Hi Ava,
As both Micky and Dawn suggest, syphoning the sand out of the tank is by far the easiest way of removing it. If you're not used to syphoning (and you don't want a mouthful of Planaria -- dead or alive), just submerse the entire hose under water, filling it completely. Then, making sure to keep one end of the hose under water without getting air in it, hold your thumb over the other end and pull it over the top of the tank, lowering it to your buckets near the floor; the syphon will automatially start.
Getting to the part of your saving half the water. before removing the sand, THIS would be the time to test the water -- mainly for its ammonia, but also for its pH. There's no sense in necessarily saving four 5 gallon buckets of water, only to find out afterwards that it's high in ammonia. As the sand has been difficult to keep clean, and as you have a gross Planaria problem, I can't imagine your water quality is that good. While you definitely need to save a portion of this old aquarium water -- to prevent any stress on the Axolotis if your tap water is far different -- the amount of it to be saved depends directly on its present parameters, and you don't know what they are at this time or you wouldn't anticipate testing it.
If your tank water is only moderate in ammonia (and your pH will tell you if it's still safe -- with a higher pH indicating the ammonia will be more toxic), you may save this 20 gallons of tank water, with the remaining 20 gallons coming from the tap after refilling as this would be like a 50% PWC (partial water change). If you find your ammonia level is high, then save only two or perhaps three buckets of the old tank water. If you're in doubt, take the pH and ammonia tests now and post them to us for evaluation. We'll tell you the amount of old water that's prudent to keep. Also tell us your tap water's pH. While it may change if left overnight, it will still give us some idea of the pH level it's starting at now.
Now, getting to one of your main concerns, that of saving your cycle, please know that most of your nitrifying bacteria reside in your filter, and while you're going to keep this filter in a 5 gallon bucket, you'll need to keep it running to ensure oxygenated water is constantly flowing past them if this whole tank cleaning project is going to take an extended period of time. Even then, unless your tank water has a moderate amount of ammonia, without further input of new ammonia by the Axolotis, these bacteria may start to starve if the project takes longer than expected -- unless you can put the filter in this temporary container housing the axolotis. Before adding the filter back to the tank after it's set up again, be sure to clean it of any live or dead Planaria you can, in that same bucket of old tank water.
All of the interior tank surfaces obviously have nitrifying bacteria growing on them, and while the filter contains more nitrifying bacteria by far, these interior surfaces can still harbor a substantial amount of these good bacteria, so you can expect at least a mini-cycle to one degree or another. As Dawn points out, nitrifying bacteria will not inhabit the substrate any lower than about 1/2" below it's surface -- and probably more like only 1/4" on sand. As the surface of a layer of sand is not as smooth as the surface of the glass panes of the tank's sides and ends -- which you'll need to wipe free of Planaria as a necessity (also removing part of the bacteria there) -- its relatively rough surface of grains will actually comprise an area up to 3 times the area of the tank bottom itself, and holding a considerable amount of beneficial bacteria. Unless you remove and replace (with new) half the sand now and the other half about a week to 10 days from now, you might expect a substantial "mini-cycle," AND, this is also dependant on your tank's pH right now as few to no bacteria species of any kind do as well in acid water (except perhaps for anaerobic types). I doubt that there's any way you could replace only half the sand at a time though in this case, as it would be impossible to keep everything else free of Planaria. You may want to keep a small container of Tetra's "Safe Start" on hand to supplement your nitrobacters after replacing all the sand and refilling the tank.
Ray
--- In AquaticLife@yahoogroups.com, "Ava" <aboswell91@...> wrote:
>
> This may be long, sorry!
>
> So, I have a 40 gallon breeder tank with axolotls (aquatic salamanders) in there. I have sand as a substrate. It's become way too difficult to keep up with the cleaning, and I've gotten a TON of planaria in there because I can't keep up with the waste that's harboring in the sand. A lot of axolotl owners have their tank bare bottomed to avoid this, so I wanted to take my sand out. However, I'm concerned about my cycle crashing because of it. I was thinking about going about it this way:
> 1. Buy a large, shallow container and put my axolotls in there with their current tank water for temporary housing, and add a screen top.
> 2. Fill a 5 gallon bucket with current tank water, add filter and aeration, with as many decorations as I can fit in there, keep filter and air running. I have a biowheel, I hope this helps.
> 3. Take as many buckets of water as possible and fill with current tank water. I'm hoping to save at least half the water with 4 5gallon buckets.
> 4. Drain the remaining water from tank
> 5. Use a small shovel and remove sand from tank, use a vacuum or turkey baster to remove what shovel cannot
> 6. Take a magnet cleaner and wipe the walls of the tank free of planaria
> 7. Rinse but NOT scrub decor (there's dead planaria on everything right now)
> 8. Add old water and new dechlorinated water
> 9. Add filter/air/decor
> 10. Test water, add axolotls back into tank
> 11. Test water daily, and do small water changes daily
>
> Do you think this method will help save my cycle? This tank is filthy and I can't seem to keep up with it having sand. Any advice is appreciated!
>
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