hello everyone! im wanting to take out all my gravel in one of my 55gallons. my big oranda got a peice stuck in her mouth and i almost had a heartattack she spit it out but as we all know that doesnt teach them anyways how do i do this? do i just start scooping out the gravel until its all out of there? im going to miss the gravel its a pretty natural color and makes the tank look really sharp but im looking out for my fish on the important end

Hmm... I've never done that before but I think you have to scoop it out gradually over a couple of days so you don't kill your cycle. Just a thought. Good luck! I have always wanted to try a barebottom tank.

That's funny. I'm thinking of going back to gravel. I need a change with the look of my tank and I'm brainstorming right now. What I did was I took it out over four days. I'm not sure of the 'proper' way to do it, but that's what I did and tested the water about 12 hours after each time to make sure it wasn't screwing up the cycle. It never even bumped.

Hello Julie,
I had the same problem couple months ago. One of my ryukin had a piece of gravel in his mouth. He was lucky because it was Saturday. He would die if it happened on the weekdays though. I took it out for him.

I immediately removed all gravels in my 125 gallons tank. I spent three hours to do that.

I did not have any problem with my tank's cycle because I have five filters. Moreover, I have about 20 large river rocks in the tank. When I removed all gravels, I did not have any problem. My goldfish were fine too. The water was just not clear for few hours.

I like bare bottom tank. It saves me a lot of time when I do water change on the weekend.

oh goodness, im glad you got it out of his mouth my oranda was lucky too she was able to spit it out but i was searching for the twezzers to pull it out. this one tank is a 55 gallon with 2 penguine 350's they both have bio wheels on them. i hope thats enough bacteria to hold a cycle to my tank i really want to remove the gravel. ive never had a problem with this tank ive always had great water quality. i do understand though that it will be cloudy for a bit. my filters will help there. do you think i should just take out alittle bit at a time? thanks David..

Yep, a little at a time. I like my gravel right now, but I had too much of it before. I was able to take out half of it at once and it did nothing to my cycle.

well after all my fish were died over got moved i took out all the gravel out of my 7 gallon.

I've heard some bad stories with some keepers who removed all their gravel too quickly and killed their cycle. I think it's easier on both you and your fish if you simply remove it a little at a time over the course of a few days. Best not to risk the cycle.

Oh, and you might want to vaccuum the water while you're removing gravel, there tends to be a lot of build-up under the substrate if it's been there for a while.

yep the way to do it is take out a little bit at a time i recently went barebottom in my 10g and you need to remove about a handfull every 2-3 days and you should vaccum before you remove the gravel as alot of waste builds up in the substrate

When I converted my 36 gallon to bare-bottom, I took out a couple of handfuls of gravel each day, vacuuming up all the gunk that got released with it as I went. No problems whatsoever, and it only took a few days to complete.

One way that a few people on this forum have gone about it was to bag all of the gravel (like, with filter media bags or pantyhose)--so that it was still in the tank, but out of reach of goldie mouths--and then gradually remove the bags one at a time.

It's safe to remove the gravel all at once. Don't worry about disturbing the cycle by doing that. Then again, it's up to u if u want to remove em little by little.

From my experience, taking out the gravel gradually would be a better option than all at once. Even if you siphon weekly, there is still crap in the gravel. When i removed the gravel in my 20 gallon to wash it, one of my goldfish got sick. So unless ur gravel is extremely clean, you should do it not all at once just to be safe.

Have you decided how you are going to remove the gravels Julie?

Im just in the process of removing my gravel and replacing with a few large stones. im doing it because some of the gravel is very old and i think it is starting to effect my water, and there is also one hard to reach area of the tank.
Im taking some out once a week at the moment as i have only just started to move home from uni. I plan on taking some out every 3-4 days once i am home. I am gravel cleaning as i go along just to make sure i dont disturb the tank too much.

Good luck with your change, im sure it will go well.

that is good you have decided take the gravel out barebottom tanks are so much conveinient and and much more easy to clean and make sure your fish are eating enough food.

lol, im sure my fatties all eat enough food! Im changing more for health reasons and that it will be easier to maintain as i will just have to hoover any poop left that hasnt been sucked up by the filters.

If you have a stong cycle (which you probably do have) and you aren't using an undergravel filter of course(!) then it should be fine to remove it all at once. I've done it a few times and it has never had any bad effects.

When I went barebottom, I removed the gravel all at once. I put all my fish in big Rubbermaid, drained the tank and removed the gravel. I made up about 6 bags using cut lengths of pantyhose, put about 2 cups of gravel in each bag and placed those back in my aquarium. Every couple of days, I'd remove one.

It worked out great and I experienced no bumps in my cycle. Actually, my cycle improved by removing the gravel. I'd always had high Nitrate issues, but no more!

Another benny in having the bags of gravel is that I was able to use a few of them to help seed the new filters when I got a larger tank for my fry. I still have one bag in my 20g that I use for back-up seeding if I ever have need or if I have a filter die or me or lose my good bacteria for any reason.


I absolutely LOVE the barebottom look! I will never, ever go back to gravel.

Lisa

im hoping by removing the gravel it wil help with my nitrate issues, as they like to creep up. i have also purchased a new filter which turns over a higher lph in the hopes that it will help. i just think that you cant get the gravel completly clean when you gravel vac and so it still has decaying matter in it which leads to the higher nitrates. just a thought.

I pulled all my gravel out at once, but I had two very well established filters with a ton of media in them. If you have enough filter media removing all of the gravel should not affect your cycle at all.

You will want to make sure not to stir up too much crud though because the gases, waste and other stuff that hide under there can make your fish sick.

If you want to take out only a bit at a time that should not hurt anything though, I HATE removing ravel with the passion of a thousand suns and would not lookforward to removing it all at once, that is for sure!

Also, Claire, I was hoping removing gravel would help my nitrates as well, but it only helped a little. I am pretty overstocked though, so that is probably the biggest comtributor. Good luck!

hi, i have removed nearly all of the gravel now and did a large water change, seems to be helping as my nitrates lowered. there is only a small patch of gravel where a log sits on it because the loaches wouldnt get out from under it. my filters are well established, so i know that they wouldnt cause a problem. there wasnt that much gunk under the gravel, just in 2 areas, so it hasnt been too bad. I havent minded removing the gravel, im just using diff sized nets to get it out.

How are you getting on with yours jewels?

oh my i had such a busy weekend sorry guys! im stil not sure how im going to do this im thinking i may just take it all out at once. LISA.. did you remove all the water in your tank? you said you put your fish in a rubbermaid and drained the water just curious

ive spent the weekend removing mine. it takes such a long time. and It is heavy when you have a bucket full of it!!! i have been doing it with all the fish still in and it has been fine. they kind of just got out of the way and just stayed down one end.

you could just use nets like i have been doing to scoop it out. Is your tank too deep for you to reach to the bottom?? I havent experienced anything bad with the water, in fact the nitrates have started to drop back down to normal.

my tank is a 55gallon deluxe its longer and wider than the standard 55gallon. it is too deep so i just stand on a stool. im going to remove my gravel tonight after i do a water change on my saltwater tank. im going to remove half the gravel tonight and the rest tomorrow. its been a day though my 5yr old has the flu so ive been dealing with him and washing tons of laundry.

Hi Julie! Yes, I removed all the water. It really didn't take too terribly long, I think under 2 hours (mine is a 55g, too). I had a 30 gallon Rubbermaid tub that I filled with tank water that I put my gf in while I drained the tank and removed the gravel. I put my filter media in a 5 gallon bucket of tank water with an airstone, as well.

I used a handled strainer to scoop all of the gravel out and paper towels to soak up the last bit of mucky water and tiny bits of gravel that remained.

I was lucky in that my tap water was the same temp as my tank water, so I didn't have to wait for the temps to match. I really do LOVE the barebottom look and how much easier it is to maintain. The parameters staying at more desirable levels is the real bonus for me. I know not everyone gets that result by going barebottom, but it definitely helped my tank.

Let us know how it goes!

Lisa

sorry guys i havent been up to date but my son was hospitalized today he doesnt have the flu its a infection of the intestine. so i think my tank is going to wait awhile until hes better... thankyou guys for the help i'll start a new thread when i do this.

Just wanting to say that i hope your son gets over his infection really fast, keep us posted.

well bare bottom it is! i removed all the gravel and im now doing a water change. all my fish and bio media are in a container. i'll update when complety done

tank is all done! fish are happy it looks alittle weird but ill have to get use to it. water parms are good. now will i have to wait awhile until i do a water change?

bare bottom is the way to go!

i had 300 pounds of sand removed from my 220 gallon tank a few months back.
i got it all out with a swimming pool bottom skimming mesh net. it would remove about 10 lbs at a time so it wasnt too bad.
the bad part is the garbage men wouldnt take the bags the sand was in. i had to call a junk man to take it lol

im sure a regular strong fish net can be used to remove gravel

thats what i did i used a large net and removed it in a short amount of time. i only had about 50 or so lbs so it wasnt that bad.

Can we see a pic of the tank "new look"

well as soon as i can get a new tire for my car im going to update you guys with pics. maybe i can talk my hubby into stopping at wally world on our way home from beach tomorrow and i'll make a cd... we have to use his truck for now because my tire is flat and i need a new tire


btw i got a new ryunkin a few weeks back! i'll get pics of him too! hes about 2 inches red and white. hes got a nice hump and a pointed face... hes a beauty

Congratulation Julie! Hopefully, you will love your bare bottom tank. My tank had about 150 lbs. I did not have large net that was why I spent three hours to remove all gravels. I changed 20% of water after that.
I haven't had any problem with the water params

cool do i just continue with the weekly water changes now?

hihi, I don't know if it is safe to change water right away or not. I am just a beginner. However, that was what I did.

- first, I removed all gravels. Then, I changed about 20% of water after that to remove debris on the bottom of the tank. Personally, I don't see anything wrong, but experts in here may have different opinions.

Most beneficial bacteria live in your filter(s). Changing 20% of water should not be a problem. Especially, you just do your weekly water change.

Yes, you still do weekly water changes, that keeps your water both clean & fresh. Plus "eckies" collect around & under whatever you have in there! So you still gotta work at it! You might get a turkey baster to suck up the poops.

I changed to bare bottomed for awhile but I just like the look of the gravel. I went to H*me D*pot & bought natural gravel there. They have all sizes. i chose some that was medium sized & bigger that Goldie mouths! I really like it. Plus goldies spend ALOT of time poking around in gravel, I think it gives them something to do! AND.....(here's the weird part) I really ENJOY my weekly cleaning routine!!! I like changing the water......gravel vacuuming.....wiping the decorations clean when they get ecky.......ALL THAT STUFF!!!

REMEMBER you MUST post Pictures!!!

thankyou, im not ever looking forward to gravel washes anymore but i do have another 55 gallon and a 30 with gravel they will become barebottom soon to. i put back my large river rock and gems in the tank. it looks nice and gives them something to push around

I apologise if this was already mentioned but have you considered those glass er... pebble things? They're too big for the fish to eat (well for goldfish anyways) but provide a nice atmosphere still. Plus it's easy to clean since debris doesn't have all those little nooks to hide out in that gravel provides. Just be sure to do a thin layer if you do use them.

I thought you could just use a net to scoop up your gravel and change it but I guess that's not right. So I won't suggest anything in that sense... but those glass stones can be quite pretty and my grandmother used them on her goldfish when I was a little kid.

yes thats what i have at the bottom of the tank. i have large river rock as well.