Do you have enough containers to hold most of the fish stock and most of
the aquarium water that's in there right now?
I would drain it. Put the biowheel in the container holding the aquarium
water or the fish stock. Make sure that the conatiner holding the fish
stock is suitable for them while you're working on the tank.

I'm wondering if you can seperate the crypts from your current gravel with
only minimal damage to the roots. After you clean out the tank, and remove
all sight of algae on the filter and the tank (by scrubbing), lay the
crypts(roots and all) down and then pour around your flourite/gravel
substrate carefully.

I've read an article in THE KRIB that BBA (black beard algae) thrives in
bodies of water that are acidic, lots of water movement, and very low in CO2
levels (ie streams). And a couple of young SAEs shouldn't bother your
babies.

"E. Mito" wrote in message
...
In article , "Steve Galupe"
writes:

Can't you just add those substrate additives like Root Tabs by aquapharm?
They also have laterite granules that you can carefully add to them
bottom
of your tank.

Moving your crypts around might shock them. Unless you're very patient,
tennelus are hard to replant. Aren't they?!


Thanks for the reply, Steve. I have added the Seachem root tabs to the
substrate; I don't know if its
the root tabs or the DIY CO2 I'm injecting, but recently the wendtii's
look
fabulous. The original
tennelus plant is in terrible shape, but the plantlets that have spread
out
from it look ok.

There's a bad case of what I believe to be BBA on my anubias leaves and a
few
Amazon leaves;
this is an old (~1 year) problem though and I thought that I would just
prune
everything when I
redid the tank...I've also got some amano shrimp, SAE's, and otos on order
from
aquariumfish.net
if they ever process my order...hopefully they will help keep future
outbreaks
in check.

I have ben wanting to redo the tank (as far as re-aquascaping) and replace
the
gravel just because
I was under the impression that large gravel isn't very good substrate
(when I
say large, I mean the
gravel measures approx. 1/2" to 3/4" in diameter) and because it's very
difficult to make the plants
stay put. Stem plants don't stay down...they just float right up becuase
they
can't get a good
roothold in the substrate. Right now it's sort of just a holding tank for
extra plants that I plan to use
when my angelfish fry (also housed in the tank) are large enough to adopt,
but
I would like to
turn it into something nice to look at.

So do you think I should just keep the big gravel in there and supplement
with
laterite balls in
addition to the root tabs? I have an extra bag of Fluorite I was thinking
of
mixing in with some
smaller pea gravel...maybe I could just pour this on top of the existing
gravel
and try to let
it slip between the bigger pieces?

Again, I appreciate your reply. Let me know if you have any other
suggestions.
Thanks!




Erica
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/mitoem/mitoem/index.htm