What Happens If I Change The Gravel?

[criesofthepast_xx]

My 20 gallon finally finished cycling and im fed up of getting comments from people who come to my house and say my fish tank looks like hawaii because its too colourful i hate the colours to but i was just using what came with my tank until I got more money. I want to take out the blue gravel I have now and put brown gravel and live plants because now I have bright pink fake ones. Would my tank have to re-cycle if i change the gravel?

 

[mark.w.jones]

My 20 gallon finally finished cycling and im fed up of getting comments from people who come to my house and say my fish tank looks like hawaii because its too colourful i hate the colours to but i was just using what came with my tank until I got more money. I want to take out the blue gravel I have now and put brown gravel and live plants because now I have bright pink fake ones. Would my tank have to re-cycle if i change the gravel?

Are there fish in the tank or did you fishless cycle?

If there are fish in there it's just a case of doing a really, really thorough gravel vac. Then carefully scooping the cleaned gravel out and into a bucket. Make sure the gravel you replace it with has been thoroughly washed and voila, a natural looking tank. You will lose hardly any beneficial bacteria if you chuck away your current gravel so don't worry about it affecting your levels(unless of course you have an undergravel filter) If so then don't follow the advice above and wait for someone else to answer you.

If you have fishless cycled your job is even easier. Just keep up the daily ammonia additions and remove all of your old gravel without the gravel vac as you won't need it and replace with new gravel. Do a 90% water change the day before going to get your fish then fully stock over the next few days.

 

[fishboy619]

im kinda going though the same thing, but changing to sand, not gravel. i think it would be a bit unsteadly at first, but a lot of the bacteria is in the filter. ive heard leaving the old gravel in mesh bags for a while helps, but i dont know for sure

 

[criesofthepast_xx]

Ok thank you
I cycled with fish unfortunately (didn't know better than what the lfs told me)

 

[fishboy619]

it not a big issue, plenty of people do fish cycling, to be honest, my tanks are cycled with fish.

 

[Torrean]

Don't worry too much about a mini cycle. Just monitor your water stats after the switch for a week or two. Then perform water changes as necessary. Nothing to concern yourself over. Most of the bacteria is in the filter.