55 gallon, about six mos old. I want to put crushed coral or sand instead of rock substrate that im currently using. I do not want to disrupt anything in the tank ( I am relatively new to the hobby) any help would be useful. thanks
Hmm, it might be a bit tough doing it seeing as how you don't want to disrupt anything (I assume you mean you don't want to have to move around alot of stuff?)
How big is each grain of this 'rock substrate'?
A pic of the tank would help alot, and you would have to understand that if you don't want to disrupt anything, you will not get all of the old substrate out (assuming the grain size is small)
When I was changing over my rockwork in an african tank from river rock to granite, I had to completely pull everything out, including the crushed coral and while doing this I've left the fish in the tank, it can get messy, but they don't seem to mind at all, provided that you have adequate filtration and aeration while you're doing this.
I have a 55 gallon African too and recently changed from rock to sand. I left the fish in and just used a plastic scoop to remove all the gravel. Then I slowly poured in 50 pounds of pool filter sand. The fish seemed to like the sand pouring down on 'em...
I haven't kept Africans, but I have changed substrate...
Lower water level to a half while doing a good vac, remove as much of the rocks as possible, then vac to a third catching as much of the remaining debris as possible. Then remove the remainder and add thoroughly rinsed new substrate. Fill. I did this on two tanks and never moved the fish or had a problem. Just my 1 1/2 cents.
keep a couple handfuls of old gravel. You can leave the fish in. Take out all the rocks and plants and scoop all the gravel out (turn off filter). Pre-rinse the sand (important!) and pour it in. You won't have any problem with a mini-cycle or disrupting it as long as you keep old substrate in a pantyhose bag int he tank for a couple weeks. I did this with three tanks and none of them had spikes in anything or mini cycles.
keep a couple handfuls of old gravel. You can leave the fish in. Take out all the rocks and plants and scoop all the gravel out (turn off filter). Pre-rinse the sand (important!) and pour it in. You won't have any problem with a mini-cycle or disrupting it as long as you keep old substrate in a pantyhose bag int he tank for a couple weeks. I did this with three tanks and none of them had spikes in anything or mini cycles.
If you don't change out the filter media, there should be no need to save the gravel. The beneficial bacteria requires high oxygenation and therefore is predominantly in the filter media. The amount on the substrate will be negligible.
I'd stay away from crushed coral....if saltwater fishkeepers wont use it, then I dont think we could either. And you know how picky they are. :grinyes:
While changing the gravel, a mini-cycle sounds possible. If it were my tank I'd take it slow by taking out a few glasses of substrate out every day until your tank is empty. Then do the reverse process, slowly inserting the sand of your choice.
