How to Un-gravel?
- Thread starter neoreef
- Start date
footbag
Active Member
I did this once...
I took as much of the rock out of my tank as possible. All of the corals and rock were placed into buckets. Then I used a dustpan and swept all of the CC into it. Placed the crushed coral into a bucket, for disposal.
YOU MAY want to remove and save a lot of the water from the tank before you begin removing the CC. As soon as you remove a scoop, the tank will turn black. If you can remove and save the water until the tank volume is down to 1/4 - 1/8 of tank capacity, then you can throw that dirty water away and do a water change.
I took as much of the rock out of my tank as possible. All of the corals and rock were placed into buckets. Then I used a dustpan and swept all of the CC into it. Placed the crushed coral into a bucket, for disposal.
YOU MAY want to remove and save a lot of the water from the tank before you begin removing the CC. As soon as you remove a scoop, the tank will turn black. If you can remove and save the water until the tank volume is down to 1/4 - 1/8 of tank capacity, then you can throw that dirty water away and do a water change.
neoreef
Member
I was thinking of doing this:
Remove corals and rocks from half my tank to a bucket of matching warmed and aerated saltwater.
*Start a siphon with relatively wide diameter tubing and suck the gravel out until I have a 5 gal bucket of gravel and water.
Decant the bucket's saltwater thru a "filter" of some of that blue foam that they sell at the PetStupid store in the aquarium filter supply section. (Decant the water into another bucket.)
Put filtered saltwater back into the tank and repeat from * until half the tank is devoid of gravel.
Replace rocks and corals and either wait a week to do the other half of the tank, or just get it all done in one horrendous day.
I am thinking that this will prevent the tank's water from becoming completely fouled and killing the fish, and also, this way the fish do not have to be moved. Am I nuts?
Do you think this might work?
Remove corals and rocks from half my tank to a bucket of matching warmed and aerated saltwater.
*Start a siphon with relatively wide diameter tubing and suck the gravel out until I have a 5 gal bucket of gravel and water.
Decant the bucket's saltwater thru a "filter" of some of that blue foam that they sell at the PetStupid store in the aquarium filter supply section. (Decant the water into another bucket.)
Put filtered saltwater back into the tank and repeat from * until half the tank is devoid of gravel.
Replace rocks and corals and either wait a week to do the other half of the tank, or just get it all done in one horrendous day.
I am thinking that this will prevent the tank's water from becoming completely fouled and killing the fish, and also, this way the fish do not have to be moved. Am I nuts?
Do you think this might work?
neoreef
Member
I was thinking of doing this:
Remove corals and rocks from half my tank to a bucket of matching warmed and aerated saltwater.
*Start a siphon and suck the gravel out until I have a 5 gal bucket of gravel and water.
Decant the bucket's saltwater thru a "filter" of some of that blue foam that they sell at the PetStupid store in the aquarium filter supply section. Decant the water into another bucket.
Put filtered saltwater back into the tank and repeat from * until half the tank is devoid of gravel.
Replace rocks and corals and either wait a week to do the other half of the tank, or just get it all done in one horrendous day.
I am thinking that this will prevent the tank's water from becoming completely fouled and killing the fish, and also, this way the fish do not have to be moved. Am I nuts?
Do you think this might work?
Remove corals and rocks from half my tank to a bucket of matching warmed and aerated saltwater.
*Start a siphon and suck the gravel out until I have a 5 gal bucket of gravel and water.
Decant the bucket's saltwater thru a "filter" of some of that blue foam that they sell at the PetStupid store in the aquarium filter supply section. Decant the water into another bucket.
Put filtered saltwater back into the tank and repeat from * until half the tank is devoid of gravel.
Replace rocks and corals and either wait a week to do the other half of the tank, or just get it all done in one horrendous day.
I am thinking that this will prevent the tank's water from becoming completely fouled and killing the fish, and also, this way the fish do not have to be moved. Am I nuts?
Do you think this might work?
E
eaglefan
Guest
After my tank was set up for a couple months I realized my CC bed was to deep and that is what I do when I do my water change is let the siphon suck up a little bit of the CC each time. Wish I would have put in a sand bed but I was a newbie and didn't know about this web site yet. Good luck.
neoreef
Member
So since no one would tell me I'm nuts, I tried my plan a little last weekend.
I took LR out at one end of my tank, into a bucket of saltwater. I started a siphon with wide bore tubing and sucked some of my gravel and it's companion detritus into another bucket. That water was brown! I tried to let that settle and siphon to another bucket but thru the blue filter material. What a bust! I still had brown water after the filter step. So I threw that water out and replaced with my aged water change saltwater. Then I put the rocks back and did my other maintenance chores for the week. Only got some of the gravel out , about 10%. Perhaps it is good to make this change slowly. Good thing about the siphon method is that it sucks the detritus with the gravel, thus saving the display water from becoming polluted. Bad thing is that it sucks so much water with it, that you have to only take a little each week, or risk changing too much water at one time.
I took LR out at one end of my tank, into a bucket of saltwater. I started a siphon with wide bore tubing and sucked some of my gravel and it's companion detritus into another bucket. That water was brown! I tried to let that settle and siphon to another bucket but thru the blue filter material. What a bust! I still had brown water after the filter step. So I threw that water out and replaced with my aged water change saltwater. Then I put the rocks back and did my other maintenance chores for the week. Only got some of the gravel out , about 10%. Perhaps it is good to make this change slowly. Good thing about the siphon method is that it sucks the detritus with the gravel, thus saving the display water from becoming polluted. Bad thing is that it sucks so much water with it, that you have to only take a little each week, or risk changing too much water at one time.
footbag
Active Member
I still like the do it all in one day plan. Like I said before, once you actually take some LR out, your water will turn black very quick. I always hated syphoning my CC unless it was a water change. Even then it looked like a bomb had gone off in the tank.
If I were you I would bite the bullet and take everything out. I know it sounds nuts, but I did it in about 3 hours. I was sure I was causing my tank to crash. I was sure I lost all my corals. I was sure that I would have to replace my cleanup crew. In the end it was all fine. It is a lot of work that you cannot stop until your done, so DO plan it out well.
Good Luck...
If I were you I would bite the bullet and take everything out. I know it sounds nuts, but I did it in about 3 hours. I was sure I was causing my tank to crash. I was sure I lost all my corals. I was sure that I would have to replace my cleanup crew. In the end it was all fine. It is a lot of work that you cannot stop until your done, so DO plan it out well.
Good Luck...
fishtanker
Member
i did it the same way as you neoreef. i just did water changes weekly and sucked out the substrate with the water change. i took a few weeks to get all of it out but it caused no mess in the tank.
