Taking out the gravel, putting in substrate

[digthemlows]

Can I do this with fish still in there? Basically I'm leaning towards taking the gravel out of my 72 gallon and going with substrate/sand mix. Can I do that with the fish still in the tank?

[C_of_Discus]

nope

[judy]

I did. Very slowly. About a quarter of the tank at a time, a few weeks apart, and very gently and carefully.
The discus were so unbothered by it that they kept coming over to see what my hand was doing. And they never missed a beat on their five-a-day feedings.
Just do a great deal of gravel substrate vacuuming for many weeks, as you' re doing water changes, so that by the time you actually remove the gravel, you're not kicking up a lot of mulm and debris. You may also be able to suck up a fair amount of surface gravel as you're vacuuming, too, reducing the amount you will have to take out later. And when you remove the gravel, use a very big plastic cup tp scoop along the bottom-- gently-- fill up the cup, lift it to the surface, and so on.
I'll post a before and after shot later today-- gotta run right now, though...

[White Worm]

I've done similar to Judy, removed gravel and put in sand with no problems. If you do it carefully, you may have some cloudiness but it will settle quickly. I also removed the sand later with the discus in the tank also. Try and vac as much as possible out with a hose which will keep the crap to a minimum. Either way, my discus didnt show any affect. I did it with adults so you might have some minor reactions if they are younger discus. Just change large amounts of water afterwards to keep the quality up.

[Tropical Haven]

Best way to do this is setup up a temporary tank and place the discus in there. Then remove all of your gravel at once and let the tank settle for one day and siphon the debris off the bottom, refill and place the discus back in there. This way it only takes you 24hrs instead of weeks.

[Harriett]

As you've read, in very slow motion you can do it. If you want to just get the job done, just plan an all day event. Get another container to put your fish and plants in [if you have them], add O2 + a heater and a filter would even be great to the temporary accomodations, and go for broke--break down the tank, change out the substrate, fill it and clear the ditrius from the new substrate as needed, get it all set up, condition the water as needed, and get those fish back into the tank! That way your discus are not trying to breathe thru and deal with the stress of a slow motion change with all that crap floating around that inevitably happens.
A one day do-able project! get very organized and just go for it? JMO
Good luck
Harriett

[phidelt85]

I changed my substrate by sucking it out with a shop-vac with the fish still in the tank. I taped a 3/8" hose to the end of my shopvac hose and started vac'ing the substrate out. The size of the hose you need will depend on the size of your gravel, of course; I was sucking out SMS. This greatly minimizes the cloudy water because your not digging into the substrate. If you get a long enough hose you can leave the shopvac outside. It worked great for me plus you're doing a water change while you're at it.

[GrillMaster]

I would do it the way Scott an Harriet mentioned. Less stress on the fish that way. Pretty straight forward way to do it.

Hose...SMS is pretty light. Thats probably why the shop vac worked so good. I dont know how well a shop vac would move gravel an water thru the hose though.

tc
Mark

[Tropical Haven]

Hose...SMS is pretty light. Thats probably why the shop vac worked so good. I dont know how well a shop vac would move gravel an water thru the hose though.

tc
Mark

Funny that you mentioned this, this is how I got rid of my gravel out of my 125 gallon tank is with my shop vac and boy did that save me a lot of time and it worked out great.

[Diamond Discus]

What a great idea! A shop vac!!

[GrillMaster]

I guess it was my vac!! :confused:

I tried to suck out my gravel(the big aquarium gravel)for my fake plants. :o It just strung the gravel along the length of the hose an eventually clogged up on me.

tc
Mark

[phidelt85]

I guess it was my vac!! :confused:

I tried to suck out my gravel(the big aquarium gravel)for my fake plants. :o It just strung the gravel along the length of the hose an eventually clogged up on me.

tc
Mark


LOL, Mark!! It happens to the best of us. It's good that you can look yourself in the mirror an admit that it's ok when your hose gets clogged, time heals all wounds. :D

[digthemlows]

Ok, went and bought 28lbs of Flourite and 100lbs of silica/monterey sand......got a 10 gallon bucket that I'll drop my heater and the discus in and we'll see if I can get it done in a day. Thanks for the advice!

[BSW]

I want to do this too.
But I'm really leaning on moving the fish out, because I have an UGF that needs to come out too !!!
My Question is, if I use conditioned water to rinse the gravel that is in the tank, (which I'll be mixing 50 - 50 or more with Eco) and putting it back in. If I don't mess with the filters (2 fluval 405's)
And have the tank back up and running in a short period of time, can I put the fish right back in it ? It's a 60 with 8 - 5" Discus, several Cories, a bristlenose, and one lone Otto. This is a heavy bio load, will I have to let the tank re-cycle ?? And keep the discus in a tub to long ? Will I screw the bio system all to heck ??
Thanks -
B

[judy]

If you can get the filters up and running again *real* fast, you should not wreck their biofilter. But the UGF will have had some bio capacity, so you may just see a minicycle. Watch that ammonia creep like a fanatic...
here are the links to the tanlk remodel I did very slowly (actually, there are three here, but I ewent at it about five times in all, three or four days apart. The fish didn't seem to mind at all, and only on the last one did I see even a hint of ammonia, which was resolved very quickly through a series of twice dialy WCs):
(I don't know how to post pics in these messages, so these will just be links...)

the original tank
http://www.wordsink.ca/tankremodel1.jpg

midway:
http://www.wordsink.ca/tankremodelmid.jpg

the final result
http://www.wordsink.ca/tankremodel2.jpg

[BSW]

Awesome Judy, nice job. The tank looks so much brighter with the white sand. Nice plants too. Are you adding any ferts to the tank, are you useing RO, how often and how much, do you do water changes. The plants look great, I've about killed all mind, growing up juvies.
I'm thinking of going with something like this - Bare bottom /Planted -
http://showcase.aquatic-gardeners.org/2005.cgi?&Scale=3&op=showcase&category=0&vol=2&id=65
B

[digthemlows]

would it hurt to leave some of the gravel in and build the sand up over it. That way I can have it much higher in the back. Would the large gravel if I mix some florite on top before the silica sand do well for plants (I'm not running CO2 and plan to keep this a low maint. planted tank) Or, should I remove all the gravel and just use sand?

[judy]

I left some of the gravel-- just a few handsfuls, really, in the very back where the big sword is and the clump of val that hides the heaters, and on the left under the grouping of crypts- and put sand over top. Where I left gravel, I slid underneath it "baked" thin bricks of clay, laterite, and peat, mixed and oven-cured at 250 degrees for an hour.. slidin them in real quick as the clay began to soften and cloud the water almost instantly. Then poured sand over top, and that kept any clay clouding from happening. Eventually, the coarse gravelwill work its way up and the sand will sift down, and I hope to slowly take out the rest of the coasre gravel, as the substrate will by then be nice and fertile...
Digthemlows, if you're not planning CO2, you may as well not bother with flourite. Just use fert tabs pushed into the sand by the plants. Make sure you use low light plants, too. Amazon swords, val, anubias, java fern and moss, crypts, all handle low light well.

I add ferts (bottled, Kent Pro PLant), fert tablets every few months, and a daily dose of carbon and iron, and I have CO2 in the form of three pop bottles (I refresh one a week). Water is just tap, treated with Prime. 25% WC twice a week for now, as the juvies are gorwing out. Later, when I'm feeding only twice daily, I hope to be able to reduce the WCS.

That green and white BB tank with the glass planter in back is something else! Way cool!

[digthemlows]

I'm in the thick of it all right now...............discus are in a 10 gallon bucket with a heater, but no filter..........so I'm working quick. Right now the water is very cloudy and brown, but I have my fluval 404 working overtime..........even with major washing of the florite it's still crazy dirty. I'll post pics tomorrow morning of the transformation.

Oh and I just took out all of the gravel, seemed like the thing to do.

[digthemlows]

This would be why you need to take the discus out.
http://starboardbough.com/tmp/floritedirt.jpg
I took most of the above water out, put the sand in, and spiked from 6.8PH to 7.8...........I threw all of my driftwood in and let it run all night. This morning the PH was back to normal. It's still pretty cloudy in there but the discus were not happy in the bucket so I slowly added tank water to the bucket and eventually dropped them in. I'm buying more plants today. Here's how it looks right now...........I can't see enough to really put everything where I have it planned though.
http://starboardbough.com/tmp/newsand1.jpg

Thanks for the advice! I'll be doing daily water changes until everything settles.

[judy]

I gotta question. If you took the discus out, and the tank was empty other wise, why not just siphon out almost all the water, too, save it, then shovel out the gravel, then lay down the flourite, then carefully pour sand on top, then put the water back using the plate trick to keep it from stirring up the substrate?

[BSW]

OUCH !
Digthemlows -

WOW, glad you took the fish out !
Looks like it's settling quickly though. That's exactly the situation I'm afraid of, but I'll be taking out a UGF too, should be a REAL mess. Definitely taking out my fish now !
Your tank is looking good, keep updating so we can see the progress.
B

[C_of_Discus]

Thats why I said nope. You never can believe the amount of Dirty water grim and stuff you will see in a tank that looks Clean when you break it down. I only speak from past experience I have been there and done that. It is always better to move the fish into another tank and take your time plan it out.

Patience is the most important lesson you can ever learn from this hobby. I know this because I have none.

[digthemlows]

I gotta question. If you took the discus out, and the tank was empty other wise, why not just siphon out almost all the water, too, save it, then shovel out the gravel, then lay down the flourite, then carefully pour sand on top, then put the water back using the plate trick to keep it from stirring up the substrate?


I left my Rummy noses, my pleco, my 2 clowns, and some rosy barbs in there...............they are hardy fish for sure!! ..........I didn't want that many fish in a bucket and my son has taken over my 20 gallon QT tank with Turtles (need to get another QT tank set up eventually).

And, what I thought was a "clean" tank when I started this was absolutely gross, under the gravel was so much #$%^^ that it's a wonder everything was going so well. I'm liking the idea of seeing everything I need to vacuum out! I have some major monitoring to do over the next couple of weeks, but I'm happy!

[digthemlows]

Fish are eating well but they are hanging out in the back??? I have the spraybar (which is new) pointing from the back of the tank to the front at about 4" below water level, anyone have thoughts on spraybar direction?

http://starboardbough.com/tmp/newplanted2.jpg

I picked up a couple of these little plants with some red in the leaves, they look great and the LFS didn't know what they were.......think they'll do well?
http://starboardbough.com/tmp/smallplant1.jpg

The red "fake plant" in the back is the very last one........I'm not sure what to get to replace it, I'm not going to do CO2 so I'm thinking another sword and I'll see how everything does. It's still a little cloudy but getting better as I do water changes.
http://starboardbough.com/tmp/newplanted1.jpg

[GrillMaster]

Nice lil substrate exchange dig!! Looks like it cleared up pretty good. :)

I have my spray bar on the left side of the tank to the right. You might find there is a lil less turbulance this way. I have it about the same depth as you slightly pointing up to break the surface.

Try it an see if ya like it. If the spray bar is to long, you can always trim it a little to fit.

Now get sum anubias on that driftwood!;)

tc
Mark

[judy]

That's clearing up real nice... maybe some vallisneria there wold look good-- it could be like a group of of tall grasses and it wouldn't need C02 to do well...

[digthemlows]

Coming along!
http://starboardbough.com/tmp/tankplanted2.jpg
http://starboardbough.com/tmp/tankplanted1.jpg

[judy]

Oh, that IS looking good! Wait'll those swords fill in!

[pcsb23]

That is filling in nicely :)

[digthemlows]

Thanks! Although now I'm getting algea!

http://starboardbough.com/tmp/tankplanted4.jpg

[phidelt85]

Hey dig, that's looking pretty good, my friend!! I like it