Will changing substrate cause a cycle? Help

[aharrow]

After reading hours of the debate or lack thereof of switching from CC to DSB I am going to make the change. My question is this, will the change cause a huge spike or create a mini cycle. These were my thoughts. I have a 10 gallon qt tank set up with the same water from my tank. I am going to put my fish in there while I do this. I also don't want the cloudy water so I was going to drain all my water into containers while I switch the substrate and reuse 75% of it and basically do a 25% water change when I fill back up. I know that when I fill it back up there will be some cloudy water but it shouldn't be as bad right? Also can I put my fish back in with the water a little cloudy or wait until it clears up? Any suggestions on how to do this process with as little stress to my fish as possible. One final note I am going to keep all my live rock in the containers with the tank water as well. Thanks in advance.

 

[sebae0]

you probably will get a mini cycle for a couple of days, thats what happened when i changed my tanks over. your plan sounds fine for the move. good luck and keep us posted.

 

[aharrow]

Does anyone else have any experience with this? Any help would be appreciated. I need to do this tonight as my wife will be out. If she comes home to five different containers in the living room with saltwater in them she might bury me. So any help before then would be great so I can get this done while she is out. Thanks in advance

 

[michelle13]

I did mine the same way you are going to. I had a small cycle but nothing that hurt any of the fish or inverts. I just filled the tank back up and let it sit for about an hour and then acclimated my fish and put them in the tank. It really wasn't very cloudy at all. It was well worth the trouble because now I have no detectable nitrates!

 

[aharrow]

That is what I am trying to get rid of is high nitrates. My wife said why would I go through all that trouble if nothing is wrong with my tank and the fish are healthy and happy. My nitrates will not go below 20 and I have a little bit of an algae problem on my live rock which I understand is a reflection of the high nitrates as well as probablly the room that the tank is in is getting a lot of sunlight lately now that spring is here. Anyway I am going to move the tank when I have it emptied tonight to a place with less light. Thanks for the input.

 

[aharrow]

I just finished the tank about 2 hours ago and it is a thick milky white haze. I hope that it will disipate by the morning or early afternoon. I have my three fish in a 10 gallon qt tank and they are very stressed out. The size of the qt doesn't really help either with three fish in there. However, the tank is beginning to clear a little and I know that it will look 100 times better and I will be happy in the long run. Just an observation, the Southdown Playsand that is marked from the Caribbean from the Southdown company in Pennsylvania, says on the bag not recommended for aquarium use. I was very hesitant but everybody on this site recommended that was the brand to use. So hope it goes well after 3 hours of moving my tank and cleaning. I used most of the water so it has all the bacteria in it but I think that I will still get a mini cycle anyway. Thanks for the inputs from everyone.

 

[goldrush]

Southdown is fine,don't let that disclaimer scare you.The milkiness will clear up,usually in about 24 hrs.

 

[aharrow]

Well, the process has not been a good one. I am looking at losing all my fish from this process. They were all outside of the tank in a qt tank while I switched this whole substrate. I re-used 75% of my water and added 25% new. So the equivalent of doing the 25% water change which I needed anyway. So I got the tank up and running last night. This morning I woke up and the tank was clear from all the cloudiness, slight haze but nothing too bad. I tested my water, everything was good. Nh3 0 trite 0 trate 20 ph 8.2 salinity 1.020 temp 78. Looked good, I acclimated my yellow tang and angel and gramma for about an hour. Everything looked good. I just checked on them and the yellow tang is lying on his side about to take his last breath and the other two do not look good. I haven't even seen the gramma so I don't know if he is alive or not. Be very careful is my suggestion in doing this procedure. Several people posted that they had no problems. It looks like my whole tank is going to be wiped. This is been nothing but a problem and to top it off my wife was right when she said if it ain't broke don't fix it. Everyone was very healthly and happy before I did this and now everybody will probably end up dead. I am going to regroup.

 

[ocellaris_keeper]

aharrow - sorry to hear about your fish.
I would not have suggested the removal of your existing water, your fish - nor would I have suggested you remove any of the CC.
I would have suggested you remove enough LR to be able to move the rest around while you build a modified plenum DSB.
A better idea would have been to add a plastic screen over the CC and place your sand (SLOWLY- a cup at a time) onto the screen until you a uniform 2" of Southdown play sand. I have suggested that you get 25lb of SWF Live Sand and SLOWLY - a cup at a time place this on top of the play sand for another 1-1.5".
This would have allowed you to keep your fish in the tank, keep the CC as that start of an anerobic nitrifying filter as well as building a wonderful deep sand bed. ths tank would have mini-cycled only and your fish may not have perished.
Let me know how it turns out. BTW - I live about 45 min from Annapolis.

 

[aharrow]

Thanks for your response Bruce, I wish I would have waited and taken your ideas as they sound pretty good. I had read that the CC would have worked it's way to the top if I just put the sand over it and it had to be removed. What a good idea with the screen. That would have saved me hours of time and a whole lot less stress. By the way the Yellow Tang did die but the good news is that the Blue Ring Angel looks to be fine. He has not eaten yet since the move but he is coming out from under the rock and swimming around when he doesn't think I am there. I will have to monitor the eating though but I do think that he will recover and start eating tomarrow. It has been a stressful 24 hours for him. The royal gramma has crawled up in a crevice somewhere and I can't find him but he did that when I first got him and two days later he came out.
Out of curosity what fish store do you use in Southern Maryland? It might be a long drive but I might have to check it out. I have had good experience with The House of Tropicals up in Glen Burnie but they are very expensive. My next two fish I am going to buy online. Thanks for the info.

 

[tgolbus]

I changed my CC to sand just like you did....I had no problems.
What type of sand did you use? Could there have been some problems there?