? on taking out my substrate

So I have ordered my sand. I got (2) 20lb bags of the balck and white mixed cichlid sand. So I will be taking out the stuff I have in there now. I do water changes 1x a week and vacuum when I do, but obviously you don't get everything.

Do you think my nitrates will spike when everything gets stirred up?

It's gonna be ugly

Should I shut off my filter and let it settle and vacuum it up after?

 

Are there any fish in the tank?

 

I have my little placo, which I will put in my QT tank while I take out the sand and everything setles.

I forgot to mention my tank is a 29 gal long (thought it was a 33, but just found out it's not) It is about 10 years old and since the summer it has only had 4 fish in it (the other 3 I donated)

So now i am switching to a cichlid tank.

 

If you can keep the pleco out for a while. I would suggest draining the tank when you remove the old substrate. That way you'll be able to remove most of the built up crud that was in the old substrate.

 

But then I would have to cycle my tank all over again.

 

The tank shouldn't go through a cycle since the majority of bacteria live in the filter sponges.

 

If I'm understanding you correctly I think you can drain the water into a bucket (do not discard), remove your current sand bed, pour new sand into tank, and add the water from your buckets back into the tank.
That being said you will still go through a cycle of some kind as you would when adding anything to your tank. If you want to minimize the cycle even more you can pour your new sand into some buckets with old tank water and let the sand sit for a few days (with power head to stir water).

edit:
Even with your heavy weekly vacuuming there is still going to be A LOT of gunk in that sand bed once you stir it up and this is just going to get into your water column if you do not remove the water prior.
GL!

 

oh, okay. Thanks

that sounds like a good idea, thanks

 

you shouldn't get any nitrate spikes from stirring the gravel/sand bed. whatever waste is in the system is already in the system, you'll just be moving it around. But you might get a small ammonia spike and recycle the tank, bacteria don't simply decide they will mainly live in a filter, they will live wherever there is good flow and a source of nutrients for them, including your gravel and be free floating in the water column. Just keep an eye on your levels for the first couple weeks and have bacteria on stand by, or be dosing it.

 

I see. I'm glad I am starting all of this now. I'm not getting my fish for a while so my tank will have time to freak out and settle down.