90 gallon Green Sevrum Tank

[squigster]

Hi All,
Im new to the site and im need of some opinions/suggestions. I have a 90 gallon Oceanic tank and have 1 Green Sevrum in it which is about 6". I have had him a few years and have some driftwood and rock in there. One of the issues im having is that the driftwood is a few years old and is starting to fall apart and there fore getting all over the gravel so im really considering removing it. ON a side note id like to change out the substrate to sand due to detritus build up and vacuuming in the gravel and was wandering if that is possible to do with the tank still running with the Sevrum in there. I am more concerned about it cycling again due to removing all the gravel in there. I have a 30 gallon sump with bio balls under it so was considering bagging some gravel and keeping it in there a while. I know its not an easy task, but I do not want to lose the fish, so looking for suggestions on how to go about this the best way. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

 

[esoxlucius]

Firstly, welcome to the site.

You are right to be cautious about taking all the gravel and the driftwood out in one hit. There will be a lot of BB on the surfaces and it may upset your parameters if all of a sudden it's gone.

When I decided I wanted to go barebottom in my 180 a couple of years ago I decided to take my gravel out in dribs and drabs over the course of a few water changes. I'd suck the gravel up and place a sieve at the point where the water went into the outside drain. I didn't have that thick a layer of gravel to start with so if my memory serves me right I think i'd got rid of it all in four water changes or so. This had no ill effect on my parameters at all and when i'd finished i'd syphoned out every last bit of gravel.

So if you aren't in any rush and you are very wary about upsetting your readings maybe you could do it the way I did it.

 

[squigster]

Firstly, welcome to the site.

You are right to be cautious about taking all the gravel and the driftwood out in one hit. There will be a lot of BB on the surfaces and it may upset your parameters if all of a sudden it's gone.

When I decided I wanted to go barebottom in my 180 a couple of years ago I decided to take my gravel out in dribs and drabs over the course of a few water changes. I'd suck the gravel up and place a sieve at the point where the water went into the outside drain. I didn't have that thick a layer of gravel to start with so if my memory serves me right I think i'd got rid of it all in four water changes or so. This had no ill effect on my parameters at all and when i'd finished i'd syphoned out every last bit of gravel.

So if you aren't in any rush and you are very wary about upsetting your readings maybe you could do it the way I did it.

Thank you for your help! I will give that a shot.