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I currently have a 55gal with ugly blue gravel. I am thinking of switching to black tahitian moon sand but had a few questions first. 1: Would it be beneficial to leave a small layer of gravle under the sand so as not to totally kill the bacteria colonies? 2: Several of my cichlids currently love to rearrange the gravel... will the sand have any adverse effect on them?
I think I have pretty much figured out hyow I am going to accomplish this from reading various posts on the topic, but I want some opinions on those two questions first. Thanks in advance!

if you leave gravel on the bottom, it will work its way to the top and eventually get mixed in with the sand, it wont stay. and if its on the bottom, the bacteria will be "smothered".

youd be better off putting gravel into pantyhose and hanging in the tank for a week or 2, to help it from recycling. make sure you keep the gravel wet, or the bacteria will die.

hca's got it exactly . You really don't want to mix the gravel and sand. I did have some sucess with doing half the tank @a time when I switched from ugly purple gravel to playsand....however I didnt' have anyone more active than corys digging in it (even then they did spread it around quite a bit within a one week timeperiod).

Few tips:

~Rinse rinse rinse the sand! and raise your intake on the filter.

~Remove fish and filters to a bucket or rubbermaid storage container (the sand will take some time to settle)

~Keep some of your old gravel use pantyhose or a shallow dish (old cleaned chinese food containers work well ) for 3-4 weeks after the switch

~Use Cycle or Biospira whichever is available

~Give yourself plenty of time for the switch!.

Most importantly (IME anyway) is to not rush the project. I spent a few weeks switching over the tank I keep up @the office....even with the way I did it there are some things I wish I had done differently (like remove the fish ].&lt.
HTH a bit , and good luck !

^_^


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