Replacing Sand...(Dilemma)!

[lil'nemo]

Hello out there fish lovers. I've encountered a difficult task that maybe you guys could help me out with. Currently I have a sand-type substrate in my aquarium and was wondering how you'd go about taking the sand out? In my case I want to switch it to a small round pebble kind of gravel. The problem is...I can't exactly just scoop it out...small particles of sand do not cooperate with this. So for every one of you out there that has ever changed to another gravel when they already had sand substrate in it...how did you do it!? Of course I could use a fine net and just scoop it but if there is another easier way please let me in on it. The second thing that I've thought of was to just syphon it out or something. But wouldn't that make particles float around everywhere? I'm conderned that my fish wouldn't like the idea of me fiddling around their home for a long period of time. Does this disturb them (or stress them) in any way?

 

[MikeWinLDS]

Gravel vac it out.

 

[Andydg]

At work when we do this we gravel vac it out. Pretty easy, it does start float around but just wait for it to settle before syphoning more out.

 

[oscarbreeder]

Wouldn't you lose most of the water doing it that way?
You should only change half of your substrate at a time as to not kill of all you bacteria.

 

[MikeWinLDS]

Yea, you might lose a lot of water doing it, but you can always add more dechlorinated water. Most of the bacteria is in the filter media anyway. Changing out the substrate isn't going to make that big a difference, unless you complete change out all your filter media at the same time.

 

[Menagerie]

I recently did a switch between two tanks--one with sand and one with gravel. I actually found the one with gravel was more difficult. I was able to siphon out the sand with ease using only the hose and not the vacuum part. FYI--my fish were placed in a bucket during this. Since both tanks had established filters, there was no problems with the cycle.

 

[oscarbreeder]

I've read ALOT of articles about changing out your sustrate(and have done it myself) and they all said to only do half at a time as to not kill off your bacteria.
I just followed the advice.
Better to be safe then sorry.

 

[Menagerie]

Hmmm, mine probably worked since both tanks had been running for awhile and bacteria was established on both the gravel and the sand before the switch.