling the look of the tank. Think I'll probably go for small natural gravel as looking at all the members pictures that seems to be a really successful substrate for fish and plants. Once that done i won't be ashamed to put pictures of my tank on the forum! Just hope the fish won't mind the change! Hopefully get it done this weekend!

 

[Richard]

good luck you will have to post some pics when its done

 

[Tropjunky]

if u don't have a under gravel filter then u should be able to just scoop it into a bucket aver taking out plants, rocks and wood i'd do it slowly if ur gonna keep fsh in there