Replacement of The Substrate

Wow, what fun... As the title states, I replaced the substrate in my aquarium today with SeaChem Flourite. I followed the directions/method mentioned in the Simple Guide to Freshwater Aquariums by David Boruchowitz. That is, I used two five gallons buckets and with the garden hose pouring water into one, I dropped the Flourite into the moving water - letting the dust and smaller particles pour off. I then drained the bucket and moved the now rinsed substrate into the second bucket. It took me about thirty minutes to completely rinse the two bags of flourite I had purchased.



I then removed about six gallons of the aquarium's water. I also removed the amazon sword plants and most of the existing gravel substrate. Once this was done, I moved the tank to it's new home on the side wall of Christian's room on top of the Eclipse System 12 Stand purchased from Drs. Foster Smith. I then started adding the rinsed Flourite to the tank - sloping it from the rear to the front. I also re-planted the amazon sword plants, placing the larger one in the rear of the tank. I'm planning on adding more plants, so I left some areas *blank*. I then refilled the tank with tap water that had been overdosed with SeaChem Prime (I overdosed to catch any residual chlorine in the substrate from the rinsing.) I also dosed the tank with the appropriate amount of Hagen Cycle - I did so to help with any bacteria die off that might have occurred when removing the existing gravel. I'm planning to cut back on the twice-daily feedings of the elephant nose fish and work back up to smaller feedings twice daily. (I had been feeding the fish 0.25 of a 1.75 ounce cube of Hikari Frozen Brine Shrimp.



I'm changing some of what I'm doing with the tank as a direct result of the Simple Guide to Freshwater Aquariums book. A lot of what I've read makes a great deal of sense. For example, the water changes make sense for diluting the pollutants in the water. I am also cutting back on the feedings because it seems that I was way overfeeding - and that could have been why the nitrates were so high in that last test.