Swapping Gravel To Sand

[75gallon]

Hello I am new to TFF
 
I have a 75 gallon tank with a 1ft 4 inch pleco. 2 mollies 8 platys. male guppies and 12 female guppies  
 
my tank on the stand is 5ft tall.
 
I would like to take the gravel out and replace it with sand. my problem is I want to leave the fish in the tank and also getting the gravel out the tank.
 
 the attach file is my tank
 many thanks
 

 

[SamB]

What's the issue with placing the fish in a holding tank / tub while you switch substrates?

 

[75gallon]

its catching the pleco with him being so big and 6 of the platys are fry

 

[fluttermoth]

You could try syphoning the gravel out with a wide bore pipe, like a piece of hose.

 

[75gallon]

 thank you but I have tried that but it dose not have enough suction to suck the gravel .
 
I could do it with a net and take a bit out at a time so it dos not stress the fish what do you think?

 

[fluttermoth]

Get the fish out if you're going to do anything other than syphon.
 
They'll be fine in a large bucket for a few hours.

 

[75gallon]

ok thank you the last thing I want is my fish to die from the change

 

[fluttermoth]

I don';t think they'd die, but they certainly wouldn't like it.
 
Last time I changed substrate fish in (apart from once, recently, when the substrate had only been in a week or so), everything came out in white spot two days later!

 

[CJH0825]

I would remove the fish, then take the substrate out. You don't want the fish getting stressed out from all the movement of getting the substrate out ( if you can't syphon it ).

 

[75gallon]

I done it and I didn't have to take my fish out I used a wide pvc pipe and a wide pvc house it just sucked the gravel with no problem what so ever it took me less than 5 mins to get all the gravel out my tank