Changing Substrate Help

[dcbluemeanie]

Hey everyone, you have all been so helpful renovating my tank in the past, I have one last question.  
MY 10 gallon (This is my first tank) has been up and running for a few months and all is very well.  I have changed all of the "toy" looking orniments and replaced the plastic plants with real ones which are now thriving.  The only thing left in the tank I don't like is the white standard fish store gravel at the bottom.
My question is how to change this.  Is it possible without tearing down the entire tank?  I think the tank would look great with a more natural substrate but I don't really know how to do it.   ??? ???

 

[aspguru]

I am wondering the same thing. This is a good question. I think someone should post an article on this.

 

[Backdraft Bagel]

I did it once, and this is how I did it. It's gonna make your aquarium NASTY for a short time. But it's not that difficult.

1. Preparation - Do a couple of water changes, vacuuming the gravel thoroughly. Get as much poo and sediment out BEFORE you stir the water up.

2. Turn your filter off. Start scooping the gravel out. Put it in a bucket or something, don't throw it just yet.

3. Make sure all the gravel is out. Put laterite or whatever substrate additive, if any, down first. Pour the (hopefully prewashed) new gravel in.

4. Hopefully if you had an undergravel filter you took this opportunity to remove it and switch to a penguin biowheel or whisper HOB type filter. If so, have a fresh filter media ready, and now turn it on at the highest setting. The goal is to speed filter that crap out of the water. Using a fresh filter media helps this. It's a safety precaution for the fish and whatnot.

5. Enjoy!

ps - i gave up doing this. Even though it's not that hard, it's just as much work as setting up a tank fresh, so i just typically revamp the whole thing if i'm gonna yank the substrate.

 

[dcbluemeanie]

Will changing the substrate cause the tank to re-cycle?

 

[Backdraft Bagel]

It will probably cause a mini-cycle. You should keep up on water changes if you do it the way I described above, always keeping tabs on your ammonia/nitr's. The key is to not change any water when you initially remove the gravel and put the new gravel in - you actually want all that junk to settle in and hopefully kickstart a new colony of the goody good gooders bacteria.

 

[dcbluemeanie]

What do you think about leaving some (A small amount) of the old gravel in and covering it with the new?

 

[Backdraft Bagel]

I've thought about doing that too. I sometimes have a tendency to rearrange my aquariums for like ... months on end until I get it just right. I bet the old icky colored gravel would start to spread, and I'd be forced to pick it out one by one with a tweezers. It's hard enough just keeping the laterite under control!

I think with the water being all messy and laden with junk, that's probably going to do the most for kickstarting the bacteria. Let us know if you leave a small quantity in - and how it goes.

 

[aspguru]

I may do that. I have 1 oscar, 1 gold severum, 1 pacu and 1 pleco. What kind of substrate could I use? Hey Bagel, what ever happened to the graphics you were gonna do for AquaJournal? Whats up with that? ???

 

[luvfishies]

save some of the old gravel and stuff it into the filter to minimise a minicycle.

I use a fish-only kitty litter scoop to get the gravel out, AFTER putting the fish into a bucket of tankwater. Save as much water as you can, and add that back after the new gravel has gone in. Basically it's like a large-ish waterchange. Acclimate the fish in the bucket to the tankwater before adding them back.


Worked great for me when switching from gravel to silica sand in a couple of my tanks.