Changing Substrate?

[Oriana]

So I have had my 13 g tank set up for just under a month now and I just can't seem to stop tinkering with it... This tank has had a bit of a journey, I had originally planned everything out, I was going to fishless cycle it and get a good plant substrate and have an awesome planted tank....absolutely nothing happened the way I had planned...I let myself be talked out of my original plan by the workers at the pet store and ended up with run of the mill gravel substrate, fake plants, and some fish to cycle my tank *sigh*

Now I am starting to get my tank back on track! While I can't do anything about the fish in cycle I did manage to track down some used filter media and now my tank is almost cycled! I removed all the fake plants and bought a ton of experimental LIVE plants to try in my current set up. While I am now much happier with the tank I believe I still have several more things to add/change as many of the plants in my tank keep melting away at their bases. So I am thinking of getting some more plant friendly substrate for the tank at this point and I have a few questions:

1. Should I wait for the tank to finish cycling before I change the substrate or just do it now?

2. How would I go about changing the substrate? I have fish in the tank and a whole bunch of plants as well as some rocks, is there a way to switch the substrate without removing everything and stressing out all the fish involved? I would also like to minimize any possible water clouding if that is at all possible.

3. I found someone locally who blends their own substrate and am curious as to whether this is a common thing or not? Will I have to replace this type of substrate because the nutrients will get used up?

4. If I posted a picture of my tank would anyone be able to identify the current plants that are in there as I only know what 2 or 3 of them are?

I would love to hear anyones opinions about my tank and suggestions and help are always welcome! Thanks for reading my story! I know it was a little long

 

[Marvin4o9]

Usually when I switch out my substrate I just put the fish in bags and try to do everything fast, but of course taking out the water by buckets doesn't help the fast part. Probably rinse your new substrate down if it's needed, when I bought my two bags of floramax substrate from petsmart all I did was rinse it out good and put into my tank and fill it with water, inside the bag came alittle packet to help remove all the fogginess away and it actually worked fast. Prob took me max 2 hours and that's with taking scoops of water out into my bucket and dumping it out and only having two 5 gallon jugs to fill at a time.


Check out my introduction to view my tank!

 

[Oriana]

Thanks for the reply I guess I have no choice but to take the fish out, I wouldn't want to hurt anyone during the process! What do you think I should do about the plants that are already in there? And do you think I need to drain the whole tank or could I get away with draining 3/4 of it?

 

[Marvin4o9]

I drained 3/4 since I was taking water out with a bowl into the bucket lol and about the plants nothing, just take them out and replant them, shouldn't be bad


Check out my introduction to view my tank!

 

[Oriana]

Alright well I will give that a try then! I am thinking about making a trip to one of the fish stores nearby to price out substrate from the store and then speaking with the person locally who makes substrate themselves. Hopefully within the next week or so I am on my way to a better substrate!


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[Marvin4o9]

Yeah I'm using floramax from petsmart, just because my fish use to drop a lot of poop lol and they told me it helps break down the poop into plant food


Check out my introduction to view my tank!