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Help! How to re-scape an established tank with 40+ fishes.

The.WishMaster

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Joined
12 Jan 2022
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Amsterdam
Hello Experts,

I have been running a planted tank since over a year now. I started this hobby a year ago. My tank is really established and community fishes are thriving. My tank is 100cm x 40cm x 50cm (180Liters). It is heavily planted and has a really thick layer of various substrates (gravel+crushed lava rock+ aqua soil + white sand). Since i was a beginner, I did a big mistake which was to not put aqua soil in mesh bags and therefore no matter how hard I clean / try the aqua soil comes to the top and makes the tank look really untidy. Also the white sand that I chose turned out to be not fully natural (someone at a fish shop gave me bad advise) and I would like to get rid of it and replace it with natural sand or just gravel.

I would like to rescape the whole tank without killing most of the beneficial bacteria. Ideally I would want to siphon off the sand + aqua soil and replace it with aqua soil in mesh bags covered with natural sand/gravel and then do the hard scaping with plants etc.
I also dont have a secondary tank to house the fishes while I do this.

So my question is, how can I quickly re-scape the tank without killing the bacteria (In filters and hardscape) and keeping the fishes alive?

I do have a big bucket and a big styrofoam container as well which doesn't leak.

Fishes I have are:
  • Pair of diamond gouramis
  • honey gouramis
  • golden blue rams
  • a lot of neon and cardinal tetras
  • guppies
  • zebra danios
  • 2x plecos
  • Some Amano shrimps

My brain is struggling to think on how can I achieve it within a day. All ideas and experience sharing is welcome.


Attaching a picture of 6 months ago for reference. The white is not mostly covered with aqua soil and the plants have taken over the tank in a nice way.

All help is appreciated!
 

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Going off the above, personally I would start again and put into practice what you have learned over the past year, I think that will ultimately leave you happiest.

As for natural sand, I’m not entirely sure such a thing even exists (happy to be corrected) but I think most of of not all are man made for the hobby. Even in reef keeping you will not find naturally collected sand, it’s all crushed shell and coral skeleton.

As for bacteria there are far more qualified people on here to advise but I’d say around 3 hours before it will start dying off pretty quickly.
 
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As for bacteria there are far more qualified people on here to advise but I’d say around 3 hours before it will start dying off pretty quickly
I'd just like to say, do not leave filter media in stagnant water! The best way is to leave it in a bucket with a lid to preserve moisture. In stagnant water the bacteria will use up all the oxygen and die quickly, but I've been able to keep filter media for 12+ hours if I keep it moist.
 
Also the white sand that I chose turned out to be not fully natural (someone at a fish shop gave me bad advise) and I would like to get rid of it and replace it with natural sand or just gravel.
As for natural sand, I’m not entirely such a thing even exists (happy to be corrected) but I think most of not all are man made for the hobby. Even in reed keeping you will not find naturally collected sand, it’s all crushed shell and coral skeleton
Its definitely possible to get "natural" sand, although I think a different word could be used in some cases for clarity.
The word "natural" has different meaning to different people, and most of the meanings of natural are fairly broad.

I can tell from the original posters picture that this is a man made sand, the grains are almost spherical and every grain appears to be more or less exactly the same color. I wont speculate too much on what its made of, its probably perfectly safe for aquarium use, but I do think a sand which has not been man made can look more pleasing to the eye. It will have natural variation in grain size and color.
I see some corydoras in the picture, so I would recommend looking for a sand of mineral/stone origin that has rounded grains. In other words, avoid sand that is made from crushed stone.
The best sand type for bottom dwelling fish will be one that is from naturally occurring deposits.
These grains will have been worn over time by geological processes, and will not have sharp edges that can hurt sifting fish.
Usually sand is not labeled very well, and wont say if was made by crushed grains or not. Some of the crushed sand is even labeled to be good for bottom dwelling fish, but on closer inspection one can see that the grains are very sharp and the sand is even uncomfortable to rub between your fingers. (The JBL Sansibar product line is an example).

As for the rescape, like mentioned you could keep the filter media moist but not in stagnant water, but for a longer period its better to run the filter in a container while the rescape process is ongoing.
The fish would probably also prefer to be housed elsewhere while the upheaval is occurring.

I would basically:
Rinse new sand (some types are very dirty and need extensive rinsing), you dont know how long this is gonna take and you'll want it to be ready once you start.
Drain some aquarium water to fill temporary fish container. This gives it 100% familiar water.
Then fishes can be more easily caught in a partially empty tank.
Once all the fish are transferred, set up the filter to run somewhere so it can provide oxygen for the filter bacteria.
If you think you might need more than a day (two or three days) to do a rescape, the filter should be running on the fish storage so that it can process any ammonia from the fish.
Remove plants and put them submersed in a container or moist in plastic bags. Do not stuff the fish container with too many plants. The plants will also need oxygen if kept in the dark, and under some conditions a container full of fish AND plants using oxygen can lead to oxygen depravation and fish death.. Tragically I lost some fish one time by this mistake..

When the tank is empty you can go to town and rescape and design.
Then its basically a matter of doing the steps in reverse again :thumbup:
 
In my country, most hobbyists purchase silica sand for pool filtration. Rounded grains, uniform size. I'm sure similar products must be available in the UK, too. And they are much cheaper.
(That said - I very much agree with @Hufsa that some sands "stolen" from nature (creeks) with variable size and non-white colour are beautiful!)
 
Apologies in advance to the original poster for this detour ;)

In my country, most hobbyists purchase silica sand for pool filtration. Rounded grains, uniform size.
...that some sands "stolen" from nature (creeks) with variable size and non-white colour are beautiful!)
But Maq, where do you suppose silica sand comes from? It too is taken from nature, but usually from large deposits (made by glaciers or other processes) and not from creeks or rivers.
The damage to the ecosystem from the latter can be significant and the deposits might not be very large. (Im not a geologist though so this is my basic understanding of it)
What makes high silica content sand desirable is the hardness of the silica/quartz material. But to round something that is very hard takes either a lot of effort or a lot of time. Usually the latter.
In Norway much of our rounded grain sand is from deposits left by the glaciers. These deposits are finite and once they run out thats it. Before, this sand was used indiscriminately for everything, including things that did not require sand with rounded grains. But they have become more aware of the value of this kind of sand, and now it is only used where the roundness is needed, and crushed sand (which can be made on demand) is used for anything else.

To cut a long post short, rounded sand (of high silica content (white beige) or mixed with other hard stones (various colors)) is a very finite material and humanity is rapidly facing a global sand shortage because of increasing demand.
If we have sand in our tanks we should definitely treasure it and try not to be wasteful with it 😊
The rounded sand grains were made a long time ago and eventually we will not have any more.
 
Personally I prefer the finer nature of silver sand - I find the silica/pool sand a bit too coarse, and the silver sand looks a bit more natural and similar to the sand typically found in river beds. You can ofcourse accent it with other sands and gravels to give some variety of texture around hardscape and plants etc.
 
humanity is rapidly facing a global sand shortage
I fully admit that Norway is ahead of most of the rest of the world in environmental conscience. (No irony, I appreciate it.)
Still, my simple Czech nature tells me there is a big deposit of silica sand in Bohemia. It developed in geological past at the bottom of the sea. It's huge and enough for filters for all pools in Czechia for decades, if not centuries to come.
Rounded grains can be created as a result of glaciers' move, like you said, but also thanks to water moving and wind blowing.
I daresay that inhabitants of, say, Mauritania, would hardly agree with your assessment that there's a serious scarcity of sand.
Not to mention bottoms of the oceans.
In actuality, I'm seriously considering committing that environmental crime and getting the substrate for my next tank from a small river I know well. I know a place, there's about zillion tons of sand and stone there, and I'm going to take perhaps 50, maybe 100 kilo.
I'm not afraid that aquarium hobby will do much damage of this sort. Hobbyists prefer paying extra prices for substrates, stones and branches from Japan, only very few are adventurous enough to go out and look for something of that kind for themselves. So, it seems that only Japan's nature will be destroyed...
 
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