Sophie and Mom

....to rescape?

Do you even rescape with an el natural, or just let it do its thing?

I'm bored with the way mine looks, I have pretty little plants getting hidden by bigger more aggressive ones, I'm just not enthused about the appearance.

So if you are one of those who does remodeling, do you take the fish out to do so, or do you just work around them?

The Trigger

I would take them out for a few days. I recently rescaped my tank and consequently did too much at once. This forced the tank to recycle and killed three of my fish. I stirred up too much crap in the water. If taking them out isn't an option than you could just do little by little every day or every other day. This could potentially help you avoid an ammonia spike or mini cycle as they call it. Don't make the same mistake i did and move everything in one day. I shocked the system

Sophie and Mom

I'm sorry about your fish, but thank you for the warning. I'll just do a bit at the time, then.

The Trigger

Thank you and no problem. As long as you have a strong biological filter and plenty of fast growing stems, you don't have to worry

corsair75

I don't usually pull fish when rescaping. Even if you're careful, it's difficult to get them all without damaging the plants swinging the net around. If your tanks look like mine often do, they're so dense you wouldn't have a prayer of catching the fish even if you wanted to.

What you can do is drain most of the water beforehand, just giving the fish an inch or two over the substrate to keep wet. That minimizes the amount of nasty water when you refill. Work quickly and efficiently, and the process will be pretty fast when the tank is semi-dry like that. When you fill it back up, use an ammonia buffer of some sort. If you have a filter, zeolite (white carbon) is very effective. Liquid NH3 removers work if you're filterless, but they're by far my second choice. Hooking up an air pump for a couple of days is a nice touch too. Do a 50% water change the next day if it looks cloudy, repeat as needed. Should settle down in a few days if your plants are healthy and numerous. That regimen covers pretty much any dramatic situation.

Obviously it's stressful to everyone no matter what when you change the world overnight. I've only needed to use that method a couple of times. Usually I just work a little at a time and keep an eye on my nutrient levels.

Tex Gal

I agree, just do water changes. You can keep doing them daily and add floating plants or fast growers to eat up released ammonia. You can also use extra prime.

The Trigger

They're right. Water changes can be your best friend. And pound the water with prime to be sure. Many of my fish owe their lives to Prime.

Sophie and Mom

Floaters are no problem. I have hornwort and water lettuce that I just. can't. get. rid. of. anyway. So maybe I'll stop trying to get rid of the lettuce and let that grow for awhile before I try anything.

I still plan on just doing a little at the time, but I'll wait until the water lettuce grows in a little more.

Sophie and Mom

Oh my gods, I just made the worst mess....

I started rearranging things today by removing the cabamba (sp?), which went well. I just found out that Amazon Swords have the hugest root systems ever, and no matter how slowly and carefully you pull it up, it brings a ton of dirt with it, and no matter how carefully you move it, the dirt goes everythwhere.

Right now my tank is a disaster. There is dirt in the water column, there is dirt settling all over the other plants, and it is just horrible.

Since Amazon Swords are so easy to come by, should I just cut them off below the dirt and toss them? I hate to do that, because they are beautiful, mature plants, but I don't want to make a huge mess like this every time I pull one up.

Advice please?

totziens

If I were you, I would tear down the whole tank. I don't have the patience to deal with any plants with long roots. I will surely mess up the whole tank anyway especially in el natural tank.

I usually don't rescape any el natural tank after the initial setup, knowing that things could be messed up very easily. The soil escaping to the water will eventually lead to algae issue. I strongly believe el natural is not meant for re-planting over & over and rescaping multiple times. You'll be looking for trouble by doing so unless you don't mind a messed up tank.