switching from gravel to sand

[EMdina]

I want to switch to sand...however I don't want to kill my fish and plants...I really love the way that sand looks...I just don't know how to go about switching it...any help would be appreciated...
TIA
E

 

[flyhockey1037]

there is a post i made a few days back that explains it allllllll, ill try and find the link

 

[flyhockey1037]

i just put sand into my aquarium yesterday. what perfect timing u have. lol. i filled a bucket with tank water and temporarily moved all my fish and plants to there, then i drained the rest of the tank and gave it a good scrubbing (a shop vac works great for getting the water out quick, if u cant dump it). Then i dumped in my sand. Then, added water. DO NOT DO THAT!!!!! Add the water, then add your sand. Don't fill the water up all the way, so that u can reach your arm in to reinsert your plants and decorations. Go to a hardware store and buy a funnel with a tube attached to the bottom, and put that into the aquarium so that the tube is at the bottom where the sand should go and the funnel part is not submerged, then take cupfuls of sand, and dump it into the funnel, the sand should fall into place just fine. If you add the sand first and then the water, you will have massive amounts of sand clinging to air bubbles floating all over your aquarium messing up your filters big time. Believe me, i lost a filter yesterday to this. Luckily it was my old one and not my spiffy new biowheel jobby. then reinsert your fish ASAP, the sand does not need to be completely settled b4 the fish go back in. if you have any airlstones or anything you will need to wait a day for the sand to settle before u can put it in or else sand will cling to your air bubbles and fudge up the works. it really kind of cleans itself, all you need to do is swoosh the water above the sand and the debris stirs up and gets sucked into the filter. i am going to purchase the smallest gravel vac i can find so i can clean it easy. someone should invent an itty bitty underwater vacuum so i can clean this stuff easy. i hear that after a little while, the sand settles in so good that u can use a gravel vac and it will suck up the debris and not any sand, i guess u gotta wait for the "slime" to grow over the sand. i am very pleased with my new setup and im sure you will be too. phew, i think that covered everything.......o yeah...

anyone have a spare impeller for an HOB "second nature whisper power filter". It says E economy model filters up to 85 gallons per hour, 10 gallon special. its pretty old. if anyone has a spare i will pay for whatever shipping you will need. you can probably just send it in a padded envelope no problem tho. its replacement part number 69850 if thats relevant to anyone...

i thought way to much for that phew

 

[EMdina]

Thanks so much for the info...it doesn't sound too difficult, just time consuming, ey? you put your tank water back in, right? Are your fish handling the transition okay?
Thanks again.
E

 

[mrV]

I did the same, but I didn't take fishes way from tank. Just took gravel away and put sand on bottom. Before taking gravel away, is good to vacuum it well. I did vacuum it but not very well and the end result looked like this:

There are fishes, but you probably don't see any

However, it was only silt, so fishes didn't suffer it. After taking gravel away, I put sand, so there was lots of silt in water and "good bacteria" too, so I hadn't any problem with water values (like NO2-).

Silt went into bottom (sand) and filters.

After couple hours:

And next morning:

When replacing bottom and keeping fishes in tank at same time, you must be sure, there isn't any "dead spots" on gravel. If there is, you must vacuum those area very well.