# Replacing Gravel Substrate



## slickrb (Feb 6, 2006)

Does anyone here have advice for replacing the pea gravel substrate with a soil one (with Sand cap)?

I have a 25 G tank with tetras and shrimp. The tank is a few years old. It is planted with Crypts and anubias at the moment and I dose a small amount of dry ferts once a week for the plants.

I have some time off coming up and was thinking about redoing the tank. I've been reading this forum some and would like to give a soil substrate a go and do away with the dry ferts.

My initial thought is something like this,
Pre Change
Soak soil and sand in water

Change
1 - Remove Plants to a bucket
2 - Remove rock hardscape
3 - Capture as many of the shrimp as I can
4 - Drain all except for about 5 in of water for the tetras
5 - Remove gravel
6 - Slowly pour in wet soil and cover bottom. (about 3/4 inch)
7 - Let settle
8 - Slowly pour sand cap (about 3/4 inch)
9 - let settle again
10- Replace rock hardscape.
11- Slowly refill about 1/2 way
12- Replant 
13- Put shrimp back in
14- Fill tank


----------



## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

I don't think you can do this without taking everything out, including your fish. It will take a long time to settle. Probably your water flow would keep it cloudy. I think I'd just take it all out and do it that way. I have a 125g I had to take down 2 times. I hardly lost any fish at all.


----------



## JeffyFunk (Apr 6, 2006)

If you really don't want to break the tank down, you could try freezing the soil and making "mud sheets" so to speak. These could then be placed under your existing gravel while frozen. 

From my experience, it's best to just bite the bullet and set up the tank from scratch. The main problem I see in your plan is trying to put a cap on the wet soil layer. Once soil is wet, anything put on top of it will sink into it rather than stay on top of it. Besides, you have a gravel tank; Tearing it down will be easy! 

Also, setting up a soil substrate planted aquarium isn't the easiest thing to do and requires a little patience and practice. I've found it's easy to mess up a soil substrate tank and the consequences of doing it incorrectly are pretty bad (i.e. constantly muddy water, algae growth, green water, etc).

Oh yes. And if you don't have 'Ecology of the Planted Aquarium' by Diana Walstad, you really should consider getting it. The last chapter on how to set up a soil tank is pretty invaluable IMHO. Good luck and let us know how it turns out.


----------



## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

Copied your list, my changes are _in italics_
Pre Change
Soak soil and sand in water
_Have several buckets ready_

Change
1 - Remove Plants _and fish and shrimp_ to bucket_s_
2 - Remove rock hard scape
3 - Capture as many of the shrimp as I can
4 - Drain _all of water_
5 - Remove gravel
6 - Pour in wet soil and cover bottom. (about 3/4 inch)
_Add enough water to not even cover the soil. This will help to settle the soil, but not cloud the water. Create hills and valleys. I would put rocks and driftwood in at this point, before sand cap _ 
8 - Pour sand cap (about 3/4 inch)
9 - _A little more water, misted over the sand to settle it._
10-_ Add Plants. Mist the plants often._ 
11- Slowly refill _by pouring water into the tank over a plastic bag or a plate. Allow the water to seep into the substrate. Do not use the water the fish were in. Fish under stress produce stress hormones and excess ammonia._ 
12- _Set up all equipment, turn it on when tank is full._ 
13- Put shrimp _and fish_ back in
14- _Monitor tank for NH3/NH4, NO2, NO3_


----------



## slickrb (Feb 6, 2006)

@ Diana and Tex_Gal,

Thanks for the feedback, especially regarding the fish. I'll plan on tearing the whole tank down and use the updated plan.

Nobody mentioned the soil and sand depth though. Is 3/4 inch OK or would 1 inch of each be better?

@ Jeff,

I've been looking at her book. I've casually mentioned it to my wife, so I hoping it will be under the Christmas tree  , but if not I'll order it online. It looks like and interesting read.


----------



## JeffyFunk (Apr 6, 2006)

slickrb said:


> Nobody mentioned the soil and sand depth though. Is 3/4 inch OK or would 1 inch of each be better?


0.75'' to 1.0'' of soil is fine; Either depth will work. I would not go above 1'' however or the soil substrate layer may become too anaerobic. If you're using gravel, 0.75'' to 1.0'' is fine for a capping layer. If you're using sand, you might want to keep the capping layer a little smaller in depth, say 0.50'' to 0.75'' since sand has a smaller particle size (and will pack together better).



slickrb said:


> I've been looking at her book. I've casually mentioned it to my wife, so I hoping it will be under the Christmas tree  , but if not I'll order it online. It looks like an interesting read.


Good luck with that! Let's hope Santa is generous this year .


----------



## MGoerke (Jan 4, 2010)

perfect timing, I just finished my tank cycle it is just over a month old, everything is perfect have 18 fish 2 live plants all gravel my wife loves some fake plants & a big picw of driftwood, it's 36 gal bow front, I got the "ecology ... Planted aquarium" & really wany to plant it with soil but my wife don't want me tear it down I am gonna try 1 of your sugestions of freezing it, I m using those ziploc lunch bread sandwitch thingees so they make like a 6x6x1" pice of dirt, I am wasking it, putting prime in it & doing 1 test in a bucket to see how long I have to get it under the gravelm I hope to do like 1 a week as I get more plants as not to shock anything or freez my water too much. But it is this ir keep the 2 plants alive by fert & co2 till they die. My wife said wait till these fish all die but that will hopefully be a few years from now! This is not my 1st tank I have done them b4 I tried live plants a few years back but they barely stayed slive & mos dies. Right not I have a snall gravel, not sand but smaller then generic gravel, almost like a really corse sand. Any ideas? Sry for typos on phone & can't see whole screen.

thanks matt


----------



## mr greenjeans (May 24, 2004)

Hi everyone, long time reader, first time poster (maybe I posted before, can't remember).

I can't help from jumping in here, It seems to me a few hours of tearing down the tank entirely and putting in the soil is the only way to go here. What few minutes you might save by freezing then putting underwater will create a bigger mess than if you go for it and completely redo the substrate. I don't think you will get the desired effects anyways. It's not going to be an easy task to get an inch of frozen soil under the gravel. After all, your taking everything out but the gravel, and once at that point how big of a deal is it to take out the gravel? An extra 15 minutes? These are small tanks we are talking about here, nothing is too hard to do with the smaller ones.

When the folks here talk about freezing soil, I think they are talking about making little frozen balls (lots of them up here in the frozen north) and placing them into the gravel near pant roots with the tank fully setup, no tear down required.

If you have a successful plant tank, sans plastic, your wife will be very happy I'm sure.


----------



## MGoerke (Jan 4, 2010)

I am concernec with 90% new tap water & new rich soil in a tank with 18 fish all @ once, I have about an 1.25" x5x5 slab of dirt frozen (with water that has prime in it) in freezer now, seems hard gonna leave it 1 more night, I oy have 2 plants now, was gonna just pull 1 plant scoup away gravel put in then gravel right back. Prolly wait a few hours till doil thaws to re do plant on new soil. Sigh I would really love to just empty the whole thing & re do it tho. It does sound like a close toss up... With less or equil but different fuss & mess both ways! 
thanks
matt


----------



## mr greenjeans (May 24, 2004)

I think you are going to need alot more plants...alot more. For a new tank the initial goal is to stuff the tank with easy, fast growing plants, don't worry too much about how it looks. Like dwalstad has stated elsewhere (loved your book Ms. Walstad) one or two healthy growing amazon swords will help alot, along with fast growing stem plants, nothing too picky at first. Get the tank stable and then continue with any scaping or trying other more finicky plants. Look at this initial startup in terms of months, not days. That's why I think a full substrate replacement will pay off the most for you in the long run. The startup of a tank is the worst time to do half-measures. If possible, get a bunch of 5 gallon buckets and retain as much of your existing tank water as possible. That will help your tank transition from fish only to plants.


----------



## MGoerke (Jan 4, 2010)

ok I did 1 5x5x1.25 about 30 min ago went fairly smooth, I have only 2 plants as of now due to budget I am able to soend. I will be getting 1-2 more next week & I am not looking for hard plants I m looking for some of the ez ones that my LFS caries. I was initialy told to just do plastic plants & deal with live later it is too much work, wekl that was b4 the book, I have skiped around through it but have read about half so far. I will do any tnk in the future dirt right off! I will update in a few days ima watch the biology & p.h. Concerned about the biology going funky.

-Sent from my Palm Pre-


----------



## MGoerke (Jan 4, 2010)

ok its been 5 days & no adverse affects xcept for tannins, & that may be in due part to a 2-3 week old pice of wood & carbon effectiveness running out. So i just got 2 new plants tonight & added 2 "slabs: (5x5x1.25") of soil to the tank, i do have questions about planting these new plants once the soil is defrosted, they seemed to be root bound & i don't wanna kill the plants trying to get them out of the fiberglass1cotton like stuff they come in from my LFS


----------



## JeffyFunk (Apr 6, 2006)

MGoerke said:


> [The plants] ... seemed to be root bound & i don't wanna kill the plants trying to get them out of the fiberglass1cotton like stuff they come in from my LFS


The plants you got are growing in mineral wool. This is an inert soil substitute commonly used to propagate plants in. For the most part, you just want to (1) take the plants outta the pot (you can cut the pot off if the roots are coming out of the bottom of the pot), (2) remove as much mineral wool as possible from around the plant, (3) remove as much mineral wool as possible from between the roots, (4) repeat steps 2 & 3 and, finally, (5) plant the plant. Think of the plant as a terrestrial plant that you'd buy for your garden; it's okay to cut the roots when you take it out of the pot. Doing so will not hurt the plant and actually encourage it to grow new roots into the soil sub-layer.

Here's a link to the Tropica website.... http://www.tropica.com/default.asp
At the bottom of the page you'll find a link to the section called 'Achieving good results with Tropica plants'. This link will tell you more information.


----------



## MGoerke (Jan 4, 2010)

forgot to thank you for your reply on the plastic pot plants! I did exactly what you said & all seems to be ok!


----------



## MGoerke (Jan 4, 2010)

I know this is almost a year later but while back got my whole tank converted to soil substrate with gravel on top, not as fine as sand but small gravel. anyways i was able to take the frozen soil put it in ziplock bag under the gravel and pull out the bag without any major trauma! fish and everything in tank! full setup running tank! i did 1 every few days as not to lower the water temp by doing all at once! did have tannins issue but purigen cleared that up quick! anyways almost year later all running great thanks for all the input!


----------



## Jsthomas (Nov 3, 2010)

I did this on my tank, I saved as much of the water as I could in 5 gallon buckets, put the fish in those buckets, drained the rest of the water, filled with soil, planted, topped with gravel, refill, add fish back. All my fish survived. And now my sunspot platies had babies!


----------

