# Do you remove your fish....



## Sophie and Mom (Feb 28, 2012)

....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?


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## The Trigger (Apr 23, 2012)

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


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## Sophie and Mom (Feb 28, 2012)

The Trigger said:


> 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


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


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## The Trigger (Apr 23, 2012)

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


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## corsair75 (Dec 21, 2011)

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.


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## Tex Gal (Nov 1, 2007)

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.


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## The Trigger (Apr 23, 2012)

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.


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## Sophie and Mom (Feb 28, 2012)

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.


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## Sophie and Mom (Feb 28, 2012)

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?


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## totziens (Jun 28, 2008)

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.


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## Sophie and Mom (Feb 28, 2012)

I never intended to rescape. The Amazon swords got totally out of cotrol--much bigger than I expected, and are blocking out the view of the fish. Maybe I'll just snip out the ones near the front...


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## tantaMD (Dec 23, 2011)

i agree with totziens, i have rescaped mine too. i think it will be a lot easier to rescape if u dominate ur tank with stem plants next time, u can just cut them in the bottom and replant it somewhere without destroying ur substrate, of course some rosette plants needed for variations, but u should be considerate in their positions base on thefact of how big they can grow. so they dont blocked other plants view


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## Skizhx (Oct 12, 2010)

Personally if it was me I'd just start the tank from scratch again and scape a little more carefully.

With NPT I feel it's almost always easier to do things properly from the start than it is to correct something later, and while the amount of work and trouble seems daunting, IMO it's easier than having a disaster of a tank and tearing your hair out trying to restore stability to a system that's been thrown off.

Btw if the sword dies those large roots are going to start decomposing, which could lead to a whole other set of problems down the road.


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## totziens (Jun 28, 2008)

If you have ever torn down the tank, in my opinion choosing the right plants for el natural tank is very important. I faced similar problem as yourself when I had a jungle of Sagittaria subulata covering up my semi-el natural (I thought Sagittaria subulata was a foreground plants that would grow short but I was wrong). Their roots were very deep as well except for juvenile ones. I tried to remove the front ones but ended up dragging the big ones from the back messing up the whole tank.

I believe it's best to avoid plants with such *COMBINATION* traits in el natural such as:
too big, Rosette, grow too fast & deep roots

It's ok to have small stem plants that grow fast as you can trim them from the top. It's ok to have deep roots cryptocoryne which are not fast growing as they will take ages before they could occupy your whole tank (sometimes never even I wish they could). Even though Corkscrew vallisneria's roots are not so deep but they grow too fast and pulling them out will normally have a "chain reaction" effect by pulling up multiple plants at the same time..this may mess up the tank too. There are some plants I personally avoid in el natural but it's hard to list them down. I avoid them not because they cannot survive but they grow too well..haha


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## Michael (Jul 20, 2010)

It would be great if we could always choose all the right plants for a tank the first time. But I am not that good, and sometimes I have to take things out or move them around.

So if you need to move plants in a Walstad tank, there are a couple of tricks. First, go slow! Don't try to do everything at once, move one plant every other day if they are really big. This doesn't overwelm the filter with sediment and suddenly release a lot of nutrients into the water.

Second, if you are trying to remove a plant with a very large root system, pull it gently from the substrate until an inch or two of roots are showing above the cap. Then just cut the roots right above the surface of the cap. Yes, leave the rest of the root system in the substrate. You don't need the entire root system for the plant to survive. Most roots die after being transplanted anyway, you just need enough to hold the plant in place until it starts to grow new ones.

If you go slowly and don't cut the root systems of all of the plants in the tank at once, the decay of the cut roots is not going to cause problems. The whole point of a Walstad tank is that the substrate constantly accepts organic debris from various sources. The organics decay; harmful waste products are absorbed by the plants and beneficial bacteria, or can be removed with water changes. Cut plant roots are no different.

It is not nearly as messy to move plants and hardscape in a mature Walstad tank as it is in a new one. The biofilm tends to bind the soil particles together so that they settle out of the water quickly.

And if you do make a mess, so what? You can siphon excess sediment from the top of the substrate. You can put an extra powerhead in the tank to blow the dirt off the plants. You can change some of the media in your filter from biomedia to floss or sponges for a few days until the particles are out of the water.

Totziens, if your _Sagittaria subulata _gets too tall, just trim it. You can cut it back just above the base of the plant near the substrate. It will grow back, and stay short for many months before you need to trim again. I've maintained this species this way for years.


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## totziens (Jun 28, 2008)

Thanks, Michael. I no longer keep Sagittaria subulata in my el natural tank. I only keep some stem plants, cryptocoryne wendtii and tenellus ....actually there is riccia too that I left it floating (it's not my intention to keep it. It just happened to come together with the fish I adopted). 

I have Sagittaria subulata in a high tech tank but I have helpers to keep them trimmed. They're the nasty Kribensis that eat/destroy them if the plants grow too tall....hahaha. Don't try to use these helpers though...you will regret....hahaha


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## Diana K (Dec 20, 2007)

I do not like releasing a cloud of particles that get into the fishes' gills. Much better to do small amounts of rescaping if that is possible, but when you are moving such a large plant as the big swords it is safer to get the fish out, and redo the whole tank. 
Careful refill will minimize clouding and the fish can go right back in, but definitely monitor the tank for several days to a week.


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## Skizhx (Oct 12, 2010)

I knew I should have taken video removing dwarf sag from my 10gal after ~8 weeks of total neglect...

It's not impossible. Just takes a lot of patience and a bit of luck to do without pulling any of the soil to the surface.

Large echinodorus on the other hand, yeah, you'd have a better chance of pulling up a burried casserole dish...


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