I am planning on changing my substrate, advice?

[jlt045]

I know that it is important to keep the bacteria, so I plan to try to keep as much of the original water as possible. What I have in there is basically clay, peat moss and play sand I bought at walmart. It doesnt hurt the fish, but I cant grow healthy plants in it for anything. They all die off at the roots. So I plan to buy an actual aquarium plant substrate and aquarium sand. The sand I bought is ugly, very gravelly looking. If I keep alot of original water, what if after I rinse the aquarium sand, I soak it in some of the original water before adding it to the tank? Will this work? I have a canister filter, so it is a bio filter. Also I heard that you can actual buy the bacteria at the pet store to add to the tank at start up. Any advice?

[treylcham]

Bacteria are not in the water floating around they are attached to objects in the tank like glass substrate and plants or rock/driftwood. Alot of your bacteria is going to be in your filter so make sure that if arw are going to take the tank apart that u have anourher tank to conect the filter to because the bacteria is not going to survive for long in air
Since it needs the water. So dont worry about savinf water cause it wont help u and just be a hassle more than a good thing. and for ur question on buying bacteria at a store, u can get a bottle of it at your lfs most of them have it, it isnt a add it in and your good itore of a helps u take about 2to3 weeks off of a 4week water cycle. Hope this helps u :)

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