drdud said:
Beautiful. The 'before' was nice, the after is awesome. Any 'words of wisdom' you learned? What is the best way to make a huge change like that? How long did it take (hours, days, weeks)? I want to change my 'black with pink/purple mix' to natural gravel, but I am afraid I will upset the bio and chemistry. I would love to hear a few details.
Woke up around 9:30, got myself and my wallet ready, and took the 40 minute drive to That Fish Place in Lancaster, PA. Spent probably over 2 hours there, knowing me. I don't keep track of time in there. Picked up 3 25-pound bags of gravel, picked through their sinking driftwood to find 3 pieces i really liked, and then headed off to the fish room to get stuff for my marine tank. (3 turbo snails, 2 scarlet hermit crabs, and 15 more lbs of live rock... talk about an assault on the wallet) After a few other misc things, i left the store about $170 lighter. Worth it.
Came home and started soaking the driftwood in the bathtub and draining the 75 gallon while i worked in the marine tank a bit. When the 75 was about half-empty, I filled a big rubbermaid with water and the fake log ornament you can see in the blue tank. From there, netted the fish into the rubbermaid with an airstone and put the lid on loosely.
Came back to the 75, scooped as much of the gravel as possible out with a net and then got the rest by siphoning it into a bucket. Then drained the rest of the water, put the tank on the ground, and went to work on peeling the blue background off and putting the black one on.
Then got the tank back on the stand, added gravel, arranged the decor, filled 'er up, let it run for an hour or so, and put the fish back in. Took literally all day, but it's not like i was rushing or anything. The bio culture is fine, as i didn't swap filters or anything and the canister stayed full of water the whole time. The fish adjusted to the new home quickly and by the end of the night, they were back to begging for food, like usual.
