Sand Instead Of Gravel

[scottish_ash]

Hi there I'm new to here and new to fish keeping i have an established tank that has 6 neon tetras and 3 panda corys in it. After getting the cores a few days ago i have ready up that they prefer sand in the tank and are more active with sand.
 
Im looking into changing from gravel to sand but I'm worried about messing the tank up...
 
I have a read a few posts about changing it but theres so many people that are saying different ways of doing it. 
 
Can anybody help at all please thanks 
 
Ash

 

[fluttermoth]

to the forum, Ash.

It's really not too difficult to do; I've just changed one of my tanks and it only took a couple of hours.

If the tank is newly set up, and the old gravel is fairly clean, you can do it with the fish in; take all the plants and decorations out, scoop out your gravel and then add your (well washed!) sand, using something like an old ice cream or margarine tub.

Or you can catch the fish and keep them in a covered storage box or bucket, with the heater, while you strip the tank down.

You want to make sure that your filter stays wet, so your filter bacteria stay alive, and wash the sand really, really well before you start, as it's usually very dusty.

You wash the sand by putting some in a bucket, filling with water, stirring it around and pouring off the dirty water. You will lose some of the lighter particles of sand, but you don't want those in your tank anyway. Continue doing that until the water is clear and you have only sand that sinks within a minute or two of being stirred up.

With any major overhaul of a tank, you should not feed the fish for a couple of days beforehand (so they produce less waste) and you should test daily, for ammonia and nitrite, for a few days afterwards, as you can lose some of your bacteria and you might need to do a couple of extra water changes while the bacterial colonies re-establish themselves.

It sounds more hassle than it is, tbh, and your cories will certainly be much happier

 

[noobgamers]

i just cheated and put it on top of the old gravel

 

 

[scottish_ash]

thanks for your reply fluttermoth
 
So basiclly i have a 40ltr tank so if i do go to change it do i just split it into 3 parts and do it over 3 weeks is it better that way? i don't want to mess up the tank and for it to have to cycle again. or do i just do it all at once?
 
Noobgamers I've seen a lot of people saying not to do that 

 

[fluttermoth]

There's no point putting sand on top of gravel; the sand will just work its way through the gaps and end up underneath!

Ash; just do it all at once, as your tank is so small. Nearly all the bacteria will be living in the filter; there are a few that do live in the substrate or on surfaces, which is why you need to reduce feeding and up your testing, but you won't uncycle your tank

 

[scottish_ash]

How to i deal with anything that happens after the change been told that things can rise that are lethal to the fish after i change it, sorry if I'm asking stupid questions here 
 
thanks for your replies tho fluttermoth deffo the best i have had so far  

 

[scottish_ash]

sorry just thought of another question i have live plants am i better changing to plastic ones as the corys will just uproot the plants all the time won't they??

 

[TallTree01]

How to i deal with anything that happens after the change been told that things can rise that are lethal to the fish after i change it, sorry if I'm asking stupid questions here 
 
thanks for your replies tho fluttermoth deffo the best i have had so far

Once you stir up the gravel, of there's lots of little brown bits and stuff then you'll want to syphon those out and replace with clean water.

sorry just thought of another question i have live plants am i better changing to plastic ones as the corys will just uproot the plants all the time won't they??

My cories are larger than pandas and they don't uproot plants. Yours will be fine with live plants.

 

[scottish_ash]

thanks a lot for all your help i went out and bought some today and I'm busy trying to clean it just now.... WOW what a job lol. 
 
Will get there tho, if i have anymore questions hope you don't mind me annoying you all lol
 
Talltree01 what i meant by the changes was changes in ph or ammonia or anything like that how do i deal with that? 
 
Thanks a lot for being so pacient with me  

 

[fluttermoth]

Do you not have test kits, OP? All fishkeepers should have a set, IMO; they really are essential.

When you change tanks around, you can lose some of the bacteria that eat the fish's wastes and so you can, occasionally, get raised levels of ammonia and or nitrite as a result, and you would need to do some extra water changes to keep them low. But there'd be no way of knowing if that was happening without testing the water.

You're not being at all annoying; we're all here to help

 

[scottish_ash]

yeah i have test strips but I'm not the best at reading them yet i don't think i find it hard to decide what colour it best matches lol
 
have just tried to rinse a bucket of the sand before work but its not quite running clear yet so will need a few more rinses i think lol, I'm guessing this bit takes a while 
 
Once again thanks a lot for all the advice 

 

[fluttermoth]

when you run out of test strips, I'd strongly (actually very[ strongly!) recommend you get liquid/tablet type tests next, as they're much more accurate.

Do your strips test for ammonia?

 

[scottish_ash]

ahh ok and I'm not too sure to be honest they test for ph, gh, kh, no2, no3, cl2 if you know what they are lol 
 
was told that was all that i needed to test for.... its JBL easy test 6in1 strips if that helps any 

 

[scottish_ash]

im guessing the water never runs perfectly clear have been rinsing out the first bucket for ages now and its still not perfectly clear yet 
 
sorry for all the questions folks

 

[fluttermoth]

ahh ok and I'm not too sure to be honest they test for ph, gh, kh, no2, no3, cl2 if you know what they are lol 
 
was told that was all that i needed to test for.... its JBL easy test 6in1 strips if that helps any

pH = acidicty
gh and kh = hardness
no2 = nitrite
no3 = nitrate
cl = chlorine

You definitely need to be able to test for ammonia, as that is what the fish directly produce; nitrite and nitrate ate further on in the nitrate cycle.

Are you making sure you're tipping out all the lighter particles? you will lose a bit of the 'good' (heavy) sand that way, but that's the stuff that will cloud your tank. If it's just a slight haze, then that's fine and won't affect your fish.