I Took The Plunge And Did It

[markandhisfish]

well after months of debate i did it changed my 100g from gravel to sand 3 hours later its done all be it still quite cloudy. the worst bit was taking out the gravel. i did this using a dustpan which i drilled holes in the sand ( argos play sand ) was surprisingly clean and didnt take much washing at all . should look good once it clears .

 

[Keithoms]

Exactly what i did. Cant believe i didnt do it earlier. Best decision ever, i have never looked back.

 

[markandhisfish]

how long did it take for your tank to clear ?

 

[Keithoms]

Cloudy white? Well, i did a partial water change the day after. 4 days later it was pretty much back to normal.

 

[markandhisfish]

yeah thats it kinda cloudy whit its a lot clearer now than it was an hour ago. il do a water change when i get in from work tomorrow

 

[Hawkins]

nice ! get some pics before and after shots if possible.

i loooove your gold severum! such a cool video haha xD

 

[markandhisfish]

have already got some before pics il put 1 in this thread will take the after pics once its all cleared and settled etc plus ive got some new plants coming soon too. cheers about the sev i love him hes great a real character .

before after pics to follow soon

also heres a better pic of vinny

 

[Hawkins]

Nice big tank

vinny <3

What other fish are in there?

 

[markandhisfish]

theres vinny the red sev along with jones ( the missus idea lol ) a little juvie green sev a blue acara 2 jade eyed cichlids 2 firemouths 2 kribs 2 angels 3 pearl gouramis and a golden nugget plec oh almost forgot 4 corys

 

[ryanred5]

We are doing it the other way round, from sand to gravel.

We took out 95% of the sand a few days ago using a scoop and a jug, didn't take long and managed to keep most of the water in the tank rather than in the bucket with the sand.

We are getting Jet Black Roman Gravel to replace the cream sand we have. Here's a pic to show what it was like with sand (very washed out imo), its just got a weeny bit of sand in the bottom now.

Nice Sev Mark btw.

 

[Fisses]

I'm thinking of doing this as i have gravel at the moment, but ive got corydora catfish who like lying on their bellies and routing through the bottom and im worried its too sharp.

was it just a case of get all the ornaments out, get the gravel out, put in the cleaned sand (very slowly to not have bits floating around) and replace ornaments?

one thing i am worried about, is i have a bubble disk, would that just go underneath the sand as usual?

 

[markandhisfish]

i took out all the decor gave the gravel a good vaccing then put 1 of the big mangrove roots at 1 end for the fish to hide in while i took all the gravel from the other end. then moved it over and repeated the other end. i was going to bag up the fish etc but thought would probably be just as stress full for them if i chased them with the net etc so i decided to leave them in. took a dustpan and brush threw the brush in the cupboard drilled holes in the dustpan and used it to scoopout the gravel. this worked really well. then i washed the sand about 1/4 bucket at a time and added it to the tank as i went. the tank was a bit cloudy for a few hours but its cleared now and the fish have suffered no ill effects . ive wanted to do it for a while now for purely astetic reasons but i noticed yesterday that the gravel was damaging my corys barbels so i changed it to sand for them . im glad i did it it looks so much nicer than gravel . its a bit of a pain in the backside to do but well worth it

bubble disc will be fine i push mine into the substrate so that the surface of the disc is just proud of the substrate i did this with the gravel and ive done the same with the sand and its fine

 

[markandhisfish]

before with gravel

after with sand still a few plants to go in so its not quite finished yet

 

[foley69]

looks good mark clear difference with the lighting effect from the sand to the gravel

 

[markandhisfish]

cheers yep[ im really pleased with it. it was a right mission but well worth it i think