Changing Substrate in Established tank

[IIIIIIIIII]

I have had gravel in this tnak sicne the beginning and the plants were thriving, when i added c02 they grew like crazy. Now i feel like Im limiting the potential of my tank with the gravel, and Im also sure all my cory's and cats arent appreciating the gravel...

The bottom of the tank, if you look from the underneath is almsot pure black and Im sure its a pretty established biofilter down there... i dont want to disrupt it by tossing the old gravel away.

Am i better off taking half out and mixing it with the ecocomplete?

 

[Mgamer20o0]

you might be able to take half out at a time. i switched all of mine out with no mini cycle.

 

[Sploke]

I changed the substrate in my 150 all at once with no issue. I was moving the tank, so I broke it down and removed all the gravel, set it back up in the new spot, added the new gravel, and restocked it and got it running again. I also had it running on a large external wet/dry filter so I'm sure that helped.

 

[James0816]

I'm taking the slow route in doing mine. Now granted my situation is a little different. I upgraded my 20 to a 46 so there is not too much gravel to begin with. Makes it easier. I'm adding a little sand at a time. I just moved the gravel over to one side of the tank. I'm curious about doing a half and half.

 

[southpaw]

I had no problem when I changed mine over from gravel to sand... Used a 30g rubbermaid container and drained my tank water into it.....hung my filters over the side..put my heater in it....set all my deco in it....then caught all the fish and moved them over....finished draining the tank then I used a strainer to put all the gravel into as I took it out....then added sand and refilled.

I did save several handfuls of the gravel and put in nylon stockings and hung over the side to help incase I had a mini-cycle after the change....must have worked because I never did.

 

[FtwayneFish]

Well im a bit new myself, but as above Ive changed gravel with no probs. A stocking full of old gravel should be fine if your worried. But unless I missed it; You have a UGF- under gravel filter-? and thats why its all sooty and your worried? If you have a external or intank filter wouldnt that still be intact after a gravel change thus making it ok?

 

[IIIIIIIIII]

no no....i have an Aquaclear 200 on it.... the soot on the bottom is just all the sediment

 

[jm1212]

you should be fine if you switch all of the substrate at once. the filter has a good ammount of bacteria, enough to keep the tank from going into a cycle.

 

[mellowvision]

if you have an extra tank, fill it with the current tank water, swap the filter and fish. then take your time and empty that tank completely and start over. you'll have much better results.

 

[gvildawg]

Eco-Complete has loads of the de-nitrifying bacteria already in it. You shouldn't have a cycle.