too much gravel

I am going to remove a lot of gravel in my 150 gal, planted tank. Any suggestion. Thanks Ed

Suck it out with syphon, well not with a Python syphon.

what do you mean? ED

I drained the water first then removed the gravel using a wet/dry Utility Shop Vacuum.

If you have fish in it I would siphon it out into 5g buckets. Take it out at every water change. I changed out the eco-complete in my 90. 120lbs while doing water changes. Took about a month to remove and add the new gravel. I removed a section at a time and added the new before I did the next.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Iminit

If you have fish in it I would siphon it out into 5g buckets. Take it out at every water change. I changed out the eco-complete in my 90. 120lbs while doing water changes. Took about a month to remove and add the new gravel. I removed a section at a time and added the new before I did the next.

---

I did the same. Removed a portion of sand with each water change. I used a siphon.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by tacks

what do you mean? ED

---

Use a simple siphon and stick the aquarium end into the gravel and the gravel and water will come out together.

Thanks for the reply Ed

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Iminit

If you have fish in it I would siphon it out into 5g buckets. Take it out at every water change. I changed out the eco-complete in my 90. 120lbs while doing water changes. Took about a month to remove and essaydune.com add the new gravel. I removed section at a time and added the new before I did the next.

---

Yeh, there's no easier way than simple siphon. How often do you change the water in your tank?

Once a week 50% it’s a community tank.

In that case, do it all at once. Train the tank down and while that's happening take everything out like Driftwood or plants. Stop when it is two or three in the Bob the gravel line. Net all the fish out and put them in buckets that you filled with water from the beginning of the water change skip out all the gravel. If some here and there is leftover then it's not going to hurt anything. If you want a substrate after gravel then definitely go the sand route. Weather sand or bare bottom with a little bit of gravel leftover they can get overtime, fill it back up with a little bit of the old water (3-5% of tank volume), put back in any strathclyde if you want to (spray of DW first if you want) + plants, get filtration going again, wait about an hour and then Papa fish back in. When you fill it back up, at least have the water Within reason of your standard temperature. To me, reason would be 6-8 below or 3-4 degrees above... which with water is a huge difference but with air and not so much of a difference