Gravel change idea. Good or bad?

[follicle]

Greetings.

I have a 55 gal freshwater tank and I've been looking at changing the gravel for quite sometime. My late father owned the tank before me and I don't believe he ever performed water changes. I've been doing weekly water changes for the past few years and I think the gravel is just done for. It's looks really ugly. I was thinking about buying some black gravel to bring out the colors of the fish a little more.

Anyway, changing the gravel has always been a touchy issue since some say that a majority of bacteria that allows the fish to thrive lives within the gravel. Recently, I got an idea and was wondering if this would work.

What if I was to create some kind of mobile partition (say a small block of wood) that could divide the bottom of my tank into thirds. I would start by taking a third of the old gravel out and replace it with new gravel. I would then let it sit for one to two weeks. After that, I would work on the next third, repeat, and then the final third. I was thinking this might give the new gravel sometime to grow some bacteria while the old gravel provided a safety net for the fish during the new gravel's break-in period.

Would something like this work? I could be completely wrong, but I thought it would be a safe way to do a gravel change. Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance for any replies.

 

[Jason7894561230]

What you can do is get the gravel and put it into a stocking and leave it in the tank, so the bacteria is still in the tank but you can still swap the substrate. Also may i recommend black sand its better it adds a melowness to the tank.

 

[Mark Hewitt]

Anyway, changing the gravel has always been a touchy issue since some say that a majority of bacteria that allows the fish to thrive lives within the gravel.

Not true. The vast majority of the bacteria (at a guess 95%!) live in your filter, not in the gravel. I'm assuming you have a filter - if not then you need to sort that out first before you do anything else.

Would something like this work? I could be completely wrong, but I thought it would be a safe way to do a gravel change. Any thoughts?

I wouldn't bother, too much hassle and too much stress for the fish in doing several changes, keep in mind that you're going to have to take the fish out in order to do this, so you need to do it once, not several times. As long as your filter is working properly you won't have any problems.

As Jason said, you can leave a small amount of the old gravel in the tank, you don't need a stocking, a small tupperware box would work just as well.

A while back I changed my gravel to sand, I kept an eye on the ammonia levels afterwards and they remained at zero. (I've since changed back to fine gravel in my new tank as the sand proved to be too much hassle and got into filters / air pumps etc and was just a pain in general!)

 

[BigJim]

Bacteria live in both the filter and the gravel. UG filters wouldn't work if the bacteria weren't able to survive in the gravel. You can change out the gravel, but keep an eye on water parameters for a mini cycle. Change it all at once for simplicity and less stress on the fish. If you're worried about a cycle, pick up a few media bags and stuff them with the old gravel. Leave them in the tank for a few weeks while your biofilter adjusts.

 

[spoonman]

I agree with not doing the 3 stage media change. I have changed the substrate in all 5 of my tanks at one time or another. All I do is take the fish out and put them in buckets. Also all the decor out into buckets, keeping filter media wet so the bacteria doesnt die off. Then drain the tank, take out ould substrate, put in new substrate, fill with dechlored water and put decor and fish back in. Keep an eye on your parameters for the next couple weeks to make sure you didnt cause a mini-cycle. I have done this several times with no problems.