Newbie Mistake Please Help Asap.

[jdh21cali]

I am new to Discus keeping and have made a few mistakes. The first mistake I made was buying Discus from a LFS; I fixed that by returning the fish to the LFS and buying from a local breeder. Now the second mistake I made was to put about 75lbs of sand in my 55 gallon tank. I would like to remove the sand with out messing up the bio filtration.
Should I keep some sand in a stocking?
Should I only remove half now, and half latter?
Can my 5 3" discus live in a 10 gallon tank for a few hours while I am removing the sand?
Will this stress my fish out?
All comments welcome.
Thanks in advance

[jdh21cali]

I am new to Discus keeping and have made a few mistakes. The first mistake I made was buying Discus from a LFS; I fixed that by returning the fish to the LFS and buying from a local breeder. Now the second mistake I made was to put about 75lbs of sand in my 55 gallon tank. I would like to remove the sand with out messing up the bio filtration.
Should I keep some sand in a stocking?
Should I only remove half now, and half latter?
Can my 5 3" discus live in a 10 gallon tank for a few hours while I am removing the sand?
Will this stress my fish out?
All comments welcome.
Thanks in advance

[nacra99]

I assume that your tank would be just recently cycled?? Others might have a different opinion, but unless you are confident that your filter can handle the bioload, I am inclined to take the conservative approach.

I would slowly remove a little sand at a time over the next week or so, while continuing to do daily water changes. Remember to test daily (or even better twice daily) for ammonia and nitrites. The moment the test kit picks up either, stop removing sand and do a waterchange. Resume removing the sand when you don't get any ammonia and nitrite readings until all the sand is gone.

Again, this method is really conservative, but i think it reduces a lot of risk, especially if you're not sure of your filter's bio capacity.
Perhaps someone else has a different take?

Cheers
Marc

[AmberC]

Hi! I know there are quite a few here who have sand in their discus tanks. I dont know how much you have in there, but you could keep a thin layer just along the bottom if you wanted.


I would recommend sucking/scooping some out with each water change for a while so as not to mess up your bio filter. If you do it slowly it wont be a problem.

HTH!
Amber

[lhforbes12]

JDH,
You didn't mention what filter(s) you are using but most will provide plenty of bio-filtration. As to getting the sand out, Amber already hit it on the head, simply use a hose to vacuum it out. If you have a gravel washer just take the end (big clear pipe) off. Without knowing what your filtration system is I can't tell you how much to take out at a time, but you can probably take it all out without causing much, if any, probllems.

Larry

[MiamiDan]

I had to remove sand from my 180 gal & it is messy doing little by little, not to mention that it will take you forever. Your fish should be just fine in a 10 gal for a day or two. Just make sure you have an airstone there and do a water change if keeping them there longer than a day. Depending on your biofilter, you might even be able to run it from the 10 gal & keep both alive. Use the present water of the 55 to fill the 10 gal. If I was you, I would remove all sand and go bare bottom, specially with discus. good luck!

[pcsb23]

Agree with Marc. Just take a little at a time out with the syphon tube when syphoning, that will keep the water clean too!

[GulfCoastDiscus]

What kind of filter are you running?

Transper the filter to the 10 gallon tank. Move all the fish. Clean out the 55 and return all the fish and filter.

Make sure to dechlorinate.

dan

[jdh21cali]

Thanks for the help.

[pcsb23]

I merged the threads as 2 post in different sections was confusing, hopefully you will get some more good answers. :)

[crazie.eddie]

It's more stressfull to transfer the fish. I would go with the conservative route also, by just removing a little at a time during a water change.

[Carol_Roberts]

It's easy to siphon sand out. Put one end of a garden hose in the tank and the other end out the back door into a flower bed. Start a siphon and the hose will suck out as much of the sand as you want. I would do it during your water changes - if you do a 30% change pull as much sand as you can during that time. Try not to stir it up too much. Repeat the next day. . . .

Or you can pull the fish to another tank with air/heat and empty the tank, refill with warm, dechlored water and let the filter run for a couple of hours to stabilize pH, then readd fish.