Mini-cycle switching from gravel to sand

Basically just a woe is me thread.

Yesterday I wasn't sure if I saw a little green, tested today at a definite .25 ammonia. I was going to hold off until tomorrow to do a water change to give the bacteria a chance to catch up, is that unwise?

 

When I switched to sand the same thing happened to me, never went above .25. I just kept doing pwc everyday and dosing with prime for the whole tank volume to detox ammonia. It went away in about a week From my research it seems you can safely detox the ammonia with prime without starving bb.

 

I caved and did a 20% water change. Not worth losing fish over and it should still leave a little bit for the bacteria to work through. I won't feed tomorrow morning and we'll see what the readings are when I get home from work tomorrow.

 

More woe today, another .25 ammonia test. I sense another water change in my future. Boy am I glad I got the python now.

I did feed them this morning though, because I'm a sucker. Very small amount, though!

 

I know, it's so hard to deny them when they come to meet you at the glass expecting food Keep at your pwcs and the worm will turn

 

Hi, noob here

I want to switch from gravel substrate to sand. Not sure how to go about it without plunging my tank into a minI cycle. I had the idea of adding the sand (after washing of course) along with the gravel, then gradually removing the gravel using some sort of sieve. I don't know if this is feasible or a really stupid idea. It's just that my filter packed up a few months ago and inevitably the ammonia and nitrite spiked for a bit despite using some of the old filter media in the new filter. I really want to avoid this happening again.

 

Well, first off, I think it's totally worth it to replace the gravel even though it has kicked off a mini-cycle for me. I would do it again in a minute.

I think the idea of doing a half replacement could work, and it was something I had thought of myself. However, when I got to the removal of the gravel it was just so gross that I wanted all of it out as soon as possible. For my tank, it has significantly improved the water quality and my fish are acting much healthier. Your tank may not be the hot mess that mine was and half this week and the rest next week might be fine.

 

Couldn't you put a few hefty handfulls of the gravel you're replacing into a media bag then keep it in the tank for a while after you switch substrate? I know it's not all of it, but it should have enough bacteria on it to sustain a cycle, no?

 

Well, first off, I think it's totally worth it to replace the gravel even though it has kicked off a mini-cycle for me. I would do it again in a minute.

I think the idea of doing a half replacement could work, and it was something I had thought of myself. However, when I got to the removal of the gravel it was just so gross that I wanted all of it out as soon as possible. For my tank, it has significantly improved the water quality and my fish are acting much healthier. Your tank may not be the hot mess that mine was and half this week and the rest next week might be fine.

Couldn't you put a few hefty handfulls of the gravel you're replacing into a media bag then keep it in the tank for a while after you switch substrate? I know it's not all of it, but it should have enough bacteria on it to sustain a cycle, no?

Thanks. I might try both of these, the half and half, and then, if I feel I have to remove it all I'll do the gravel in a stocking thing. I have smooth white substrate at the moment which is really yucky now, and I'd like to give my cories some sand to snuffle around in.

 

Thanks. I might try both of these, the half and half, and then, if I feel I have to remove it all I'll do the gravel in a stocking thing. I have smooth white substrate at the moment which is really yucky now, and I'd like to give my cories some sand to snuffle around in.

The cories really do love it. My favorite is when they do nose-first dive bombs from the top of the tank into it. So funny!

 

Today's tubes were pretty much a carbon copy of yesterday's. Boohoo.

Repeat after me: I love water changes!

Actually, I'm a little worried because the last couple of days when I've restarted the filter there seem to be a lot of particles coming out at first. That's probably a sign I need to rinse it out, right? I haven't rinsed it at all yet. I'm just too scared to risk doing that right now with my cycling problems and 8 fish in.

 

And in classic Murphy's Law fashion, as soon as I'm having cycling problems one of my platies decides to drop fry. Thankfully the others have mostly taken care of the additional bioload for me!

 

The cories really do love it. My favorite is when they do nose-first dive bombs from the top of the tank into it. So funny!

What kind of cory do you have that does that? I'm going to be needing a few for my tank soon and am looking into some small ones for my 37 gallon.

 

What kind of cory do you have that does that? I'm going to be needing a few for my tank soon and am looking into some small ones for my 37 gallon.

I have juliI cories (aka leopard cories). Highly recommended, they're very amusing. The like to dash up to the surface and back down.

 

Progress! The ammonia is much less green and the nitrate is more bronze in today's tests. Yahooo! Going to skip the water change tonight and check again tomorrow.

 

I have juliI cories (aka leopard cories). Highly recommended, they're very amusing. The like to dash up to the surface and back down.

Isn't that funny how they turn on turbo speed to go to the surface? I guess when they want some air they want it NOW! Hooray for your test results! Go bb go!

 

So, quite a lot of ammonia today after skipping yesterday's water change, between .25 and .5. I did an almost 50% change with a big dose of prime and sniffled just a little. I had been hoping to get the rest of my cories next week but it looks like that won't happen.

 

Day ...counts on fingers... six of my mini-cycle with no end in sight. I guess there is a small improvement because I skipped yesterday's water change and today I was still only at .25 ppm ammonia. I did a 30% change tonight because I'll be out of the house most of the day tomorrow and won't be able to monitor the levels as closely. The fish all seem content. More of an annoyance than an actual problem, thankfully.

 

Good luck! I can't wait to get cories - they were the fish whose description persuaded me that fish are not boring. And yet, my plan calls for me to up the school of my danios first, and I can't do that yet because got to wait one more week to make sure all my other fish are ok after dead fish. Did I mention that I hate waiting? Anyway, I think I can empathize with you because I feel kind of like that too, for different reasons. May your minicycle be over soon. Scary when one first discovers ammonia when one expected cycled tank, isn't it?

 

Yes, the waiting is really hard. I want to finish up my cory school because right now two of them have buddied up and the third is kind of the odd fish out. He needs a friend, but I won't bring anything else into the tank until I've stabilized for at least a week.

It is scary. I knew it was a possibility when I switched substrate so at least it was a result I had considered, but I really hoped it wouldn't. Just goes to show that the good bacteria lives in a lot of places!

 

I went through the same thing recently, except I started the mini-cycle by adding 4 Panda Corydora's at the same time. One of them suffered barbel erosion after a week in my filthy, planted gravel, which spurred me to change from pea-sized gravel to sand along with taking out all the rock work. That Cory ended up dying ultimately, but the other 3 were doing just fine and behaved much better in the new sand substrate. They spent more time sifting for food than swimming with their reflections on the side of the aquarium. They didn't shoal much though like they did when there was 4 of them at first. It was usually one of them alone with the other two together and they spent a lot of time just sitting there, which was alarming since they are usually very active.

So I just continued doing 50% water changes every day with Prime to let the filter equalize. It's been almost two weeks and the ammonia has dropped down to almost yellow. It's probably .125 or less and the nitrite spike occurred not long after that, which also started dropping a couple of days ago with a rise in nitrates.

So I did the unthinkable last Friday. I added 3 more Panda Cory's to the tank while it was still equalizing the biological filter. The reason I did it was because I know that adding them all down the road will risk another mini-cycle. I'm not going to add one every week or two to avoid that with this fish. I'd rather just finish the shoal while it's still in a not-so-perfect state, and do daily water changes until it stabilizes, and then I can add the rest of the stock at one fish per two weeks to keep it stable. They're all doing really well in light of all this. Their behavior is good. They all spend quite a bit of time together as a group sifting for food. It's rare to see them spread out or inactive.

I'm not recommending it, but that's my recent experience. It's my opinion that daily water changes let you do dumb things at times and manage through them.

 

I went through the same thing recently, except I started the mini-cycle by adding 4 Panda Corydora's at the same time. One of them suffered barbel erosion after a week in my filthy, planted gravel, which spurred me to change from pea-sized gravel to sand along with taking out all the rock work. That Cory ended up dying ultimately, but the other 3 were doing just fine and behaved much better in the new sand substrate. They spent more time sifting for food than swimming with their reflections on the side of the aquarium. They didn't shoal much though like they did when there was 4 of them at first. It was usually one of them alone with the other two together and they spent a lot of time just sitting there, which was alarming since they are usually very active.

So I just continued doing 50% water changes every day with Prime to let the filter equalize. It's been almost two weeks and the ammonia has dropped down to almost yellow. It's probably .125 or less and the nitrite spike occurred not long after that, which also started dropping a couple of days ago with a rise in nitrates.

So I did the unthinkable last Friday. I added 3 more Panda Cory's to the tank while it was still equalizing the biological filter. The reason I did it was because I know that adding them all down the road will risk another mini-cycle. I'm not going to add one every week or two to avoid that with this fish. I'd rather just finish the shoal while it's still in a not-so-perfect state, and do daily water changes until it stabilizes, and then I can add the rest of the stock at one fish per two weeks to keep it stable. They're all doing really well in light of all this. Their behavior is good. They all spend quite a bit of time together as a group sifting for food. It's rare to see them spread out or inactive.

I'm not recommending it, but that's my recent experience. It's my opinion that daily water changes let you do dumb things at times and manage through them.

That's exactly what's happening with my cories. Two of them are very friendly but the other one is always alone. I feel bad for the poor little guy. Good news today, though, progress with the cycle. Ammonia had just the faintest bit of green, I'd call it .10 ppm. I'm going to not do a water change and will test again tomorrow. Maybe this weekend I'll be able to get my three cories!

 

Hooray! 0 ammonia today. Hopefully it stays down for the rest of the week.

 

So, I scored 0 ammonia since the last time I posted and today, for the first time ever, I had .25 nitrites. Boo. Hiss. I think I bunked up my cycle but good. Hopefully it settles down soon.

 

Another day, another water change. Still no ammonia, so that's good, nitrites were purple though.

The good news is that my new 6 gallon that I'm using as an invert tank insta-cycled with a piece of floss from the big tank's filter.

 

I thought I'd give an update on this, because it finally seems like I've turned the corner. I've been doing almost daily water changes for a month now. Saturday I finally showed progress with my nitrite spike, more blue than purple since the first time since the 20th of June. I skipped my water change that day and yesterday was even more blue so I didn't change water Sunday either. Hopefully today's test is more of the same!

 

Yay!!!! I love a good ending.

 

Hooray!! I'm surprised getting through just a mini-cycle has taken so long. This makes me a little hesitant about changing to sand...

 

Hooray!! I'm surprised getting through just a mini-cycle has taken so long. This makes me a little hesitant about changing to sand...

Well... I haven't been helping things along really. If you've seen my other thread about cloudy water I was doing a lot of rinsing of my filter media which probably slowed things down a lot. I also haven't had crazy readings, nothing ever got above .5 even after skipping a day.

I would say changing to sand is still worth it, but make sure you take more precautions than I did. Put your media and hardscape in a wet bucket, because I let all mine dry out and I'm sure that didn't help.

I also added 3 cories in the middle of it. Basically anything I could have possibly screwed up, I did.

 

Hooray!! I'm surprised getting through just a mini-cycle has taken so long. This makes me a little hesitant about changing to sand...

when I knew that I was changing my gravel to sand, I put a bunch of clay pots in 6 weeks prior hoping I can get some BB thriving in them, I had no problems switching over.

 

when I knew that I was changing my gravel to sand, I put a bunch of clay pots in 6 weeks prior hoping I can get some BB thriving in them, I had no problems switching over.

Hmmm I'll have to keep that in mind. I think the sand would look really nice, but mostly I'm worried about cleaning it and accidentally sucking up a bunch. It would not be good if I poured some sand down the drains every week..

 

Hmmm I'll have to keep that in mind. I think the sand would look really nice, but mostly I'm worried about cleaning it and accidentally sucking up a bunch. It would not be good if I poured some sand down the drains every week..

I had the same fears! Especially since the drain I do my water changes in has an ejector pump on it because it sits under street level. I had read a few posts on sand substrate where folks said they took the nozzle off their vacuum and just used the tube. I tried it for a while. If you do this, you will get sand, and not what I would consider a small amount. However, if you keep the larger nozzle on you will not get any sand at all, even if you actually brush the sand with it. This is with pool filter stand, I can't say what would happen with a finer grain sand.

 

What diameters of tubing do you have? I use 1/4" tubing, with a cylindrical attachment, the diameter of which is probably about 1.5"-2" (away from home at the moment). I'm sure it also depends on the size of the grains of sand. Really, I just want super tiny pebbles. ;D

 

I make a swooshing movement (I don't know how that looks like in your head) above the sand causing the debris to float in the water column then I suck it out.

 

They sure make life easier hey!

 

Officially 0 ammonia/0 nitrites for the first time in a month! So excited!

 

Congratulations!!!

 

Hooray!!

 

Hip Hip Hooray Dria.....Congrats on the cycle. Remember, don't touch your filter media for a bit ;-)

Now, it's time to get a new tank for you to cycle

 

Yeah, you have to have a project going.. gotta keep your brain stimulated! Or something like that..