# Before and After - How to change your substrate



## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

So this is a how to change your substrate thread of sorts. I've been meaning to switch my tank to eco-complete for a while but haven't gotten around to making the switch.

Here is my 20g tank back a few months ago:









Here is the same tank today:
This is what happens when you neglect a tank, pulling plants here and there for sale, and never fixing it up. A crying shame:









Here's a tank I set up (which sat on my floor) with eco complete. It also housed 11 Oranger Laser Corydoras and 6 Pygmy cories:









Here is the deal: I wanted to 'put' the tank on the floor into the 20g tank. I also had a partial bucket of prerinsed eco-complete.

So here's the how to guide:

Step 1: Clear out the tank.

In my case, I had a lot of plants and shrimp and fish to catch.
First I took 2 7.5g buckets. One had all plants in it:









The other a plant or two and all the fish:









Try to save as much of the old water as you can, without stirring up a lot of the mulm. It works best to siphon out and fill the buckets first, and then fill with plants and then the fish. Fish first is just difficult with all the plants in the way.

So here it is cleared:









Step 2: Take out the old substrate.
I used a large aquaclear cover to gather up the substrate to one side, then scooped it out with a 1 L scoop. Makes the job easier when it's all on one side.










Now here is where you have some choice. If you want to leave the mulm (fish poo and other organics), you can stir up the substrate a lot, then remove it, leaving a lot of suspended mulm. You can then ad new substrate over the mulm after it has settled (give it 20 or 30 minutes):









Or you can scoop it out and clean the whole tank up, which is what I did:









Step 3: Fill 'er back up.

Now before you fill up, make sure to rinse the substrate. Some need multiple rinses. Ask around and you will find out which need more. Flourite needs at least 4 or 5 rinses. Eco complete, 2 or 3. Play sand takes a lot of washing.

Anyways, fill back up. If you have an old powerhead and quickfilter attacment, it's good to put in, and fill it with filter floss to take out some of the fine particles in the water:









Once the water has cleared a bit, you can aquascape it. I recommend scaping before it's totally clear, as scaping the substrate will throw up more particulate matter:









Step 4: Replant/decorate and fill.

Start planting!! This took me the longest to do:









Refill tank with all that water you saved in your many many buckets. I used a 5.5g that was lying about as a water bucket too.

Then reintroduce your fish, and reconnect everything (heater, filter, lights), and fill it back up. It might be a bit cloudy but your filter will take care of that in a day or two.

Ta Da!!!


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## Katalyst (Jul 29, 2007)

Nice job!


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## Sunstar (Jul 29, 2008)

How many tanks do you have?


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## Cory_Dad (Apr 18, 2008)

You don't want to know, it'll make you sick.


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## Sunstar (Jul 29, 2008)

for the love of primus... HOME KEYS SUNSTAR!!!

That many eh? My husband would drown me in one I am sure, if I had more.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Cory_Dad said:


> You don't want to know, it'll make you sick.


Surprisingly, not that many:

10g - zebra pleco fry tank (Soon to get bigger homes)

10g tall - Reef wall tank (in development)

15g - L260 "breeding" tank (but there's no breeding going on)

20g - Mixed community tank (this one)

6.5g - Picture frame aquarium

75g - Low tech planted pleco tank

And until today:

10g corydoras tank

The first four are "mine" - they live in my room, and will move out with me. the other two are around the house, and are my father's, but I do the maintenance.

I'm trying to consolidate my tanks and keep fewer tanks but put more effort (and money) into each one. It really started with the zebra plecos, and the amount of time I spend on them, but it's really satisfying. So I've decided to spend a little more time on each tank and have fewer of them to look after. Since I'm not breeding or actively propagating anything (unlike this summer), I'm not really into having lots of tanks now.


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## Cory_Dad (Apr 18, 2008)

I think he's trying to scale down because of the move.

Ya, like a junkie cutting back on his fix....


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Cory_Dad said:


> I think he's trying to scale down because of the move.
> 
> Ya, like a junkie cutting back on his fix....


Yes, also a large part because of the move 

And, yes like a junkie trying to cut back, I am feeling the withdrawal symptoms.


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## Cory_Dad (Apr 18, 2008)

byw, the wood looks great. ty.

Going to add it tomorrow. How long has it been dry? Not sure if I need to boil it to kill any buggies.

Sorry to hijack the thread (NOT).


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## Shattered (Feb 13, 2008)

Nice thread, very informative. 

I agree it's sometimes easier to have a couple larger tanks, than several small one.


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## KhuliLoachFan (Mar 8, 2008)

I did two gravel switcheroos recently. I just now got to the "I'm sick of blue puke gravel" phase in my aquarium hobby. I told my girlfriend it's a natural part of the growth curve in the hobby. One should start out with blue-puke gravel and scuba-guy, and then graduate to natural gravel, and then to planted tanks.

W


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

@Kuhli: yep. When I was a kid I had the neon blue, yellow and red gravel for a long time. then I threw the puke out and got pebbles. It's all about growing up. 

@Shattered, yea, I'd love to have some bigger tanks, but maintenance is a biotch on them. I like tanks where I can do water changes using 2 buckets: one to fill, one to empty. The 75 takes way too long: 3 buckets out (~20 gallons), 3 buckets in. In the 20? one in one out, easy peasy.


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## Shattered (Feb 13, 2008)

KhuliLoachFan said:


> I did two gravel switcheroos recently. I just now got to the "I'm sick of blue puke gravel" phase in my aquarium hobby. I told my girlfriend it's a natural part of the growth curve in the hobby. One should start out with blue-puke gravel and scuba-guy, and then graduate to natural gravel, and then to planted tanks.
> 
> W


Neon Blue is way nicer than the psychedelic pink gravel, that I still have in my shrimp tank. That will be the last tank to switch the gravel, once I have money that is.

@Ameek: I know what you mean, I do so dislike the bucket brigade. I currently have 2x 29G and 1x15 G and looking at adding a few 10's.

Before that happens, I'm going to figure out how to make my own python along with tubed refilling.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

It's been two months or so since I switched out the substrate in this tank. Here's how it looked last week:










In case you're wondering:
Tank: 20 gallons
Light: 65W PC (Coralife) (on 11 am - 11 pm)
Substrate: Eco-complete
Filtration: Eheim 2215
No ferts or any other additives

Fish:
11 Orange Laser corydoras (all 1" or so)
4 Bronze Gourami (1M, 2F, 1 juvenile)

Inverts:
3 Amano shrimp
1 blue vampire shrimp
1 bamboo shrimp
?? Ghost shrimp
?? Cherry shrimp

Plants:
Cryptocoryne balansae
cryptocoryne retrospiralis
cryptocoryne parva
cryptocoryne wendtii
Cryptocornye blassi

Hygrophila corymbosa 'augustifolia'
Hygrophila polysperma 'rosanervig'

Microsorum pteropus
Microsorum pteropus "Windolev"
Microsorum pteropus "Needle leaf"
Microsorum pteropus "Phillipine"

Sagittaria subulata

Cardamine lyrata

Taxiphyllum sp. "Flame moss"
Fissidens fontanus
Vesicularia mantagnei


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## Sunstar (Jul 29, 2008)

Looking sweet. 

I am thinking of dragging tihs thread up when I get the flourite for Kaon's tank. I am considering changing over the shrimp tank's substrate as the shrimp are barely coloured. But that is because the gravel is white.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

A little update on the tank. It's been doing well, except that the top trim on the tank is leaking from the inside. Will have to silicone it somehow.

Anyways, all is well in the tank. Everything is growing at a moderate to slow pace (as expected and desired), and the fish are all happy little campers.

My 11 Orange laser corydoras (one didn't make it out of the group, but since I got them, all the rest have been healthy):




































Oto with big googly eyes:










This is the male of my Bronze three spot gourami trio (2F 1 M). I think it's probably closest to the natural colouration of these guys. You often see the gold, blue and opalescent (pearl) varities for sale.
The picture is a bit dark, but it shows his stripes and the colour in the anal fin the best. This is probably the best looking $2.99 fish I have ever bought.










FTS:


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## mr.sandman (Mar 22, 2007)

Isnt it better to scape it before adding water?


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## ka NUK (Dec 19, 2008)

Nice tank!

One thing to add: If you have fine substrate and a large-enough diameter hose, you can just vacuum out the substrate with the water.

And beware of those extra buckets you have "lying around". You don't want to use the bucket that had soap, floor cleaner or any other toxic waste (to the fishes!) in it. Plastic absorbs that stuff and will release it over a long period of time. It's the reason I start WW III when someone in my family uses the buckets clearly labeled "Aquarium Only" for nefarious purposes  

Cheers
ka NUK

PS - Those are seriously cool Corys!


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Thanks. These guys are probably about the only corydoras that I would ever get. They are really neat little guys, and really vibrant and fun to watch. I haven't seen them again at BA since I bought the whole group they imported from Peru about 6 months ago. Since then I've only seen them at Menagerie, and they were $20 each (more than I paid ).

I think it's better to scape after adding water as the substrate tends to move around and shift more when water is added over it, I find.

You need a fairly large diameter (3/4" ID at least) to siphon out anything greater than fine sand at any appreciable rate. It takes far too long and is really inefficient to try to suck up large quantities of anything coarse (>2 mm grain size). 

All my buckets are aquarium only, thanks for the concern.


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## ka NUK (Dec 19, 2008)

Right you are. I have sand-sized substrate in all my tanks ...and a 1" ID hose  

About the aquascaping before/after filling with water thing: You can aquascape, then place a plate or saucer on the substrate. If you pour water into that, you won't disturb the substrate. I have a large beaker at work which I have commandeered for my water changes. Sand blows around way too easily otherwise.

ka NUK


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Even with a saucer or something else to deflect the water flow, substrate will shift as it becomes completely waterlogged. For this reason, I don't bother scaping much before the water goes in, cause it'll have to be fixed either way.


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## Prodicus (Nov 3, 2008)

Just one point about eco-complete. Rinsing is optional. 

"Packed in Liquid Amazon buffered "Black Water" solution, Eco-Complete offers immediate organic water conditioning- No rinsing required. Includes live, Heterotrophic bacteria to convert fish waste into natural food for your plants."


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

I find all of these claims of 'live' substrates hard to believe - once packed away in the bag, unless preserved and fed indefinitely until used, the bacteria will multiply and consume whatever nutrients are in there, and then crash as food decreases and wastes increase, JM2C.


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## blossom112 (Mar 19, 2008)

Glad i saw this post ........I need to get an undergravel filter (to make me feel better)
Maybe you can give me advice on a QT for my zebs while i do this big job (in 2 months or so )


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

Don't get a UG filter - they're hard to maintain, and you're better off getting a good HOB or canister filter.


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## Prodicus (Nov 3, 2008)

I'm sure it's hype, too. But my experience is that eco-complete doesn't cloud your water much, so it doesn't need rinsing. It's one thing that distinguishes it from flourite.



ameekplec. said:


> I find all of these claims of 'live' substrates hard to believe - once packed away in the bag, unless preserved and fed indefinitely until used, the bacteria will multiply and consume whatever nutrients are in there, and then crash as food decreases and wastes increase, JM2C.


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## ameekplec. (May 1, 2008)

I think that might have to do with the eco-complete being wet (usually) before going into the tank, so that the finer particulates tend to be aggregated already and do not become suspended as easily as flourite which is bagged drier and so filling with water usually suspends the fine dust.


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