Starting Over

[FishSticks]

Hello, I learned a lot of things from my 55 gallon aquarium. It was my first tank over 10 gallons and also my first planted tank I want to start all over, but this time learning from my mistakes, the right way.

• I want to get rid of all that white filter sand in my aquarium, 70lbs of it! It gets dirty too easily, algae is very hard to remove from grains of sand, and it's just not a good enough substrate for my planted tank.
• I also want to get rid of ALL my plants, because i did the stupidest thing ever and added 2.5w of light and the fish and sand a month before I added any plants. So every part of my aquarium has bits of hair algae all over it.

Now my questions is if it's safe to do the above and leave my aquarium running bare with just the filter and heater and only 1 wpg of light for a while until all the hair algae either dies or is removed? Will I have to cycle my tank again, or will the bacteria on the filter, glass, and on my 11" piece of driftwood keep things running? Any and all suggestions are welcomed!

 

[tttnjfttt]

Your post doesn't say if you have fish left or not, or how the previous occupants might have died. This advice assumes there are no fish left.

As for cycling your tank again, you can add pure ammonia to the tank to leave food for the bacteria. As for killing the alge, I would put a blanket over it and leave it completely dark. No clue how long it might take though...

 

[IMCL85]

maybe its better just leave the the tank bare like what I did with my 75g tank. And have some discus in tank alone with a driftwood. I find that bare tank is alot easily to took care then planted tank as planted one have alot of stuff to do during disease/parasite treatment . Just make sure u run ur cycle again. As u r using ur old filter it should take alot less time then a complete set up of a brand new tank. And if u have algea problem you cant really do much as there always be algea no matter what u do or where u put it.

 

[FishSticks]

I'm sorry, silly me, i forgot the most important detail. I've never had any fish die in this aquarium and I currently have 4 loaches, 5 Gouramis, and 5 SAE. If I had no fish I would've just cleaned everything out and start completely over. That's why I want to know if the bacteria on whatever is left in the tank will be enough to support life, keep the tank cycled without the sand or plants?

 

[Mike&Diana]

You will most likely suffer from a "mini cycle." The problem is that the plants basically live off of ammonia. Therefore, your tank doesn't require a large colony of bacteria to break down the ammonia. So, once the plants are removed, the bacteria will need some time to build back up. My recomendation is to proceed with the desired changes and test the water daily. If you see ammonia or nitrIte spikes, change the water daily until those levels reach zero. Good luck!

 

[tttnjfttt]

I would say to go slowly. You do have a large reserve of beneficial bacteria in your filter. You might want to start by removing the sand, but leave everything else in there. A few days later, if you don't start a mini-cycle, maybe remove the plants. Wait a few more days, here you might face issues with the pH because you won't need CO2 anymore. Later, go ahead and give the tank a good scrubbing and clean the decorations. Also, if you lower your light, or even turn it off for an hour durring the day, you will also kill some of the alge.

 

[FishSticks]

Thanks everyone! I think I'm gonna give it a try.

 

[Fish 'R' Fun]

Start a mini cycle using an ammonia concentrate!
THat would be best becuase it not nice to risk killing a fish during the cycle