Adding substrate to bare bottom tank

[TMartins]

Hello Community,

I wanted to add gravel substrate to an existing 10 gallon tank that has a bare bottom.  I’m keeping Platy fry in that 10 gallon but want to add gravel so that I could add some live plants.  Would I have to literally start from scratch with new water or could I just clean out the bottom and slowly add the gravel with the fry still in the tank??

[Guppysnail]

I have done this several times rinse gravel thoroughly wit HOT water and rinse with cool to col it down. Add it in small cups so fry are not harmed. It never bothered my fish at all. 

[FlyingFishKeeper]

Hi, in my opinion it should be fine to put the new substrate in with the tank as is. I've added more sand, and plant substrate in my display tank with chili rasboras, snails, and shrimp (the tank already had an amount of substrate in it). I put the new substrate into a cup, and put the cup into the aquarium right side up so it could fill before pouring the new substrate to the bottom. As far as I can tell I haven't had any side effects, although I didn't rinse the substrate before hand which definitely clouded the water. 

[Torrey]

I have frequently added more substrate, especially if I am about to take pictures/film a tank.

Rinse well, as Guppysnail instructed. Then create a gravel equivalent of a cake decorator (I will put gravel in a heavy duty ziploc bag, and cut out a corner).

You now have the ability to control where the gravel goes, and can keep fish and fry safe from accidentally getting buried.

[sanford]

Possible technique for adding the sand shown in the following video:

 

Edited January 25, 2022 by sanford

[Torrey]

On 1/24/2022 at 6:30 PM, sanford said:

Possible technique for adding the sand shown in the following video:

 

This is even better than the 'cake bag' method, because physics will keep the unwanted sediment particles in the bottle.

Sheer brilliance!

[lefty o]

when adding gravel to an existing tank, of course pre rinse your gravel to get the gunk out. put gravel in a cup, or small bucket, gently lower cup down into water when ya get to the bottom, just gently dump the cup over.