Changing substrate and adding plants

[Jbrock]

I want to change my substrate in my 29g 30L x18hx12w from a light brown gravel to a dirt or sand substrate that is much darker. Looking for some advice as to how to do this or if it would be a bad idea.

1 bristlenose pleco (plenty of driftwood)
3 peppered corys
1 emerald Cory
5 red eyed balloon belly tetras
1 guppy cobra endler (left over from a tank disaster 8 months ago...still thriving!)
AND
There's an immature female ACF who I will have its own tank set up with in a week or two 'cause that girl is growin'!

I also have two small plants, 1 onion bulb grass with four shoots that are nice and another plant that looks like its barely hanging on, and would like to have many more plants.

 

[NYgiantsRP]

You can definitely switch to sand. When you move the plants they might suffer some, but if they are growing now they should reestablish themselves. Just pick up any kind of sand you like from pool filter sand, to play sand and just rinse it like the dickens. You can leave the fish in and everything running, just get all of the gravel out, and then pour in the rinsed sand, try to scoop the sand with something and bring it to the bottom of the tank and dump it, re-scape and...boom! Done.

 

[Ian086]

Personally, I prefer to strip the tank down completely, whenever I switched from gravel to sand. Gravel hides a LOT of gunk and it's a great time to give everything a good clean. If you do it this way, make sure you have your sand ready in advance. As was said, you need to wash it really really well. A couple of large buckets for your stock and décor/filter(to keep the media wet).
Either way will work fine, mines just a personal preference....