Replacing sand?

[brunettebaby4571]

Ok I currently have white sand in my fish tank and I just recently bought some black sand. Is there anyway to go about taking the old sand out and putting the new sand in without having to drain it or take the fish out? Or just any useful tips to make it go any smoother? lol thank you!

 

[Nuitari]

depends alot on the size tank and type of sand. I have used a gravel vac and syphon tube to remove the fine grained play sand when I switched to pool filtersand and only ended up taking out about 25% of the water then added in the new sand. However this might be more difficult with sand that is larger and less fine than play sand and in larger tanks. when I did it it was in a 20 gal long and was very little effort. ......

 

[GodFan]

I think the best way is to drain the tank and hang the filter on the bucket with the fish.
But if you want the fish to stay in you may be able to drain it to halfway and then scoop it out. I do think it will be impossible to remove all the sand. It may show up when the dust settles.

 

[brunettebaby4571]

Yeah its a 40 gallon and I have play sand in it right now and I bought some black sand from petco but I might just put the fish in my 10 or 20 gallon right now til I get it all done so I dont freak them out. Plus I think all my females are about to have babies so I wanna do it before that so I dont kill any babies with a sand avalanche! haha thank you guys I think Im gunna try using a dust pan after draining some of the water see how it works out

 

[Mikalicious209]

Turn off the filter, and use one of those little beach shovels to take out the current sand, then fill up a mason jar with the new sand, hold it under the water and dump it out. I changed my 33g out this way in about 45 mins!

 

[jlk]

Move the fish, drain some water & use a shop vac (if you have a decent sized one). It will suck out every last grain of sand & the rest of the water as well.

 

[brunettebaby4571]

Well I ended up using the siphon and then a dust pan (after taking all the fish out and over half the water) so it wasnt to hard but basically just a pain in the butt to make sure all the white sand was out...but totally worth it I think it looks wayyy better now

 

[brunettebaby4571]

Before and after

 

[xigtc]

Wow looks awesome. The black looks kinda mysterious.

 

[brunettebaby4571]

Thank you! I wasnt sure about it at first but I really liked how it turned out!

 

[Nuitari]

the tank looks great. glad it worked out for you.

 

[brunettebaby4571]

Thank you very much!

 

[mitchfish]

Looks great. The black looks nice

 

[brunettebaby4571]

Thank you guys very much! I am definitely glad I went with the black! The white sand always looked so dirty 10 seconds after I would clean it!