# Rescaping an Established Tank



## IntotheWRX (May 13, 2016)

germanblueramlover said:


> Hello all,
> 
> I have a 20 long which has been up and running for probably a good 5 - 6 years now. Low tech, just super naturals sand with no dirt, and fairly lightly planted (something I want to improve, hence the rescape!).
> 
> ...


i think the fishes will be in great risk. rescaping will cause a lot of stuff to be thrown into the water. how much? and how big of a risk? you will be the best person to answer that since you can see your tank. But going from understanding of how much stuff is in the sand, you might want to take out your fishes. do what you need to do with your scape. and then you can test to see if the water is ok. Maybe use one fish as a lab mice and see if it can live in the new water without compromising the whole community.


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## Colin Wrexham (Mar 24, 2017)

Hi
If it was me i would remove the fish, drain all the water. Scoop sand out, put dirt in and recover with your sand (if you want to reuse it). Rescape, plant then refil. Use 50% of the water you took out. Level out your temperature then get your fish back in. Add a bit of tapsafe and you should be fine

Sent from my SM-A310F using Tapatalk


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

I am going to do this same thing but on a larger 75g tank in the next month or so. Probably going to remove everything very carefully (otherwise catching my fish would be nearly impossible), drain and save 1/2 of the water, remove fish, drain rest of water, remove substrate, rescape, fill back up with old tank water / tap water, add fish back in.

The only part I am unsure of is if I want to rinse all my old substrate real quick before I begin the rescape or just remove and add back as I work. I think it could be better to just re-use the substrate without rinsing because you retain a lot more BB that way. I feel like it will all be about how much of a mess it makes when I refill the tank. Because of this I will plan on starting the fill with tap water and if it looks real gross I will do a few full water changes before filling with the old tank water and re-introducing the fish.


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## germanblueramlover (Jun 9, 2013)

Thank you all for the quick responses!

Moving the fish makes me nervous, since I've got some fairly skittish rummynose tetras who are already prone to panicking! I suppose moving anything in the tank would probably upset them even more though. I'll let you know how it goes in the end.


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## lisals (Jun 21, 2017)

I just did a pretty good rescaping in my established 125gallon tank. I tried to vacuum the substrate as well as I could and hoped for the best really lol. I think with only an inch of substrate, you'd be ok to leave the fish in. If you do but see that moving things around is stirring up a lot of gunk, then remove the fish.


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## jellopuddinpop (Dec 12, 2016)

germanblueramlover said:


> Thank you all for the quick responses!
> 
> Moving the fish makes me nervous, since I've got some fairly skittish rummynose tetras who are already prone to panicking! I suppose moving anything in the tank would probably upset them even more though. I'll let you know how it goes in the end.


If you’re worried about the fish being too skittish to catch, try acclimating them to the net by leaving it in the tank for a while. I just re-homed about 60 fish, and I left the net in the tank for about 2 weeks prior to moving. When it was time to catch the fish, they were basically swimming into the net.


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## germanblueramlover (Jun 9, 2013)

Thanks. I think my substrate is pretty clean - the plants have rooted in quite strongly to break up anaerobic pockets, and my kuhlis spend all day digging through it :smile2:
It's not a drastic rescape anyway - nothing too big getting moved. Mostly I am just changing around some plants to try and get the more picky ones where they'll get better lighting! The biggest thing I'm moving is a piece of driftwood on a 6x6 slate base - I just don't like the shape of it anymore and I want it out. 

I'd really prefer to keep my fish in if I can, since I think being in the tank with all the plants and cover will help my rummies calm down again after.

Just finished moving things around! I ended up leaving the fish in while I worked - they weren't best pleased but not too scared either, came to see what I was doing and pick at the plants as I moved them. They're very happy now of course, since I made one section much more densely planted than before.
I didn't have any issues with my substrate, no bad smells or dubious spots. I'll leave the lights off for the rest of today but they are already coming out to explore.


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## klibs (May 1, 2014)

I also pulled off my rescape on my 75g. For those who come across this thread in the future this is what I did with 0 deaths... Basically I removed all my fish and kept my existing substrate / added a ton of hardscape and substrate onto what I already had.

- Drain the tank about 1/2 way into sheetrock buckets, etc to preserve the water and provide temporary shelter for fish
- Net out as many fish and put them in the sheetrock buckets as fast as you can before removing hardscape / plants
- CAREFULLY remove hardscape and plants. Try to make sure the mulm/gross stuff stays low and does not mix into the water column
- Net out the remaining fish as quickly as you can and put into sheetrock buckets. the water will be really gross at this point. try and make sure the water in the buckets stays as clean as possible
- fill up tank with tap water so you can perform a full vacuum of everything to make sure it's clean in there
- completely drain the tank so it is totally dry / you can easily work
- rescape the tank / add hardscape
- fill up with as much of the old tank water as you can
- fill up the rest with tap water / prime
- net the fish back in (i didn't do any acclimation or anything like that... just matched temp and dropped them in since it was mostly the water they were already used to)
- add plants

Took me about 4-5 hours to complete this whole thing on a 75g. Fish were in sheetrock buckets with old plants for about 3-4 hours. Some were pretty pale when I put them back in but they all colored right back up within a half hour or so. 0 deaths. Fish include corys, pearl gouramis, ottos, bloodfin tetras, cardinal tetras. Obviously with more sensitive species you might want to take more caution / use a legit quarantine tank or something as a temporary home.

Honestly i think it might be easier to just carefully remove everything and clean the tank with the fish still in there like OP did. The main reason I wanted to fully drain the tank to rescape was because I added ~100 lbs of stones into the tank which is a lot easier to do emersed. working with hardscape underwater sucks IMO. If you have a relatively simple scape planned it might be easier to just do it with the fish in. If you are just rearranging plants just do it with the fish in. I was moving a LOT of hardscape that was buried deep in the substrate so it got really messy in there.


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## KrypleBerry (May 23, 2017)

jellopuddinpop said:


> germanblueramlover said:
> 
> 
> > Thank you all for the quick responses!
> ...


Lol reminds me of a tale... the tale of how captain jack sparrow eacaped the island he was exiled to by wading out into the surf and waiting for days, weeks even until all manmer if sea life became accustomed to him... Then used a rope made from the hair on his back and tied two sea turtles together and used them as a raft...
I couldnt resist.


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