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Ok so I am going to somehow go about taking out my old natural gravel and adding eco- complete and also taking out my HOB filter and putting in a canister filter. I realize there is going to be a huge loss of good bacteria, so I want to do this with as little stress to my fish as possible.I have a 20 gallon tank I could use to place some fish in....but it all depends on how long the fish are going to be in it. The tank I am redoing is my planted 55 gallon. Any help from anyone...along with sharing past experiences with situations like this would be great! Thank you!

Hi,
I've done this a couple of times, and I have isolated
the most sensitive fish in another tank, and then placed
the remainder in a clean 5 gallon bucket or two, removed
the plants into another bucket and then simply torn the
tank down.

Put functioning airstones in the fish buckets, and save
some of the brown muck from the tank. Tear down the tank,
wash down the insides with fresh water, dump in the new
cleaned substrate, set the heater(s) back in the tank,
hook up the filter again (leave the media alone, don't
change it while redoing the tank), plant the plants,
let the tank come up to temperature, and then start
acclimating the fish to their new home.
Watch the water chemistry for a week or two, mainly the
ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.
After a week or two, then start acclimating the
sensitive fish to their new home.

All in all, it can chew up an afternoon, but by dinner
time, you should be done and watching the tank clear up.

As long as you take your time with the sensitive fish,
its no really big deal. Depending upon the tank and the
amount if plants its time consuming, but again, no big
deal.

Keep an eye on the water values, expect some of the plants
to die back as they expend their stores of nutrients
sending out new roots and new leaves but everything should
recover nicely.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Thank you so much FRANK for your response...I am now not so nervous about this. As far as fish go these are what I have...

2 bolivian rams
2 german blue rams
11 panda cories
5 false julli cories
3 gouramis
9 platies
4 kuhlis
and 1 small rubbernose pleco

I suppose the ones going in the bucket for only a short while will be the gouramis, platies, false jullis, and bolivians. The rest will go in the 20 gallon until the water is better for them.

Tell me what you think of this.
Thanks again for the help FRANK.

Hi,
Yes, I think I'd go with the way you mentioned.
I did forget one thing... put some sort of cover
over the bucket to keep the skittish ones inside.

Frank

-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

There is an alternative strategy you coul apply here PP.

Add your new substrate in small portions until you've replaced the old substrate.

Divide your substrate into, say, 16 equal portions (depending upon the geometry of your tank bottom, arranged as 4x4 or 8x2 tiled units). Systematically replace one unit out of the 16 every week. That way, you get to keep your biofilter running in the aquarium in situ, and don't have to relocate your fishes. You DO, however, have to plan ahead with this, and work out what's going to happen with planting if you have substantial areas that are planted with well rooted plants. You may have to divide your aquarium substrate into irregular sections of approximately equal area and work around the awkward furnishings in order to complete the migration to a new substrate in this fashion.

Additionally, when you replace the first region of old substrate, instead of removing the old substrate, relocate it to the other end of the tank. Then remove amounts equivalent to that with subsequent replacements of substrate, until right at the end, you have one small area of old substrate which can be simply removed wholesale.

If you divide your substrate into 16 separate areas, then this will, needless to say, take 16 weeks. However, given that Eco-Complete is fairly expensive as a substrate material, it gives you time in addition to finanace the purchase of enough substrate for a substantial expanse of aquarium bottom, if that's what you're looking to achieve.


Panda Catfish fan and keeper/breeder since Christmas 2002

when i changed the gravel on my mother in laws tanki put the fish in a bucket like cali said, but i to a pvc pipe and ran it across the bucket and used like a bracket to hang the filter. as i then put about half of the gravel in a half gallon ice cream container (plastic) and put the new gravel in but kept the old in the tank. each week i took a cup full out till it was gone. basically my own way of doing what cali said but it allows you to put all the eco-complete in at once.

then for the filter change take the filter bag for you hob cut it into strips and put it in the media chamber of the canister. let it run until the first scheduled cleaning then remove the strips.

*click *flash *click "whered he go???"