Need some advice

[Debo]

I am turning my planted 125 to bare bottom. Where do I start? What is the best way to take the gravel out? Any pointers would be greatful! After experencing BB. I feel that thats the only way to go ;)
DebO

[Carol_Roberts]

Do you have a place in the yard for the gravel? If yes, start a siphon with a garden hose and suck the gravel out with the hose to the spot in the yard. IF no, drain the water and scoop out the gravel with a plastic spagehtti collander and dump into a 5 gallon bucket - or what ever you can lift.

Keep filters alive in a bucket or 10 gallon aquarium or whatever.

Wipe out tank - rubbing alcohol or hydrogen peroxide are safer than bleach. Rinse really good.

Add water that is 80 - 86 degrees, heaters and filters. Let run for several hours or over night before adding fish.

[Willie]

Deb;

I just drained the tank and used a scoop to get most of the sand/gravel out. For my 75 gal, it only took 3 bucket loads. You may have 4 - 6 loads. The toughest part was to tip the tank on the side to get the last bit of sand out. You may not have this problem with gravel. Once you got started, it wasn't that hard.

BB is the only way to go.

Willie

[Abercrombie6202]

You can also take it over like a week of time each day taking out a little more that way teh beneficial bacteria is still safe. Taking out all teh gravel will restart the nitrogen cycle, but since you have filters it's okay. You might just have high ammonia and nitrite's, but they will go away quickly. What i would do is before every daily water change take out some more gravel with a hose or scoop it out.

I did the siphon thing.
Only addition I did was that I used a diatom afterwards.
A HOT Mag. would also do the job, just at that time I did not have one.

Ronald