I currently have 210 litre (55 gal) tank with one oscar and 1 large crayfish and i currently have gravel as a substrate and i was wongering if it would be possible to swich to sand without removing my oscar or cray, i know the risk's and cleaning issues involved with sand

you can gradually scoop the gravel as if you are just vacuuming
the substrate while the fishes are inside.

sand can get easily in the suction line of the pump, thus may
affect the operation.

in my opinion, gravel or sand have same effect in cleaning
concern.

btw, welcome to the site!

I love sand:cheer:

you can easily change from sand to gravel without removing the Oscar. The Oscar probably won't like it very much because there will be quite a bit of disruption while you're doing it. But if you take it easy, you should be okay. That's not a particularly big tank, it shouldn't take too long. However, you might find it easier if you empty half of the water out, carrying out work on the substrate etc is a lot easier if you haven't got so much water in the tank.

cheers

only problem with switching from gravel to sand is...
once you have removed your gravel its going to be hard work putting sand in, reason being is, to put sand in a tank which is full of water will cause alot of small particles in the sand to get sucked up by your filter, which then means you'll need to turn the filter off.
this can take up to 2 full days for all the sand to settle.
and 2 days without a filter could be dangerous.
if you are going to attempt it, the more time you spend cleaning the sand the better.
i spent about 4 hours cleaning my sand last week before putting it in the tank to get rid of any small particles in it.
like OFL said, it'll be easier to empty half of your tank first.
good luck though

after scooping all gravel... you can put the sand in a
plastic bag good enough to carry by one hand.... submerge
the bag in water and gradually flipflop pulling the plastic.
bingo..... the sand is there with minimal cloudiness to settle.
do it again until all sand had been laid. but make sure to lift
the filter to lessen suction of sand.

It might be a good idea to turn off your filters whilst you are putting the sand into the tank. Depending on how long it takes you to put the sand back in, you can always turn the filters back on every now and then to minimise bacteria loss.

It is also a good idea to give the sand a bit of a wash. If you've got a hosepipe or an outside tap then you can use a bucket. Just fill it half full with sand and then add water. You can then swill it around and pour the excess water out. I tend to find that Gravel is dirtier than sand but it is still a good idea to clean the sand. You will probably still end up with quite a cloudy tank but that should settle after a while.

why dont you want to remove your fish? get a big storage container from your hardware store (bq) place heater and either int filter or airstone in fill with tank water transfer fish with childrens fishing net JOB DONE! ive done it a few times its a bit stressfull to your oscar but he will be fine just put a cover on the container use anything to stop him jumping for freedom!

OFL wrote:


Thats what i did a long time ago and my filter got distroyed.
when i opened it it was half full with small sand particles which it picked up floating around in the water.
and my tube was only half way down the tank as well.
I think pauls idea would work best, wash the said, then put it in a plastic bag and lower it the bottom, once at the bottom, slit the bag and gently pull the sand out.
i had not thought of that before, cheers paul

I also think it depends on what sort of filters you've got. I'm quite sure that the manufacturers of filters take into account people will use sand. I've never used any other canister filter other than an eheim and mine are still working extremely well and I clean them, there is often sand in the bottom. However we are talking top quality stuff.

I suppose putting the sand in with a bag is one option, however I think that is a little fiddly when all you need to do is turn the filters off for a bit. After all, you have to turn your filters off when carrying out a water change.

I've changed from gravel to sand in my 125 gallon tank and that is exactly how I did it.

i was planing on putting the sand in the tank with a 12 inch net shouldnt tanke to long

how would you do put sand into a tank with a 12 inch net?