# Sticky  The Great Gravel Change



## Obsidian

Some pictures of my gravel change- no finished product- that will be seen at a later time!

Putting this up because every so often I see someone with Q's about how to do this- now you have a play by play 

$12 portable fish tank  with a bunch of the gravel/sand that is coming out of it on the bottom. That stuff will just be tossed later. 









Gravel that is going into the tank. I bought about 10 pounds too much, but left it deep for my plants. Given the larger size of the pebble I am not as worried about anaerobic pockets as I was with the sand. 









I took the decorations out- into the "tank" they went, along with my filter and heater. I put the fish into the "tank" when it was half full and the main tank half empty, making it a little easier to catch the little buggars. I am notoriously horrid at catching fish. 









I finished filling it up so I could run the filter. I had to change where the filter output was because of the "sag" in the "tank." I then used a portable air purifier that I knew would hold it's ground next to the "tank" to take care of the "sag" and help it hold it's shape. I primed the filter and turned it on (not shown here, here the filter is not turned on yet).









Tank just prior to change out:









Tank almost empty:









Tank with new substrate and the new water- notice it is only about half filled with new water- the rest will be the old water going back, not for bacteria but for Ph maintenance. Not much bacteria hangs out in the water column. 









What Kiera thinks about this whole thing:









No "finished product" pictures for 2 reasons:
1. It has a sack of the old gravel sitting next to a bubble wand to keep it aerated and help with the bacterial seeding of the new tank. This gravel/sand (I had a mix in there before) is in a media bag so I can just pull it out later. It also has a media bag with peat moss in it to aid in keeping the Ph as low as it needed to be. Tap Ph is 8.0 and tank Ph was 7.2. Peat moss will help it not stay up for long. 

And 2. It will be shown later in a photo in one of those goofy contests! The above mentioned media bags would ruin the picture. There will be no spoiler alert


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## lohachata

nice job obs....now all you need is a bigger tank and more fish and plants.....something around 100 gallons would work...


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## Obsidian

LOL it's in my storage unit! The space it was taking up really did start to make me feel claustrophobic. I have thought about trying it on a different wall, but I just put up my glass/crystal figurine collection and I would have nowhere to put it. I even took my 10 ga Betta tank down! If I ever hang my TV in the bedroom then I could probably fit a nice tank there. I don't know if I would get into trouble for putting those kinds of holes in my wall. 55 ga cichlid tank could be nice


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## fuzzi

I enjoyed your step-by-step directions. Your $12 "tank" is a nifty idea.

Maybe if someone bought two of these and inserted one inside the other it would result in less bulging. :idea:

Lots to think upon, thanks for sharing.


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## JeffIrish

Very informative! Thank you


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