Removing Gravel

[africandiscus]

I am looking at going for a bare bottom tank. What is the easiest way of removing gravel without disrupting the tank?

Do you get a gravel remover?

[kevkoi]

It's called a big plastic scoop and lots of elbow grease.

There will be distruptions to the tank cycle when u remove gravel... Will have to monitor NH4 and NO2 levels.

[BGK]

u can use a a hose and take all the gravel out.
just fill the hose with water put it in your take and water should come out and then just place the hose in the gravel and it the gravel should come out too

[wyldchyld01]

i put it down to the worst job i've had to do, takes a long time and you always "miss" a bit (don't think i've been forgiven for the carpet he he he)

i found since that using a 20mm or so plastic hose (like you can get from bunnings or other hardware store, the clear type) i actually siphon the substrate out into buckets, do need to keep refreshing water but i'd assume you'd moved fish into another tank for stress reduction while this was going on.

have fun, but the cleaning/maintainence on bb tanks is soooo much easier

Brenton

[luvfishies]

Kitty litter scooper, works a charm

[africandiscus]

I bought from bunnings 2m of 20mm plastic tube. WOW. It sucked it like a vacuum. I removed 20gk of gravel in less than 5 minutes.

I only removed a quarter so far. Discus loved it, other fish are a bit nervous. I am going to do it over a month, a quarter every weekend.

[Merrilyn]

Thats the ideal way to do it. It will give your bio filter time to catch up.

[kalebjarrod]

yeah i agree don't do it at once that will destroy the fishes