bare from planted

[wildy]

Ok , im thinking of goin bb as im having trouble with disease and its the norm with discus...A questions

1 can i have bog wood
2 can i have a few potted live plants
3 (this is the tricky one) how do i remove the gravel from a 198 us gallon tank and put the fish back all in a few hours????


Here is a pic of my pride red snake..about 41/2 "

[Willie]

Leaving the dark side, eh? ;)

You can't do this with the fish in the tank. The amount of crud that's going to foul the water is amazing. Put the fish in a bucket, add a heater, some bubbles and a cover, and then work on the tank.

Willie

[swvadiscus]

I agree with Willie.....I just removed the subsrate from my 120 gallon this weekend.....it took 24 hrs for the water to clear up running two emperor 400's.
The fish must definitely be moved.

I used a fine mesh flour sifter to remove the larger gravel.

I suggest using a large hose to siphon the finer gravel.

This will reduces cloudiness.......I ended up doing about a 50% water change doing mine.

[Carol_Roberts]

I've pulled gravel out with a spaghetti strainer or collander before. The easiest is to use a garden hose. Put one end outside, the other end in the tank. Start a siphon. You should be able to suck all the gravel out the door and onto the ground (or a tarp).

It would be best if you could have all fresh, aged water on hand to refill the tank. Or if you have another tank for the discus (and filters) for overnight you could totally wipe down the existing tank, re fill with dechlorinated, warm water and (run for several hours with existing filters) to stabilize pH then add back discus .

[wildy]

I can keep 50 gallon in a water butt, im thinking if i run my externals in here to keep bacteria, but i will have to refill the rest with purified water is this ok, and what about my other fish what would you advise.......

I have bristle nose
neons
ottos
clowns
rams
corys

[mikeos]

If you dont have the facilities to do it all in one go then syphon out some of the gravel with each water change. Leave the plants untill they drift free due to the lack of gravel or scoop the rootball up in a plastic bag while syphoning next to the work area. Stop working over the gravel at about 75% of your planned WC and try to capture as much suspended matter as possible with the remainder. If you work slowly and carefully you should be able to do the job in about 4-6 WC's without polluting the entire tank.

[Wahter]

Wildy,

Let us know how the "planted-to-bare-bottom" project worked out for you and what you did.

Thanks!


Walter