# changing from gravel to sand. Just one kicker....



## mia_ann (Dec 20, 2008)

I don't want to remove all of the fish and drain the water first. Is there a way to do this without taking all the fish out and draining the tank?

Also, that type of sandy substrate is best?

Thanks a lot!


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

Assume you would drain half? And the existing substrate is really really clean? The danger to leaving the fish in the tank is if the water gets so cloudy and dirty that they can no longer extract enough oxygen to survive.

Pool filter sand seems to be a favorite, I'm trying it in one of my tanks.


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## tchoked (Mar 15, 2008)

i recently added more sand to my substrate few monts ago
i did what the op is proposing and lost 3 adult dems
good luck


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## mia_ann (Dec 20, 2008)

DJRansome said:


> Assume you would drain half? And the existing substrate is really really clean? The danger to leaving the fish in the tank is if the water gets so cloudy and dirty that they can no longer extract enough oxygen to survive.
> 
> Pool filter sand seems to be a favorite, I'm trying it in one of my tanks.


If I take them all out, how long would I have to leave them out? I want to do the easiest thing, but I also want to do what is safest for my fish.


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## Aura (Oct 29, 2005)

What I did was thorough vacuuming each day for three or so days until I had almost all of the debris out of the gravel and then again on the substrate switch day. That way I didn't have that nastiness in the water when I removed the gravel from the tank. I moved all of the decorations/rocks to one side of the tank and used a large net to scoop the gravel out of the other side. When that side was done, I repeated on the other half. Then using a plastic cup or container of some sort, I scooped it full of sand (that had been warmed up to approximate tank temperature), and gently lowered the cup to the bottom of the tank. Gently placing the sand on the bottom minimizes cloudiness that might occur if you just dump or pour it in from the top.

I have pool filter sand in 9 tanks. :thumb:


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## DJRansome (Oct 29, 2005)

I guess I would just find it easier to stick them in a bucket (or buckets if you have aggressive ones) for two hours than trying to work around them and worry about them.

How quick can you switch the substrate?

If you drain down to nothing, scoop out the old with a new, clean dust pan purchased just for this, dump in the new and refill two hours should be plenty.

With clean substrate and clean water you should not have a cloudiness problem. Be sure to warm the new substrate to tank temp (use thermometer) with the rinse water immediately before adding.

I'd put a filter on the bucket.


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## Aura (Oct 29, 2005)

DJRansome said:


> I guess I would just find it easier to stick them in a bucket


It takes me two hours just to catch them all. 

I know if the tank were drained down low, it wouldn't take that long. I just prefer to leave them in the tank. The actual switching of the substrate doesn't take long at all. The time-consuming part is getting the rocks arranged back to the way they were before.


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## RyanR (Apr 29, 2008)

I've done a few substrate changes in the past month. Fish do fine. The water will not suddenly become deoxygenated. Only stagnant water with rotting organics really deoxygenates. Beneficial bacteria live best in the filter, and on surfaces in the tank where there's decent circulation, thus you're not going to "uncycle" a tank by removing the gravel.

As mentioned, the key is getting the gravel squeaky clean with a gravel vac and having the water quality at its best. Lots of filtration is handy.

Put all of the decor on one side. Lower in a spaghetti strainer and fill it with gravel, bring it up and put it in a bucket. Rinse and repeat until that half of the tank is cleared. Then move all of the decor to the now barren side of the tank. Fish will follow. Remove the gravel from the new side of the tank. Once the gravel is gone, the water will be murky as anything. This is a good time for a water change.

If you add new gravel, I'd just pour it in. With sand, I got mine cleaned in warm water, put the cleaned sand in a plastic pitcher, turned the filters off, and then lowered the pitcher to the bottom of the tank and poured the sand on the bottom. Once all of the sand was in, I gently spread it around the bottom of the tank. After 10 or so minutes, I turned the filters back on.

As for what sand, it depends. I guess Home Depot play sand gets a good rap, as do some flavors of pool filter sand. The pool filter sand I got locally was real dirty. Took forever to get it clean... in April.... with near freezing hose water. No fun.

I changed the my African tank to sand last weekend. I wanted something lighter colored since the tank has 50/50 daylight-actinic lighting (blue + tan = yuck). I just got the fancy Estes brand sand from the LFS. I used one part black to 8-10 parts white sand. Yes, 35lbs of sand for the 75g was a little pricey (~$35), but good-gawd was it clean! It just needed a rinse or two, which I did with warm water in the kitchen sink. The extra cost was well worth it, IMHO. Looks great, and my wife was blown away. She's told me to put sand in all of our tanks. :lol:

-Ryan


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## mia_ann (Dec 20, 2008)

RyanR said:


> I've done a few substrate changes in the past month. Fish do fine. The water will not suddenly become deoxygenated. Only stagnant water with rotting organics really deoxygenates. Beneficial bacteria live best in the filter, and on surfaces in the tank where there's decent circulation, thus you're not going to "uncycle" a tank by removing the gravel.
> 
> As mentioned, the key is getting the gravel squeaky clean with a gravel vac and having the water quality at its best. Lots of filtration is handy.
> 
> ...


So, did you vacuum the gravel daily for a week? Longer? I vacuum mine regularly anyway (every other water change) so it's usually pretty clean, but Not clean enough to just start scooping it all out. I'm sure there's poo under there lurking lol. I have tons of rocks, too, so that should be fun lol.


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## bearded lab (Apr 28, 2010)

This is what I did when I switched:
1.Rinse the sand THOROUGHLY (see the video on this site about rinsing sand)
2.Vacuum all the gravel.
3.Clear a trough in the gravel in the middle of the tank that is glass-deep.
4.Stick a piece of sandstone in the trough to separate two sides of the substrate.
5.Scoop out all the gravel on one side using a cup.
6.Put the sand in some hot water if need be, swirl it around, and pour it off(this is to make sure the sand doesn't change the tank temperature too much)
7.Turn the filters off and add the sand using the cup.
8.Turn the filters back on and fill the tank back up.
I had no difficulties with fish, moving decor from one side to the other minimized stress. I will be putting sand in the other side soon.


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## mia_ann (Dec 20, 2008)

bearded lab said:


> This is what I did when I switched:
> 1.Rinse the sand THOROUGHLY (see the video on this site about rinsing sand)
> 2.Vacuum all the gravel.
> 3.Clear a trough in the gravel in the middle of the tank that is glass-deep.
> ...


Did you empty your tank all the way?


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## bearded lab (Apr 28, 2010)

No more that it was emptied by cleaning the gravel with the siphon hose. I'd say I took out 1/3 of the water. The key I think is clean sand. My water was a bit cloudy, but cleared in a few hours, and I saw no increased breathing from the fish.


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## mia_ann (Dec 20, 2008)

Thanks for the help! Did you get a lot of poo from your gravel, even though you vacuumed it?


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## RyanR (Apr 29, 2008)

mia_ann said:


> So, did you vacuum the gravel daily for a week? Longer? I vacuum mine regularly anyway (every other water change) so it's usually pretty clean, but Not clean enough to just start scooping it all out. I'm sure there's poo under there lurking lol. I have tons of rocks, too, so that should be fun lol.


I just did one really thorough gravel vac during the water change before the expected substrate swap. No matter how well you vac, you'll stir up quite a cloud of yuck when you scoop the gravel out.

My take is that in nature, storms rip up all sorts stuff, and fish are perfectly capable of dealing with it. No worries.

-Ryan


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## mia_ann (Dec 20, 2008)

Thanks Ryan!

Just one more question.... How many pounds of sand is recommended for a 55g standard footprint?


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## Floridagirl (Jan 10, 2008)

DJRansome said:


> I guess I would just find it easier to stick them in a bucket (or buckets if you have aggressive ones) for two hours than trying to work around them and worry about them.
> 
> How quick can you switch the substrate?
> 
> ...


I've done exactly this. The dustpan works great. 
It's easy to catch fish if all the decor is out fisrt.(use two nets). 
Make sure you clean all the sand prior to the move, and it will go smoothly. 
I like putting my fish in a large rubbermade with a hole in the lid to drop an airstone attached to a pump.


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## RyanR (Apr 29, 2008)

There's a sand calculator in the "library" section. Handy little tool for sure.

-Ryan


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## sunnee1 (May 21, 2010)

This is a great topic for me cause I kinda want to change my 85 gal over to sand but thoughtit is a huge task and something too crazy--till now I see I am not the only one.
I did give my tank a sort of "pool" of sand. I found a flat, large, plastic retangular box and put some sand in it, have it covered and hidden, my fish went right to it, so I really felt good about the idea of changing over completely, yet here I sit still having not done it because it soes seemlike a huge undertaking. Though now I have two areas and it really looks nice and the fish have seemed to like the rocks and the sand too. 
Anyway I am glad to get the info on vaccuuming the rocks good first and that the fish are hardy, all really good info, so thanks everyone.
I would like to say that I added the entire bag of 50 pounds of PLAY SAND to my 30 gal. The zebras loved it cause there was a lot for them to move around! (I have since got rid of the zebras)
I also would like to say that I was trying to find out what pool filter sand was and my nephew works as a pool cleaner so when I asked him what it was he called his boss and was told that that sand has glass or something (I forget what) that he wouldn't recomend letting the fish get into their mouths--anyway don't know since the response above by Aura says she uses it in 9 tanks and I have heard of people using it.
The play sand is pretty tho it needed A LOT, really a lot, of cleaning, rinsing over and over at least 15 times - I think more.


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## Aura (Oct 29, 2005)

> I also would like to say that I was trying to find out what pool filter sand was and my nephew works as a pool cleaner so when I asked him what it was he called his boss and was told that that sand has glass or something (I forget what) that he wouldn't recomend letting the fish get into their mouths--anyway don't know since the response above by Aura says she uses it in 9 tanks and I have heard of people using it.


It's a silica sand and it should be safe for your fish. Mine are constantly digging around in it and I've seen no problems as a result. I've been using it for several years now. The brand that I bought is a light tan color. It did require quite a bit of rinsing, but was nowhere near as dirty as the play sand. You will want to be careful with it when it's dry. (I think there was a warning on the bag to avoid inhaling it. Don't get it all stirred up and inhale the dust.)

Here are a few pictures -- in the first picture, I was checking what it looked like with a variety of different rocks I had found. (I was trying to decide which rocks to use in that tank.) The other two pics, fish are digging in it.


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## Guams (Aug 21, 2009)

mia_ann said:


> Just one more question.... How many pounds of sand is recommended for a 55g standard footprint?


A 50 pound bag will leave you with plenty of extra sand. :thumb:


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## mia_ann (Dec 20, 2008)

Thanks Guams! I heard play sand is pretty cheap, too, right? Like ten bucks or something?


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## gilberbt (Aug 1, 2009)

I just switched last weekend from gravel to sand in my 75G tank and I used 100 lbs of it and it seams about right so you probably can get by with 50-75 lbs or so in a 55 tank depending on how deep you want it. I actually didnt drain my tank at all durning the process I left it full and actually added water at one point so my filters could keep running when I was taking out the gravel. I let the filters run for about 20 minutes after I had the gravel out then turned them off and added the sand and turned them back on about 20 mintues after that. I am not sure if it was needed and it was very cloudy at one point but I didnt lose any fish in the process. I am not sure where you are located but I got some white pre clean sand at a local hardware store (Menards) called Handy Sand that is pure white 100% pre cleaned sand and no toxins. Mainly used for mixing with paint so its 100% clean and I have heard of others using it in tanks before too. It was like $4.68 per 50 lbs bag (playsand was $2.68 per 50 lbs) and I just lightly rinsed it before adding it to the tank and no dirt or dust came out at all so it sure beats spending hours cleaning playsand that would of saved me a whole $2 per bag. Anyway good luck with your switch!


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