Thinking of changing gravel

[Whitey]

I really want to avoid any ammonia and nitrate spikes and am thinking of changing to another gravel, say its the summertime spirit.

I heard on here ages ago, that a good way to keep bacteria in the tank is to leave some of the old gravel in a stocking laying on the new gravel?

Weather or not this is crap i dont know, it sounds very logical to me but has anyone else tried this or know?

 

[Undawada]

Works for me when I switched to sand. Same principle applies to switching gravels. Most of the bacteria is in the filter media, so don't change that. This just helps the bacteria colonize the new gravel quicker. Leave it on for about a week.

 

[netobeto]

yeah it works or you could leave a decor but it will be slower.

 

[Whitey]

By decor do u mean rocks and plants etc?

And i have an external filter if that helps.

 

[dirtydogg]

if you're not using an UGF then you should be fine as the majority of the beneficial bacteria will reside in your filter media. Regardless, when I switched to sand I left some of the old substrate in just for a month just to be on the safe side.

 

[Tolak]

I think if you have barely adequate filtration, and a fully stocked tank you may run into trouble, as a higher percentage of bacteria will reside in the gravel. If you have an overfiltered tank a higher percentage will reside in the filter media, which would help keep the tank from going through a mini cycle.

The gravel in the stocking will help, I did that when I changed gravel, didn't have any problems.

Tolak