Changing gravel

[cd5]

I moving my aquariums to my new house soon and the thing I never really like was my gravel, my question is that I was wondering if I used most of the oringinal water, plants, rocks, and filter, would enough bacteria survive to prevent a drastic ammonia spike, my filter is aqua tech for a 55 gallon that I have filled with 5 bags of those aquaclear ammonia detoxifiers, the ones that are suppose to culture bacteria for the nitrogen cycle, I also used some conversion kit to add biowheels on the filter
Another question is I have been reading about people who paint the back of their tank, is there a specific type of paint that works best

 

[BASSNMAN]

When I changed my tank over and changed gravel, I put about 10 pounds of the old gravel in a plastic bucket, which I submerged in the new tank for 2 weeks. I also used the origional filter and most of the old water. Instant cycle.

 

[severum mama]

That's a really good idea. I've also heard of people putting some of the old gravel in a tied up nylon stocking for a couple weeks.

 

[turboTSI]

see I just change half at a time.. I take out have the tank (as in one whole side) add the new stuff then I change the other over in about a week and I add a few smaller (nylons) of the old gravel and put 2-3 in there to keep the bateria going.. just go yourself a favore and DO NOT rinse yrou filters before u add back to the tank... u want to save AS MUCH as u can


Dave

 

[Fishyfanatic]

I recently converted a gravel bottom to sand and had no problems with loss of bacteria. We did this mid-cycle as to not remove too much.

If I were you I would save the water, convert to the new gravel, and use the same filters, water, and decorations without washing away any bacteria.

Unless you have really delicate fish, you shouldn't have a problem. As mentioned above, it may be a good idea to put some of the old gravel in a bag and submerge it in the tank for a while. We didn't do it, but again, depending on how delicate the fish are.

I don't have any experience with painting the back of fish tanks so I can't help you there. I believe I saw paint at the lfs but it may have just been standard paint, I am not sure.

 

[russrimm]

Fishyfanatic, how did you convert from gravel to sand exactly? I was thinking of doing this as well. Do you just scoop out all the gravel until there's none left and pour the sand in? Simple as that?

 

[Fishyfanatic]

I scooped out all of the gravel. It will make your water messy so I started with a very very small partial water change (maybe 10%) by digging the gravel vac deep down into the gravel to get out most of the mess. Then I scooped out the gravel and put it in buckets. After that you have to rinse your sand. I am sure there is a much easier way of doing it but I guess I took the long way. I poured about 10 lbs of sand into a bucket, then I added tank water from the top of the tank. I mixed it around and scooped out all the stuff that floated to the top. Then I dumped it into the tank and after I was done with all 60 lbs I brushed around the tank with a net, mixing up the sand. This made things float to the top so I took a net and netted out some of the stuff. Then I started the filtration unit and let that run for about an hour before I added the fish back in.

Be sure to put something over the filtration intake tube because the sand will pull itself into the unit and can burn up. We haven't had that happen yet but I have heard stories. Also, your heater will have sand fall onto it and will cause the sand to melt to the unit. We have had this happen so you may want to move the heater as far up as you can without effecting the distribution of heated water. Your tank will be cloudy for a while. I have heard some people's tanks were only cloudy for about 2 hours but ours took overnight before it cleared up.

Depending on what kind of sand you use, you may have sand float to the top. To get rid of this take a net and move it quickly through the tank. It will make the sand break up and fall to the bottom. It may take a while to do this because ours kept floating back up to the top. Eventually it stayed at the bottom. Also, you may notice your fish eating the sand. We noticed that ours would do it for a while. It didn't hurt any of them but it may take a week or two for them to realize that it's not food. When rinsing out the sand I have heard some people use regular tap water. We didn't do this because we were trying to preserve some of the bacteria.

If you have any questions, let me know. I'm not an expert but it seems that we did a pretty good job at it.

 

[russrimm]

OK two last questions (i think). Where do you put all your fish during this process? I may do this to my African Cichlid tank, and maybe my community tank. Do you just stick them all in a 5 gallon QT all together?

Lastly, what do you put over the filtraton tube to keep the sand out? And do you leave it on forever?

Thanks!

 

[Fishyfanatic]

We put our parrots in a 10 gal QT. I bought those plastic hang things that fish stores use to hold your fish before they put them in the bag. I filled those with tank water and separated my other fish in those and left them on the counter out of cold air. They lasted perfectly fine. I'm sure that there is a better way to do it but that was the only time we have ever done that.

We used filter floss on the intake tube from our canister filtration unit. They have bags that you can also put on the tube but we just had the filter floss already. Anymore questions, feel free to ask away.

 

[FishLover14]

I recently converted a gravel tank to sand. i simply took out all the gravel vaccumed the tank till there was nothing left in the tank but the rocks and decorations. Then i turned my filter off and poured in the sand i turned my filter back on about 30 minutes later. My fish where all fine-My pleco got a little jittery..but other than that they did just fine.

JMHO

 

[StyleUK]

I might convert my gravel tank to sand too, but my tanks quite new, do you think this will matter?

 

[xray]

cd5 wrote "I moving my aquariums to my new house soon and the thing I never really like was my gravel, my question is that I was wondering if I used most of the oringinal water, plants, rocks, and filter, would enough bacteria survive to prevent a drastic ammonia spike" (sorry quote's not working)

cd5 be sure you do the switch either before or after you move the tank. You don't want to stress the fish out with a move and the gravel switch.

 

[SerLunchbox]

I personally don't recomeent that you switch all your substrate over at once. Its great that it worked for you all but i am a little more conservative when it comes to that. I actually leave some gravel (about 1/2") as a base. I find this is great for plants. Next, i took some of the sand and placed it in a 12lb bag (it is only a bag, that when flat is about 12" by 5" ... i filled the bag up 5/8's of the way then i went to the aquarium and added some of the water from it and then soem dechlorinator. I then sunk the bag to the spot i wanted it to be in (taking care to get the fish moved) and then opened the bag and gently dumped it into the spot where i wanted the sand to be. I found this process to be quite lengthy but it really kept the fish stress free.

 

[cd5]

Thanks for all the advice