Changing Gravel for Sand / bare bottom

Hi everyone -

I am learning from my initial mistakes and I want to remove the gravel (and plants) from my tank (probably to replace it with a thin layer of sand - I am not a breeder and not interested in efficiently growing large discus and breeding). I currently have 2 discus - (want to increase to 6) one about 3 inch and the other about 3 1/4 inch. I also have a clean up crew of about 10 - 11 corrys and 2 plecos. I have a 200L tank and I am running 2 x heaters - the filter that came with the Juel tank (internal filter) containing bio sponge, ceramic media, medium sponge and Nitrax nitrate removing medium with a polish fibre on top. I have carbon in there at the moment to remove medicine. I am also running a Fluval 106 filter with biological ceramics and sponges. I use municipal water - changed every week. Nitrates always <5ppm.

Am I right to be concerned about removing the gravel causing ammonia spike because I will have removed about 25% of my Nitrosonomas and Nitrobacter or do you think my over filtered tank - now well matured will be able to cope with this lightly stocked tank?

Any advice would be really appreciated. Thank you so much in advance.

Dominic

Hi Dominic, If I was in your shoes I would remove the discus to a bucket, partial empty the tank. Remove the gravel and plants (you may be amazed at the amount of junk that collects in the gravel). Empty and clean the tank. Add an 1/2 inch of sand (be sure to pre-rinse) and a refill the tank with clean water. Move the discus back into the tank. Be sure to temperature check the tank water to the bucket water.
Pat

Ok what I did when I removed my gravel to make the tank bare bottom. During a water change with the hose I removed 1/4 of the tanks gravel. This way everything goes into the hose and out of the tanks. No mess in the tank. I change 50% twice a week so it took 2 weeks to remove all the gravel and plants. As you remove the gravel the roots show and the plants float. I did keep some plants. I used some gravel in pots with some plant and now grow the plants in pots. To add sand just rinse and put in a bowl. Sink the bowl and spill out the sand. I find sand harder to clean because it is always coming out through the hose. Plus it does have a habit of getting into impellers. Go bare bottom or just leave a thin layer of gravel. The gravel doesn’t get sucked up in the hose and is easy to clean.