It'll be a bit stressful to your fish since its a small tank if you decide to change over with fish in it.
Get a 5 gallon plastic bucket, take out some water and put the fish in while you do the change, might also be a good idea to shut off filters while you do this to prevent sand going into them.
Once done, start the filters and put fish back. It will probably be cloudy for a day or so till it settles.
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You can put foam over your filter Intake, if your intakes are too close to the bottom. You do not want sand getting into your filter. I love my Sand tanks and will never go back to gravel. I use fluval prefilter sponges over my intakes and they fit perfectly.
And I agree, turn off your filters and possibly unplug your heater if you're going to be lowering your water levels at all. Just don't forget to plug everything back in and turn everything back on.
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Would sand mixed with gravel work?
Off topic, but I thought bamboo plants needed their leaves above water?
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Had the sand for a little over a year now and haven't noticed any pockets but I also moved the tank from home to work about 3 months ago. Doing so shook up the substrate pretty good as you can imagine. I'll recommend the snails to my BIL
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That's cool if it works haha. Good luck, very pretty tank
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