Changing Gravel

[DerekPruder]

  Hello All I have a 100g tanks that has a tiger Oscar 2 Jack Dem.  and 1 pleco  right now i have a white pool sand in the bottom that gets really dirty looking after only a few days.  I want to go to a gravel i have some gravel that i bought from petsmart a long time ago that has never been used.  I was going to put the petsmart gravel in a bucket with some water from the tank for about a week.  after that week i was then going to put it in the tank..  Will this work

[kennyman]

I would think you could simply rinse the gravel in a strainer let it come back to room temperature and then in with it 

Are you taking the fish out, removing the sand and then adding the gravel? Or are you going to use the gravel to cover the sand?

[DerekPruder]

the fish are staying in the tank.  Im going to clean out the sand and then add gravel hopefully without harming the fish in any way.  Has anyone done this and if so did the fish live

[sas]

the fish are staying in the tank.  Im going to clean out the sand and then add gravel hopefully without harming the fish in any way.  Has anyone done this and if so did the fish live

             I'd be inclined to siphon some water out into an appropriate sized pail or pails, put your fish in then remove the sand and add your gravel. Then put your buddies back in. I wouldn't clean your filter at this time though. Have you ever been in a sand storm? Just imagine how they'll feel with all the crud floating in the water? I'd think the fish would thank you for it. You are going to get a nice cloud of ,,,,might be good to let it settle and then siphon it off? I'm assuming there are no plants? Just my opinion  hth

[DerekPruder]

  Putting in gravel new gravel wont kill the fish.. I have heard that putting in new gravel into a mature tank will throw off the bio system and could harm the fish.  If its not true then i will put the fish in a pal and clean the tank of the sand before putting in the gravel

[beowulf]

  Putting in gravel new gravel wont kill the fish.. I have heard that putting in new gravel into a mature tank will throw off the bio system and could harm the fish.  If its not true then i will put the fish in a pal and clean the tank of the sand before putting in the gravel

While the gravel does hold some nice bacteria, as long as the filter is mature you should not have a problem.  A way to do it would be to use a tube of some sort of poor the new gravel down the tube not to disturb everything.

[Laura]

I can understand why you wouldn't want to catch big fish in a 100 gallon.

I do think Sas' suggestion is best - to remove the fish first and then do the change-over. 

Although.....if I was going to try and leave the fish in, I would probably get a larger gauge flexible sipon tube and siphon the sand directly out into buckets.  You may get less sand in the water column that way.

Again - it's just a guess - removing the fish first and putting them in a covered bucket would be the safest way to go IMO.

Simply rinsing the gravel should be fine - no need to let it sit in the water and I agree that you should leave the filter alone for now.

[hamstercaster]

Why not just put the gravel over you sand?  It would be easier and you would have a thicker bottom layer.  I did that at one point to create some kind of effect and aside from a bit of particles floating around, the water was crystal clear within 12 hours.

[Toss]

If you decided to move the sand out, make sure you turn off your filter. You don't want to have sand going through your filter impeller.