Converting to aquasoil?

931 Views 2 Replies 2 Participants Last post by Spiffyfish, Mar 2, 2014

Spiffyfish

Discussion Starter · Mar 2, 2014

So i will be converting from pfs to aquasoil. I havent found a thread other than one on barrreport that states it is possible to switch directly over to aquasoil on an established tank. In that thread Tom states you can use carbon to help remove ammonia and obviously water changes are a must in helping to remove it. So my question is can it truly be done on an established tank, considering water changes and possible carbon use? Pfs is not working to well for me so i would like to change it out so i can add in some more plants, but at the same time i dont want to kill my altums and cardinals with an ammonia spike. Wondering if even adding the power sand and maybe 1 bag at a time of aquasoil over the coarse of a few weeks would be beneficial or if it would become a mess in the tank.

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chocological

· #2 · Mar 2, 2014

Here's what I did once during a scape change/substrate swap..

Put all the fish in a large bucket with tank water.. put an airstone in there, and ran my filters the whole time in the bucket as to not kill the BB. Then I swapped the substrate, added water/prime, put fish back in.. then hooked up the filters and etc.. done.

In your case I suggest doing the same. Take out the fish, keep filters running in a bucket, do you rescape/swap, add water and filters and fish again.

Aquasoil leeches ammonium, so you're probably gonna have a mini cycle going on. Do large water changes a few times a week and your should be set in a few weeks.

I'm sure you should be okay doing that. Also, make sure you heavily plant.
Most water quality issues can be fixed by doing a WC!

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Spiffyfish

Discussion Starter · #3 · Mar 2, 2014

Thats initially what i was going to do but trying to catch around 50 cardinals is a pita. I may just suck out the sand and water to about half way, add in the powersand and cap with the aquasoil. I know wc's are a fix to most problems i was keeping discus before this tank and thats all i was doing was changing water so doing it after a subtrate change will be no problem, i just dont want to kill my altums. Im assuming with enough wc's and having an established filter it should keep ammonia levels low enough to have no affect on the fish. At least that is what im hoping for.

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