Please Help!!

[salman]

I was trying to take out my gravel because i wanted to change it. Once i had taken most of it out, the water went BROWN!! i cant see anything in there, so i took out my fish and put them in a really small tank, but they should be fine for a while there. You cant see anything, i want to do a 95% water change, do i then have to cycle my tank before i put them in or do i just have to wait until the temperature is stable? please help me asap.. my fish cant stay in the QT for more then a day. its too crowded.

[j0hnh0lmes]

I wouldn't do a 95% then you'd have to basically re-cycle. It's brown b/c you stirred up everything that was in the gravel..

what type of filter do you have? depending it should clean it out actually.

otherwise I would do a 25-50% change now and another in a few weeks, it would cut down on the weeks of re-cycling

[salman]

i already took out all the water. :( damn!! Now i have to re cycle it again? What if i take out some water from my other tank? like 50% from my other tank and 50% tap water?

[dev]

You don't have to recycle, provided you have a good filter.

The nitrogen bacteria live on surfaces, not in the water. Most of them are in the filter, and some live in the gravel, and even on the glass. Make sure you don't kill off your bacteria by using cold water, or letting the filter dry out.

If you think you may already have killed off the colonies in your filter (if so you should clean the filter), you could take half the filtermedia from your other tanks. Thats how I instant-cycle my tanks anyway, either by moving filter media, or by moving an entire filter that has been running at least a few weeks in a cycled tank.

What kind of filter does this tank have?

[hungryhound]

I was trying to take out my gravel because i wanted to change it. Once i had taken most of it out, the water went BROWN!! i cant see anything in there, so i took out my fish and put them in a really small tank, but they should be fine for a while there. You cant see anything, i want to do a 95% water change, do i then have to cycle my tank before i put them in or do i just have to wait until the temperature is stable? please help me asap.. my fish cant stay in the QT for more then a day. its too crowded.

First off by removing all of your gravel at once you have doomed yourself to having to cycle again. It is much better to Remove your gravel slowly to allow the bacteria to build up on the new gravel.

How big i the tank and how many fish. Your best bet at saving all of them might be purchasing Biospira.

I am not sure that I would do a large water change as you will want the mulm to help seed the new gravel (Ie your cloudy water).

SO my advise is to put in atleast 50% of your old gravel and pile it up on one side. Put in 50 percent of your new gravel and pile it up on the other. If you can find a water soluble divider that would help. That way you still have a fair amount of your bacterial load.

I would leave your water cloudy at as it will help cycle your new gravel. I would add most of your fish back into the tank and monitor your parameters for the next week. Then next week if everything looks good i would replace the remaining 50 percent of your gravel.

[Willyleigh]

The browness was just rubbish in the gravel, how often do you vacuum your gravel, if at all, either way DO IT MORE.

The best thing to do is keep the gravel wet to keep the bacteria alive and put your fish back into the bigger tank.

[RobbieG]

Most of your bacteria will be in your filter - but a bunch would be in your gravel - changing your gravel can cause you to have a minicycle/bacterial bloom (I would expect it to in any of my tanks)

This is not usually any great big deal - your water would get hazy for a couple of days - just check your water parameters to make sure that you don't get too high with your ammonia or nitrite etc.

You can change all the water and not affect your cycle - the bacteria don't live in the water column - its not necasarily good for your fish for other reasons though. (PH change - temperature change - etc)

[Lady Hobbs]

I've taken everything out before without having to recycle. Keep your filter media as mentioned by dev and don't wash the gravel unless you run DECHLORINATED water over it.

You need to vacuum your gravel more often if your water was that black.

[salman]

I took off all the gravel before i had taken out the water. My Filter is pretty full of dirt right now. But im not going to clean it out since the bacteria in in there. I am going to put in the new sand tomorrow. Cant i just fill the 44 gallon tank some water from my other tank? it would be like 50% of it. It has almost the same water conditions, except for the temp which my heater will fix right away.

[dev]

You need to vacuum your gravel more often if your water was that black.

That is one way to do it, but there are a few alternatives

1. Clean gravel thorougly and often.

Gives a clean tank, but you will damage the bacteria and remove nutritions. Not reccomended for a planted tank.

2. Clean only the top inch of your gravel, never go deeper.

Gives a clean looking tank while leaving bacteria and nutritions intact. I reccomend this for most tanks.

If you do a deep clean you can expect a nitrate spike.

3. Never clean your gravel, only suck up dirt that is piling up on top of the gravel.

Some people swear to this method for fully planted tanks, often in combination with low water circulation. I can only assume they don't have very messy fish :)

[Lady Hobbs]

Never clean your gravel, only suck up dirt that is piling up on top of the gravel.

Some people swear to this method for fully planted tanks, often in combination with low water circulation. I can only assume they don't have very messy fish :)

Or have a sand bottom.

[dev]

[COLOR=blue]Or have a sand bottom.

Very true :)

For sand there is really just one very good solution to get any bacteria and nutrition; Sand snails.