# New Substrate tommorrow 9/14/13



## Raymond S. (Jan 11, 2013)

Finally,
This checklist I hope to follow. Ten gallon/w natural un-vacuumed gravel.
Drain water into 5G bucket to save to put back in so fish not too badly shocked.
Drain most to about 3" rest of water.
Pull out plants/separate ones to keep.
Tank has built in bio-filter so can't drain but it will drop half way the water in it so half of bio media may dry out.
Fish are least killi fish so can't catch(find) in all the plants so need to stay in tank unfortunately. After plants are pulled
the water will be such a mess that you can't see them either so...
Remove gravel. Hate to leave this dirty water in there but fish may be able to be caught at this time and put into bucket/w water.
If able to catch all the fish at this time I will try to remove the rest of the water then.
Add new substrate and deco rocks/driftwood.
Add old and new plants.
Add old water then fill/w new.
Anyone see anything I missed ?
Likely the best thing on this would be if I had facilities to remove the fish and dump the whole tank/clean somewhat
and do a complete overhaul but it's not as practical as it could be so it seems as though this is it


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## Raymond S. (Jan 11, 2013)

A combination of 2 things is the reason for this.
First, that tank has regular fine gravel as a substrate. It is the only thing about it that isn't high tech. Well Excel isn't as high
maybe as injected Co2 but there are T5 lights on it and remember it's just a ten G. It's regularly dosed/w Either API Leaf Zone
or Sea Chem Flourish Comprehensive plus Tetra Pride each water change or on the weeks I do happen to miss the WC I still
dose it and daily Excel of course.
Second is the oldest reason in the book I believe as I'm just tired of it looking the same for 2 years now.
Going to add some rocks and driftwood while changing the substrate to a mix of half a 17lb bag of Sea Chem Laterite and
API first layer "Pure Laterite"...a 55oz box of that. The Laterite by Sea Chem is the original/w the highest iron content.
Add that to the Pride which is mostly an iron supplement plus the Leaf Zone and the tank is liable to rust...LOL...
Won't know for sure for about 6 months if I should have left well enough alone or did something good.
Pix will be on this thread tomorrow of before and after.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Don't add any old water. There is no value in it.


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## Raymond S. (Jan 11, 2013)

Well I think someone on here warned me about that API first layer "Pure Laterite" for dust in the water.
In the middle of doing this change on the substrate. Have put in the new. At a dead stop for lack of being able to
see anything in there to do any aquascaping or planting. On the bright side apparently some of the scuds I
periodically dump in there from "collecting" have established a colony in there...finally. And did find out that I have
two not only living but growing clams in there. Dime size when I got them and nickel sized now. Not much growth
for a year but it's growth which shows there is a method to my madness. Waiting to see if it will clear up some or
if I'll need to put back the water(half full right now) and turn on the filter to get it cleared enough to scape it.
Would make it harder to scape it if full but clear would be nice.
OK so a picture is worth a thousand words. The first is the substrate line from close. You can see what the second is.





Will give it half an hr but then back/w the water if not cleared enough to scape it.

9 hrs after putting in sub.




18 hrs after


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## coralbandit (Jul 29, 2012)

Fill it and add some "mechanical" to help you out.Time can be our friend or enemy! get it going with a pad and pull and rinse as necessary.


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## Raymond S. (Jan 11, 2013)

Well one and one half hrs later and I can now see about 2 inches into it. As I have built in DIY bio-only filters I
have no pads/sponges etc to do that with unfortunately. Those filters are designed to allow fish fry/shrimp and
Daphnia to swim through at will and only pass water through bio-media with the exact same method as an under
gravel filter does but in a column in a corner instead of covering the floor. There are always free floating particles
in there but not any amount that is an actual distraction rather what you might see in a natural waterway.
Actually the plants both in and outside the filter do the scrubbing. Oops...no plants right now. One tiny detail I
forgot...LOL...
I took most of any in the filter out when I lowered the water and rinsed the media in tank water for the first time
in 1.5 years. Likely dropped the effectiveness by 70% but the flow had slowed down...so...
Effectiveness of particle filtering that is. I found my largest Formosa(Least Killifish) dead so far. We'll see who
survives this by tomorrow. Couldn't find most of the fish after the water got cloudy to move them to the bucket
where I put some of the water from the tank. May wait til tomorrow to plant the Rotala and others left as I've
done a few Dwarf Pennywort and I'd better do the Cript today but a bit later.
Question: How do you fit about 30-35 4" pieces of Rotala into a 9x10 inch space ? A corner forest for fry to hide in
about 1/3rd of the tank. Guess I'll need to dump some of them.
In case you doubt the effectiveness of plants to filter particles this was taken 9 hrs after putting in the substrate. It's GREEN hair algae.


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

If it settles it will just be dust on the bottom. Fill it up without stirring and vacuum out the stuff on the bottom. Repeat until it is clear.


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## Raymond S. (Jan 11, 2013)

I have added to the pictures. Check the whole thread.


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## Raymond S. (Jan 11, 2013)

Have added one more at 18 hrs after putting in substrate and aquascape done except for any minor adjustments.
Needs a couple of weeks to settle and start growing. Will add more periodically.


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