Replacing Gravel

[miss__kp]

Hi Everyone,

Just wondering if anyone can offer some tips. I want to totally remove the tacky brown gravel and river sand out of one of my 350gals.

I'll be replacing it with new gravel, but I imagine this is going to be a fairly big blow to the biological filtration.

Any suggestions for the best way to do it? And what equipment to use that will minimise the inevitable cloud of poo and sand?

 

[albirdy]

Okay, I'm sure there is a better way.
But this is laziness speaking:
Why not just add the now-wanted gravel atop of the status quo?

 

[miss__kp]

I think it would make it too deep, it's already fairly deep as it was fairly heavily planted.

That and the river sand compacts into a gross layer at the bottom.

I wish there was an easy way out of it!!

 

[LisaH]

This is how I'm doing it...
I'm in the middle of doing this myself right now. I'm not doing it all at once because I want the bacteria to be able to "catch up"

First get a lot of buckets. Then get a long syphon hose (like the kind on a python but dont use the wide hard plastic part that you push into the gravel. My hose is about 8ft long. You might want to go longer because your tank is larger than mine. You can buy the hose at hardware stores by the foot.

Start it up...Hold the hose just above the gravel and it will suck it up without clogging. If you hold it too close to the gravel it will clog.
Then while I'm doing the syphon I have a kitty litter scooper and scoop the gravel at the same time.

Don't get distracted while doing this...the buckets fill up QUICKLY. If I had one of those garbage cans on wheels I would be using that

 

[dmed]

It certainly will NOT affect your biofilter, but it will be somewhat of a pain-in-the-rear.

Be sure to rinse the new gravel very, very well or else your water will be terribly cloudy for a while.

 

[BakerLikesFish]

i'd rinse the gravel and completely submerge the gravel and bring it in its container to the bottom before dumping it may want to pull the fish too depending on what u have

 

[miss__kp]

Thanks for the advice, I was having a panic attack that I'd lose all of my good bacteria and just multiply my problems.

Do you see any issue with sucking out half? then waiting a week or so and sucking out the rest?

I had an issue with clogging up the hose, now I know why.

Sadly the tanks got an arowana, ID Sharks and other skittish critters so I want to avoid moving them if possible.