Breaking down tank

[u/GarbageCanCrisis]

My tank is... hideous. There's no other word for it. It's got a ton of hygrophilia triflora and it's just butt-ugly (sorry if you like this particular plant).

Id like to rescape it and add some prettier plants and a few more nanos (shrimp, rasboras, tetras) but I've never broken down a tank before.

Whats the easiest way to go about this? If I keep the water I take out will the cycle still crash because I'm removing/adding plants? How long does everyone wait after a heavy rescape before adding new critters?

Thanks!

[u/EG_UnderTheSea]

I recently moved everything from a 14 gallon to a 22 gallon!

I took all the water out, put it in 5 gallon buckets. Put the fish in the 1 gallon bucket with an air pump and a air stone - and water from the old tank. I gave them enough to swim around without causing them to panic, and had some plans floating in there with them. I had the HOB filter hanging in an old water bucket from a string I tied across so the media stayed wet(not the one fish were in). Any rocks or drift wood I was reusing also sat in the buckets to keep the bacteria on them alive.

I rescaped the new tank, and added plants that I had purchased ahead of time immediately while the fish were chilling in their bubbler bucket. I used a lot of new substrate, with some of the old substrate going at the very base of the new scape. (Fluval aqua soil).

Gently refill the new tank with old water, and topped off the difference with new water, put the old filter back on, and ran it for an hour to clear the water back up and put the fish right in the tank. Having the fish in a small amount of water made it easy too just put a pump in the full buckets to refill new tank without sucking up a fish.

New active substrate releases nutrients and ammonia, so I just monitored it heavily and did water changes as needed.

[u/EG_UnderTheSea → u/EG_UnderTheSea]

Adding that because I went from a smaller tank to a bigger tank, I was under stocked fish-wise. I waited about a month before purchasing more fish!

[u/GarbageCanCrisis → u/EG_UnderTheSea]

Thank you for this, this is very helpful! I spent so long setting it up the first time (I let it cycle for 6 months before critters!) That I'm terrified I'll destroy everything, which is why I've let it be so ugly haha

I think I take your approach and add new plants, top off with some extra soil, and wait a few weeks before adding more friends.

[u/EG_UnderTheSea → u/GarbageCanCrisis]

It is always scary moving things around! My new tank sat empty for weeks because I was afraid of crashing everything!

I also wanted to add that I had floating plants (salvina minima) and I feel like they are always a good backup plan as far as quickly sucking extra nutrients out of the tank! I a ton of them on any new tank just in case. I eventually got rid of them, but I feel like they are a seatbelt of sorts when first starting out or when dosing a tank with extra nutrients for the first time!

[u/twibbletrouble]

Most of your cycling bacteria is in your filter and your substrate. They are also on plants. It's not really in the water. (I would still keep the old water and only change what you normally would during a water change, this is mostly so you don't accidentally change the water chemistry too much ph etc. Especially with tap water because tap water isn't always exactly the same everytime)

Exactly how broken down do you want to do? Like do you want to change the substrate? Or you just wanna take out the plants and replace them?

If its just removing the plant you don't like and moving things around you should be fine.