Changing My Gravel To Sand Or Not?

This is a thread about changing substrates, http://www.myaquariumclub.com/i-am-wanting-to-chan...

Here is a video that takes you step by step, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCvVfvExu2A

Good Luck

EDIT

Sand is not harder to take care of, in my opinion it is easier then gravel.

When you use a gravel vac just wave it over the surface of the sand and the debris will get sucked into the vacuum.

I forgot to mention I recommend you get Pool Filter Sand for your substrate. In My opinion it is the far better looking sand out of all the different sand substrate being sold for aquariums. It is also the cheapest, it can be purchased at any hardware store.

I don't know if I can be of any help or not, but I am going to try. Since your tank is already cycled, you don't wanna get rid of the water for new water.

So you can get a clean fresh bucket (or several in your case) and syphon the water out using your gravel vacuum. I'd do this with at least half of the water so that you can keep all the good bacteria and stuff.

Put your fish in a bowl with some of the tank water. Then dump the rest of the water and put in whatever you want.

Or, you can take out your fish and decorations, leave the water in and spoon out gravel... that'd be the easier way. Make sure you rinse your hands before getting in there.

I made the change to sand in my 29g easily, you will have a little more work, considering you have a larger aquarium though.

1) Clean the sand THOROUGHLY, I mean until the water is pristine after filling the bucket with it.

2) Take a cup that was never washed with soap and scoop out 1/3 of your tanks gravel on one side

3) take the cup and scoop out the sand that should be moist and almost clumping

4) carefully and slowly lower it into the water

5) near the bottom, slowly pour it onto the bottom where the gravel was removed

You can do that very slowly and do it over a period of time by doing the aquarium in sections. =)

I in basic terms eliminate my fish as a final hotel and did the substitute with the fish interior the tank. I scooped out the gravel with a cup until eventually there became in basic terms slightly left that became stressful to scoop, then I used the cup to scrupulously place the properly-rinsed sand into the tank. Smoothed it out, redecorated, and it labored high quality, fish have been high quality. And went ideal back to frequent quickly afterwards. sure it gets cloudy - waste would be disturbed and the water will turn brownish - this might settle and sparkling and could not injury the fish, the extra useful difficulty the gravel is in, the fewer murk you will could cope with. What I did became vacuume the gravel a number of cases during the week befor the substitute, to cut back the quantity of waste disturbed. in case you employ a miraculous clear out you will prefer it off while you place the sand and any time you dissatisfied the sand - canister filters are in simple terms right in sand tanks because of the fact they're sand secure - if sand gets into an HOB it may scratch the impeller and make it very noisy and demanding. in case you experience extra mushy removing the fish, achieve this as long as you have acceptable bins for all of them - yet shop a minimum of 0.5 the previous water to reuse returned once you refil the tank. i did not have any substitute interior the cycle, yet it incredibly is additionally because of the fact I used a stable canister clear out. it incredibly is significant try for ammonia and nitrite frequently after a super substitute, because of the fact it may take a number of days for the micro organism to capture up - additionally do not sparkling the clear out for a minimum of two weeks in the previous and after the substrate substitute, to make particular you have a great number of healthful micro organism in it.

Don't use sand unless it is a saltwater tank. It is way too much of a hassle! You should be gravel vacing once a month and with sand, this is almost impossible. So if you dont want to do a full water change once a month, stick with gravel. If you want a more natural affect, just go with natural colored rocks.

confusing task. check out from yahoo or google. that could actually help!