Redoing a tank

[juliethegr8t]

Alright, a tried-to-shorten bit of history. My 6 gallon had platies, cherry barbs, and gouramis in it. Cherry barbs had Camallanus worms very badly... platies ended up showing them too. Moved gouramis to 5.5 quarantine, treated 6 gallon with Levamisole, then Pipzine internally. (Many thanks to Lateral Line for his amazing support and knowledge throughout this time!) Finally got rid of the parasites, only lost the male cherry barb. Also during this same period, I planted the tank with live plants. Problem is, they all mostly died due to the medications and also due to the fact that they arrived like 3 days late and were half dead when they got here (ordered them).

Now I have about 3 live plants left... and one decoration. Tank looks ugly. I don't like it!! I need to fix it!

*pant pant* There. Ok, so algae is an issue, as is just plain ugly-ness. I really want to redo the entire tank and get it really clean, as it got pretty bad with all the plant issues. However, I don't want to cycle again. Is there any way I can go about this safely? Such as, keeping some of the gravel without washing it, and then returning it to the tank, and keeping the same filter media? Is that enough? This is gonna be a big and annoying job, but it has to be done, and I need to do it soon. My croaking and sparkling gouramis are still in the 5.5 tank and are gonna need to be moved so I can have room for betta falx.

Suggestions, advice, and overall help required! Thanks all.

 

[Jaded_Pulse]

I recently had to change my entire substrate in my 15gal - kept all the water, didn't touch the filter, & kept a couple of inches of water in the bottom of the tank so that when I stirred up all the good bacteria from moving the gravel, it mostly stayed in that little bit of water. Took a while to clear but all is good now. It didn't cycle or even get the tiniest amount of ammonia show up. I'd say you'll be fine. Have fun

 

[juliethegr8t]

Since you've got such a nice success story, I want to make sure I've got this right...

Before removing ALL the water, you stirred up the last few inches, and then removed that dirty water... then put it back in?

That's gonna look gross. However, if I'm right, that shouldn't be too hard, and that way I can wash all my gravel too, right?

 

[cometcattle]

You will probably go through a mini cycle if you wash all tour gravel. Right??

 

[daisycat]

Have to say that I wish we had been as lucky as queen gumby.

We recently moved our tank in order to make way for a new larger one. When we moved it we did not touch the filter (just unplugged it at one location and plugged it back in again at the new location). We had to lift the gravel in order to be able to lift the tank but we didn't wash it and we put it (and most of the old water), back in at the other end.

Within 5 days we lost half our fish to a massive ammonia spike that has still not come down to readable levels after another 2 weeks almost. We have saved the remaining fish by a combination of water changes, ammo-lock, ammo-chips and sheer good luck. The leopard pleco still looks incredibly ill and I am in two minds whether to euthanize it still.

The tank is now cycling ok and nitrites are coming up finally so we're hoping ammonia will drop off soon.

We've moved the tank 2-3 times in the past because of moving house and NEVER had this situation before. I guess we were very lucky those times, or very unlucky this time. Either way, if you mess around with the tank a lot there is every chance you will kick it into a cycle as we have learned the hard way.

Hopefully it will go well for you as it did for us on the whole in the past and we would risk doing it again - we may have to if we move again for example. But, we wouldn't be naive about it again. If you're going to do it then I would suggest you make sure you keep a close eye on the water readings and put your fish in another tank for a while if you have one available.

Good luck. Hopefully it will look great at the end )