How To Change Subsitrate Without Harming Tank

[guppy fan]

I've knowtised that when I feed my corys thier food often sinks throught the gravel and causes a mess. I would like to change my subsitrate, but I don't want to overstress the fish or harm the bacteria in my tank. I also only have a 5 gallon bucket to store watter, if I need to do so. My tank is ten gallons. I've heard sand is best for corries. How do you clean it. I immagin that sand would come out through a gravle vack. Also, some day when I have room, I would like to get some african dwarf frogs. would sand be safe for them, I've heard that they sometimes accidentaly eat it with thier food and can get impacted. Maybe just a fine rounded gravel would be better for me? Has anyone had problems with thier corrys accidentaly injesting small peaces of gravle? Any way sorry for the rambling, I just have a lot of questions. Thanks for your help.

 

[luque]

what i would do, is bag the fish and go from there, i wouldnt advise doing it whilst the fish are still in

 

[st24rsap]

i changed my substrate the other day from gravel to sand. i removed all the fish and placed them in a clean bucket with tank water. useing a small net i have i scooped out all of the old gravel with the water still in the tank and then replaced it with freshly cleaned sand. waited an hour or so for the dust cloud from the sand to settle, did a 25% water change using stress coat and then re added the corys. They now seem so much happier with sand instead of gravel

 

[rdd1952]

Changing substrate is not terribly hard. I've done it before. You will need 2 buckets though. One to hold the fish in and another to take the rest of the water out with. I guess you could dip the rest out with a pot or something like that though.

Simplest way to do it is to fill your bucket up with tank water first. Set up the filter to run in the bucket (if you can't do that, just keep the media wet). You can put the heater in too but it may not be necessary as the water temp shouldn't drop too quickly and cause any problems. Then take as much water out of the tank as you can so that the fish are easier to net. Using 2 nets is the easiest way. Simply use one net to herd them into the other one. Once you have all the fish out, simply tank every thing out and put in the new sand.

Once everything is switched, put the tank water and the fish back in. Be very careful not to stir up the sand so much that it clouds the tank (washing it thouroughly before adding to the tank will make a world of difference). After the old tank water and the fish are back in, finish filling the tank. It will be about the same as a 50% water change (actually less than that since you probably only have 8 to 9 gallons in the tank after you figure the room the sand and decorations take up.

Unless you have an under gravel filter, it won't cause any noticable impact on your bacteria colony (if you have a UGF, you can't use sand anyway). Just keep an eye on the ammonia and nitrite for a few days to be on the safe side. As far as cleaning it is concerned, it's actualy easier since the waste sits on top of the sand.