Is this feasible?

[gex18]

I have a juwel rio 400 tank and currentely have a gravel subsrate, and inhabitants are discus, apistos, cardinals and corys, however i am wanting to swap from gravel to sand, but have nowhere near enough containers to hold all water needed and tank has just had major upheavel, so was wondering if i could siphon the gravel out and add the sand via a siphon (and do water change at same time), while fish are in situ? Also how many 25 kg bags are reccomended for a 60" x 24" x 20" tank? And what sort of depth is reccomended (will be growing plants also)?

Cheers guys

Anthony

[sharn]

i would definatly remove your fish during the substrate change as any flying bits of particles could irritate their gills? keep as much water as you can but the filters are the most important as they hold your bacteria. im not sure how you would siphon the gravel out, that would have to be one super strong siphon :lol:

when i changed my substrate over i moved out the fish then netted all my stones out with a big net and then added the wash sand, let it settle for a few hours, did a 40% water change and then added back the fish once everything was settled

[FishLover]

You can siphon out the gravel for sure. I did that to my 124 g tank just few months back. You will need to have a tube that is about 1 to 1.5" big depending on the size of your gravel. Don't do it in one time. I took out 1/3 gravel each water change and put new gravel back in the last water change.

As for sand, I'm not sure. It will cloud the water and I'm not sure it is good for the fish or not. Since I put in the new gravel, that was not the problem.

For sure you want to test the sand before you put it in, make sure it will not change your PH.

[Merrilyn]

Hi Anthony, as fishlover suggests, don't remove all your gravel at once. It houses a lot of your nitrifying bacteria. Do it gradually, over a period of say three weeks to give your canister filters time to catch up and grow a larger nitrifying bacteria population.

Pool filter sand works a treat, and the plants seem to like it, as they send out a huge amount of roots. But remember, it has nothing in there for the plants, so you need to add some kind of fertilizer for good growth.

I have lots of amazon swords growing in the planted tanks, so I have sand to a depth of about 3 inches (7 - 8 cm) at the back, and down to about 1 inch (2.5 cm) at the front of the tank. The debris and mulm tends to roll down to the front of the tank, where it's easier to syphon out.

Love to see some photos of your tank when it's all set up. :P