I'd like to change my substrate to sand. Currently I have a medium sized typical aquarium gravel. Can anyone tell me the best process and if it is easier to clean. I find all the food gets under the gravel and no matter how much I vaccuum I still seem to have stuff in there after the cory's stir it up. Can I just remove lets say, half the gravel and replace it with sand or should I do it in smaller increments? I have read that many of you use pool filter sand so that is what I am going to look at today. Does it settle quickly. Does it vaccuum well? I use the syphon type vaccuum and run it into a bucket. I have no idea what to expect.
Changing gravel to sand
- Thread starter ET1
- Start date
Plecosterone
We don't need no stinking badges!
I have never replaced gravel with sand but use sand in my planted tank. The only problem I can see with replacing it with a full tank is that when you put the sand in it will tend to dispurse throughout the whole tank. I can't think of anyway that this can be eliminated, maybe someone else has an idea on this. Cleaning is much easier as all the debris sits on top of the sand and not in it. For vacuuming (which I do very little of because my plants love the mulm that gathers under them) I use a straight 1/2" plastic tube with a flexible tube stuck into the end. Just keep it a little above the sand and syphon off anything not wanted.
I did this yesterday! I was only going to change have the gravel for sand. Once I got to scooping out all the gravel (55gal) I realized that I didn't want to do it again later with the rest and controlling where the grave was was a pain. So I just changed out all the gravel with sand and love it. The main PITA was cleaning the sand. I used all purpose sand from Lowes. I did 2 huge water changes after putting the sand in and my water was clear after that. The water is a little cloudy today, I am suspecting a bacteria bloom from removing the gravel.
The corys are so happy with the sand. Cleaning will be easy because everything does stay right on top.
The corys are so happy with the sand. Cleaning will be easy because everything does stay right on top.
I feel encouraged hearing this! However, I just came from Home Depot and all they had was play sand. The packaged said "specially treated, screened and washed". It was the specially treated thing that scared me off. I'm not sure what the "special treatment" is so I didnt buy it in case it contained a substance toxic to the fish. Should I hold out for the more coarse filter sand??
I think what they mean about the play sand is that it has been heated to disinfect it so parents don't have to worry about kids eating it. It should be OK for the tank.
i did all mine at once. just clean the sand very well. i took the fish and everything out of the tank and then switched it. took a little while for everything to settle back down but 2 fry survived the switch.
lol yeah I spotted a fry today that I didn't know was there. The brand of sand that I used was quickrete all purpose sand. It was by the concrete. I didn't notice anything about treated or washed.
I don't know if it makes a difference but the way I cleaned mine was, Put a 5 gallon bucket at an angle, put a pillow case inside the bucket, run hose inside bucket and keep it running at a pretty good flow the entire time. Scoop sand into pillow case until the bag of sand is empty. This was a real PITA because I did it in the bathtub and was very aware that the wife was home.
I don't know if it makes a difference but the way I cleaned mine was, Put a 5 gallon bucket at an angle, put a pillow case inside the bucket, run hose inside bucket and keep it running at a pretty good flow the entire time. Scoop sand into pillow case until the bag of sand is empty. This was a real PITA because I did it in the bathtub and was very aware that the wife was home.
Use pool filter sand from Leslie's Pool Supply if you have one in your area. I put mine straight in the tank and didn't even rinse it. It was eight or nine bucks for 50 lbs vs play sand, which is around five. WELL worth it.
I've read that if you want to avoid going through a mini cycle while changing substrate, what you do is move all of the old substrate to one side of the tank, then put half of the new substrate in the recently emptied side. After a few weeks to allow for beneficial bacterias to colonize the new substrate you can remove the old, and add the rest of the new. This obviously would be difficult in a planted tank, but if you can remove all of the deco temporarily it should be possible.
You can also save the gravel in an old stocking or mesh bag and leave it in the tank, then just lift it out when you're done with it and toss it. Or "hide" it in there until you have another tank you need a boost with cycling.