Need help on changing substrate

[swivvr]

While on vacation in San Francisco, I got a chance to visit the Ocean Aquarium fish store. The owner there was very nice and told us told us lots of information on how to keep maintenance low in the hobby with deep gravel substrate. We picked up a few bags there and now have to replace the black sand in my 20 gallon with the gravel we bought. I don't know if we should take the fish out or replace it with the fish in. We have corydoras, green neon tetras, a honey gourami, 2 nerite snails, and a hillstream loach. If anyone has done this before, could you help me what to do?

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

Definitely take the fish out with tank water into a bucket or clean quarantine tank- changing substrate can take some time. I've redone my 20 gallon before and it took a good couple of hours or so. My Neons sat in my quarantine tank with an airstone comfortably with tank water until I was done. You never know if you'll need to let the water settle with detrius or you need some rearranging done and you don't want to have to worry about the fish. 

[swivvr]

I have a 5 gallon quarantine tank, do you think they will be fine in there? @xXInkedPhoenixX

Edited July 8, 2021 by swivvr
didnt quote

[xXInkedPhoenixX]

They should be absolutely fine as long as it's clean from any sickies that were in there last- they can be in there for a few hours while you change the tank over and be good. 🙂 My quarantine was only a few gallons and held my 10 neons for at least 2. 

[Scott P.]

On 7/8/2021 at 6:14 PM, swivvr said:

I have a 5 gallon quarantine tank, do you think they will be fine in there? @xXInkedPhoenixX

I would think so. You should be able to do the change within a couple of hours.

They should be fine. 

I would make sure the water parameters were about the same in both tanks.

Other than that I don't see a problem.

[Nana Finopolis]

I agree, definitely take the fish out. I have a horror story about changing substrate from sand. I left the fish in and thought I would carefully remove the sand. As I was removing it huge gas bubbles were released. One by one the fish started looking like they were dying, so I removed them immediately and put them in a bucket. ALL of the fish were dead within about 30 min. I will NEVER make that mistake again. It was almost surreal. I knew about these gas bubbles but never thought it would happen to me. I'll probably never use sand again. I felt so bad knowing I was the one that killed my fish.