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Hello...
Need some advice. I would like to change the rocks at the bottom of my aquarium. First off, how do I best do that?
Secondly, I have 8 various rainbow fish and 6 corys. What kind of rocks would you all recommend. I would like something that might help bring out some of the colors in my rainbows.
I have 2 praecox, 2 Turquoise, 2 red,2 bosemani(sp).
Thanks for your advice and help!!!

I would recommend smaller grained gravel that is black or natural. Those are the best options for putting the focus on your fish, and the corys will appreciate smaller pebbles. When you change it out, drop the water level but preserve the water you take out, and put all the decorations other than the gravel in it. Moving the fish out is optional, but if you do, put them in a separate bucket with tank water. Take out the old gravel, and again keep it in some tank water. After you've thoroughly rinsed your new gravel, add it (it's best to do the rinsing before you start the change out process). Take a pair of nylon pantyhose and cut off part of a leg. Put a couple handfuls of old gravel in the "bag" you've just made and tie it off. Put this in the aquarium for a week or 2 to seed the new gravel with the beneficial bacteria. Depending on the size of your tank, you may want to put more than 1 bag of old gravel in. Put all the decorations back in, add the fish if you removed them, and top off the tank with the old water. Stress Coat and lights out will help everyone calm down after the switch. Over the next week test the water every day or 2, to make sure you don't go through a mini cycle. Preserving some of the old bacteria, keeping the old decorations and preserving the water should prevent it.

HTH and good luck

><>Dani<><

In addition to the process outlined above, it is a good idea to remove the filters from the tank as when you start messing around with substrate you start stiring up all kinds of particles. Moving the fish out to a rubbermaid type storage container is really helpful as it keeps them out of the way while you're playing, and you can run your filters on the holding tank for as long as you need. Simply turning off the filter would force you to work within a 1 hour time period which IME is much shorter than a process such as this takes .

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Certainly dark substrate will help show the colors.

Rainbows will color up better if in a school, which they really should be. They are a very active social fish that love to show off to one another by displaying. This is when their true colors will show up best.Having some females mixed with the males would be a big help.

Age is also a factor. Rainbows only show their full glory at maturity. Young ones can be drab in comparison. They are quite slow growing. Praecox can take up to a year to reach adulthood, can be a couple of years for a Boesmanii to get to full size.

Took my Praecox about 9 months to get to this:

bensaf attached this image:

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Some days you're the pigeon and some days you're the statue.

Remember that age and treachery will always triumph over youth and ability.

Thanks for the help!! I'm going to give it a try I think on Monday!! I'll let you all know how it goes!! Thanks again!!!

Also, is 6 enough for a school?
I would like to get some more, but I think I'm going to wait about a week or so after the rock change is done.

I have a 29 gallon...about how many could I fit in there. I also have 6 small corys. I was think about putting about 10 rainbows total. Or could I do more than that? I dont' want to overstock the tank?

(I know this has moved off the topic of aquascaping, but that was my original question!!!:88)

bensaf - Your praecox is GORGEOUS!!!! Mine i think are still young and developing their colors.

Last edited by vaag at 28-May-2005 19:39