okay...I decided to do this without taking the fish out. I'm not sure if this was such a good idea because now I'm in a total panic. I took out all my ornaments and live plants, and scooped all the old gravel out. It was pretty messy but I just let the filter do the job to clear the water. Then I vacuumed all the left over crud out. When my water was pretty clear I began to add the rinsed sand. It is a very nice reddish fine river bed sand that the guy at the lfs said wouldn't need much rinsing. Well, I did rinse it about 5 times then began to cup it into the bottom of the tank. The water in my tank is now a very thick sunset red colour and I am just hoping my fish are okay in there because I can't really see them unless they come to the edge. I feel terrible! I hope they're okay!!! I'm going to wait for an hour or so and change some of the water off the top and see if that helps the clarity.
worms in the gravel
- Thread starter ET1
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An update...Its been 24 hours since I added the sand to the tank after a good bottom cleaning. After running two filters all night my water is almost clear. The sand I used is exo-terra riverbed sand...beautiful colour but very fine...big big big pain! But the cories seem to be quite frisky in it. My betta took the change hard but now he seems okay. He was still covered in very fine particles today. He periodically brushes his body up against the filter intake as if he is getting all the fine sand dust vacummed off his scales. Kind of funny. He did enjoy a worm so I guess he's feeling better. All my fish seem de-stressed now (their colour is back to normal) except my lyre-fine cory. He is still unusually quietin the corner and doesn't move far from there. His colour is still not back to normal yet. I'm a little worried about him. I don't have all my plants back in yet. But so far, so good....I think. I just have to keep an eye on my parameters. Hopefully the filter media and the nylon stocking of old gravel I left in there will keep the bacteria at good levels.
Your cory will probably be fine in a little bit. Just leave things to settle down and try not to disturb the tank at all. It's probably just a little freaked out. Your other fish might, at the very worst, have little bit of gill irritation from the very fine suspended particles in the water. I'm sure it's nothing they can't handle. Bettas live in some crappy, silty waters so they should have developed a mechanism of coping with silt. Cories, being bottom feeders, are constantly pumping bottom sediment through their gills when feeding. I wouldn't worry about any long-term damage/irritation. Good luck.
Update...my aquarium is doing great since my overall cleaning and substrate change. There was a lot of unreachable stuff underneath the gravel which I can assume was the problem with my water quality. Now, water parameters are all healthy and my fish are doing great, with the exception of my bronze. I lost him a few days after the substrate change. He began to bob around at the top unable to stay on the bottom and then within a short time he was gone. He had been showing signs of stress/illness for about 4 weeks. Poor little fellow. I find the sand MUCH easier to keep clean and keep track of food since it sits on top instead of falling deep into the gravel which subsequently makes it easy to remove uneaten food. The corys love the sand and they are very active. Thanks for everyone's help!
