Changing Substrate of an established fully planted Tank?

[Aqua]

I am planning to change my substrate of my existing 55gal tank. Currently I
have 60% Fluorite, 10% Gravel (Pet$Mart) and 30% Pool Sand. I going to have
100 % Fluorite.

How do I change it without affecting my filtration and my live stock?

I thought of changing 25% of gravel every week for 4 weeks. Is it a good
idea?

I appreciate any of your ideas.

Dominic
http://www.dlink.org/aqua

[chet]

I'm thinking that a vigorous regular vacuuming could draw out all of the
sand and leave behind the gravel and fluorite. Is 90% fluorite unacceptable?

chet

"Aqua" > wrote in message
...
> I am planning to change my substrate of my existing 55gal tank. Currently
I
> have 60% Fluorite, 10% Gravel (Pet$Mart) and 30% Pool Sand. I going to
have
> 100 % Fluorite.
>
> How do I change it without affecting my filtration and my live stock?
>
> I thought of changing 25% of gravel every week for 4 weeks. Is it a good
> idea?
>
> I appreciate any of your ideas.
>
> Dominic
> http://www.dlink.org/aqua
>
>
>

[Paulio629]

Big Job. I would add more Flourite to "up" the %age. Dont think I would remove
all thats there. I realy doubt that it is worth the work IMHO.

[Tasslehoff]

I removed 66% of my 40G gravel and UGF with straight Flourite a few weeks
ago and made a HUGE mess of the water with all the fish still in it. I
prolly didn't wash the flourite enough as I could only see about 1 cm into
the tank after the first bag out of 2.5 bags, (I washed about 2.3kg at a
time 3 times each.) Although I started freaking out at this point as well
as the fear of burying a few fish dumping/smoothing down the flourite, I
only changed about 20% of the water and it cleared up to a respectable level
in 5 hours and everyone is still alive(YAY) at this point in time(Pair
angels, 2 albino corys, 2 suckermouth catfish, 2 cardinal tetras, 3 rummy
nose tetras, 3 platys.
If you do it this way make sure you've got a clean(biologically established
and reasonably detritus free) and powerful filter(eheim 2213 cannister in my
case) beforehand and it'll have to be stripped and THOROUGHLY recleaned
within a week or so, as well as the tubing to prevent damage to the
filter/breakdown of nitrogenous waste and other muck inside the filter. You
may also want to make sure it's medium/heavily planted as well when
replacing the substrate to avoid any sorts of spikes.

"LeighMo" > wrote in message
...
> >How do I change it without affecting my filtration and my live stock?
>
> A lot of us have done it. As long as you have an external filter of some
sort,
> it shouldn't be a problem.
>
> In my 29 gallon tank, I had black epoxy-coated gravel that I wanted to
replace
> with Flourite. They would not have looked natural mixed together, so I
> completely removed the old gravel. I bought a 15 gallon plastic storage
bin
> from K-Mart for $3, filled it with 50% water from the tank, 50%
dechlorinated
> tap water, then moved all fish, shrimp, plants, driftwood, rocks, etc.,
into
> it.
>
> I removed the rest of the water and the old gravel. I added the Flourite,
> planted the tank, and refilled it. Then I moved everybody back in. The
tank
> had a UGF, which I removed when I replaced the gravel, but I also had an
> Aquaclear 300, so the tank didn't have to be cycled again. I added
Amquel,
> just in case, but it wasn't necessary.
>
> Since your tank is so large, you might prefer to leave all the fish in it
when
> you change the gravel. Chuck did it that way. He posted an article about
it
> awhile back. I'll paste it below. Hopefully, he won't mind the re-post.
:-)
>
> -----------------------------------------------
>
> If you really want to remove the old stuff, it is possible. I just
> did it on my 29g tank.
>
> Tank was up and running for about a year and a half. It started with
> large round river rock. Later I added some flourite (the way I
> described above). But the large river rock was very large, and all
> the flourite just worked it's way to the bottom, and the large rock
> wouldn't hold down plants. So I finally decided to re-do it.
>
> I removed all rocks/plants/driftwood,etc (watch out for small critters
> hiding on rocks/wood! I ended up with an algae-eating shrimp on my
> floor! He survived, but only by pure luck. They are just about
> invisible, but I happened to notice some movement on the floor!.)
>
> After removing all the decorations, I vacuumed 1/2 the gravel,
> removing about 25% of the water in the tank. I refilled the tank,
> vacuumed the other half, refilled the tank, then used a plastic cup to
> remove the old gravel. The water gets VERY messy during this, so I
> did frequent 25% water changes. By the time I got all the old gravel
> removed, I had probably done 10 25% water changes. But I think the
> stress was less than it would have been from trying to catch all the
> fish in the tank.
>
> ( added note: Be sure your replacement water is dechlorinated, and
> close in temperature. Even if you normally don't need to worry about
> dechlor, with this much water replacement, it will kill fish if there
> is chlorine or chloramine )
>
> After all the substrate was removed, I cleaned the filter (totally
> clogged) and let it clear the water for about an hour. Then I started
> adding my new substrate (75% flourite, 25% profile).
>
> ( another note: I added the new substrate a handful of fluorite at a
> time. If there are any larger rocks mixed in with your new substrate,
> be VERY carefull not to dump it in, but to reach to the bottom of the
> tank and place the new substrate material. Otherwise, even a small
> rock will crack the bare tank bottom. )
>
> After adding all the new substrate, I did ANOTHER water change. At
> this point, I couldn't see more than 6 inches into the tank. So, I
> let the filter work for a while, and added a spare Aquaclean mini to
> the side of the tank to help out. After an hour, I could see into the
> tank, so I put the plants and decorations (rocks/driftwood) back in.
>
> I had to clean the fitler pads again the next day, and the water
> looked much nicer. I did notice a slight ammonia spike, probably a
> combination of the mulm/junk I stirred up, and the loss of all the
> bacteria that was living in the gravel. But the ammonia was only
> measurable for one day. All the fish survived, except for one new
> rainbow shark. The rest include Tiger Barbs, Glow-lite tetras, neon
> tetras, Oto cats, Cory cats, Gourami, and algae eating shrimp. The
> tank is better than ever now.
>
> -----------------------
>
> Hope this helps.
>
> And if you are planning on going to Profile or fluorite, be sure to
> rinse it a LOT! Rinse it until you can't stand it any more, then
> rinse it some more. Really. It's very dusty stuff.
>
> Chuck Gadd
> http://www.csd.net/~cgadd/aqua