Is This Feasible?

[gex18]

I have a juwel rio 400 tank and currentely have a gravel subsrate, and inhabitants are discus, apistos, cardinals and corys, however i am wanting to swap from gravel to sand, but have nowhere near enough containers to hold all water needed and tank has just had major upheavel, so was wondering if i could siphon the gravel out and add the sand via a siphon (and do water change at same time), while fish are in situ? Also how many 25 kg bags are reccomended for a 60" x 24" x 20" tank? And what sort of depth is reccomended (will be growing plants also)?

Cheers guys

Anthony

 

[smmetz]

I think syphoning out gravel will not work, it is too dense. You would probably drain the tank before you got much of the gravel out. Maybe you can put a big bowl in the tank, and scoop the gravel into it, then dump it and repeat?

I think I read something about bad bacteria forming if you have more than 2 inches of sand. However, I also read that plants like about 2 inches of sand. So, I would guess that 1.5-2 inches of sand is OK for a planted tank. Hopefully someone with first had knowledge can post and clear up the optimal sand depth issue.

 

[SamUK]

i bought an 80 litre bin from B&Q or somewhere like that and use that to house my fish whilst im doin any work on there tank.

was only about £7 so maybe get 2?


when i did my tank with a 48"x18" base then a 25kg bag was plenty for a 1.5"-2" covering with some to spare so id say 2 bags would do fine.