Changing gravel

[Amy87]

I want to change the gravel in my tank from some coloured gravel I was given to some natural pea gravel. Can I just do a straight swap or is there a special way. Well it upset my tank in anyway?

 

[Laurie]

I did just this a couple of months ago. Basically, I broke down the tank, dumped the old gravel, added he new with all the same decorations and same filter. It was a full water change obviously, but I had no problems. Probably because I didn't change the filter and used the same deco. Others may have different ideas though.

 

[Wroberson]

If you have 5-6 inches of gravel you risk stirring up a lot of SO4 sulfur dioxide possible fungus that might be mistaken for food by fish.

Can't tell you how to do it, but you'd start by moving all live plants to one end of the tank and removing all decorations.

 

[Amy87]

I only have about an inch of gravel coz it was only temp gravel I have been doing my tank slowly due to low budget and the gravel is my last thing to sort. I don't want to kill my fish obviously so thought would see if changing gravel would upset the tank in anyway. And yes should have done gravel 1st but I'm impatient and wanted pretty fish in my tank I also wasn't planning on changing filter or decor just the gravel

 

[foster53]

I normally change half the gravel at a time, with about 3 weeks in between. I have never had any problems with amm., or nite spikes.