What is the best way to remove gravel

beviking

beviking

Senior Member, Sophomoric Attitude
Feb 16, 2002
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In short:
Don't like gravel color in the tank. It's pea size and smaller (Estes) gravel.

Why?
It's blue and green mix. Not bad, just that it's primarily blue and too distracting.

Why did I put blue gravel in there?
$10 (U.S.) for 70 lbs

I'm thinking I can syphon it out, but probably take out alot of water too.

Any helpful hints (other than don't do it again!) are appreciated.
 
well, u could siphon out most of ur water into a clean bucket, put ur fish in, then siphen out the rest of the water to other bucket, remove the gravel, then put in ur new gravel. After, put back your water and of course your fish. Good luck,
mt_marcy!
 
I like Aikido's suggestion...just scoop out as much as possible, but then, start siphoning the rest. As for adding new gravel, I actually did that with fish in tank (probably not the recommended method, but it worked), gently at first so that my Cories, Oto, and Betta realized that I was working in the area and then poured more and more as I went b/c they were out of the way. Spreading the gravel was a little bit of a challenge what with the bottomdwellers, but it worked well. I actually used an algae scraper pad to spread the gravel, and it was a very helpful tool in that regard (can't think of any other uses for it with a Loricariid in tank). Best of luck,

Matthew
 
syphoning gravel has, in my expirience, resulted in constantly clogged syphon hoses. I just use a specimen tray when removing gravel.

Is the tank established? that would be my biggest concern. Cause if you take out all the gravel you'll lose a lot of benefitial bacteria. just food for thought

ryan
 
I have done this, too. I siphoned about a third of the water out, put a small clean bucket in the tank and just scooped the gravel into it and the poured it out, and went back for more. Put the new gravel in the same way. Put the bucket of gravel in the tank and just slowly scooped it out and spread it around. Not hard, but messy. Make sure you put towels or something down on the floor to keep the water soaked up.
 
I just replaced my gravel in my 15gal a few days ago. this is how i did it. I took out all the fish and plants to another bucket with water from the tank.Took out the decorations and added them to another bucket with tank water. I then syphoned out all the water i could, then jsut scooped out all the gravel and put in the new. Filled the tank up, redecorated and added back the fish and plants.

I haven't had any prrblems with mini cycles,its like nothiing happened. Just remember to keep your filter media. You could also add some of the old gravel into a nylon and add that back to the filter for added bio filtration if you are worried. But i didn't have a problem
 
Originally posted by wetmanNY
There's a section "Starting Over" in the SetUp folder at www.skepticalaquarist.com that might have some tips for you.
Click to expand...

(Thumping head on desktop)...duh, I've seen it before, how could I NOT have checked it out? I would have still posted though. Hope I didn't let you down wetmanNY!
 
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