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Re: do fish stay in or out during rescape?
Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2022 1:46 am
by slyzen
remove the old rocks, then siphon out about half of the remaining water.
leave the fish where they are, then add your new rocks.
refill the tank with cold tap water and add conditioner to it.
don't go crazy cleaning the sand, since the old rocks held a lot of good bacteria.
removing them will already reduce the bacteria, so try not to mess up the sand substrate too much.
i've remodeled all my tanks like this and never had any issues, even my six footer.
Re: do fish stay in or out during rescape?
Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2022 5:28 am
by kalevi
dougmac wrote: ↑Fri Jun 24, 2022 2:23 pm
hey everyone, bit of an issue last night - one of my malaunas spotted some food in a gap in the rock work and decided to investigate. my 4" firtideflow have no problem swimming in and out of this area, but the malauna's a bit bigger, about 5", and he got stuck. had to pull the rocks apart to rescue him, and now they look a mess - just can't seem to get them looking right again. thinking of just taking them all out and replacing them with some river boulders, nice and low to the ground so they can't be knocked over. got a 120l tank that i could move some of the bigger fish to if i do decide to rescape.
anyway, my question is - when you're adding or removing rocks, or rescaping your tank, do you leave the fish in or take them out?
Malawi's seem to thrive in slightly cooler temps, I've found it triggers breeding every time. Honestly, I wouldn't stress about the temperature difference. When rescaping, I usually remove most of my fish, malawis are quite agile and know how to avoid obstacles.
Re: do fish stay in or out during rescape?
Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2022 6:31 am
by hutmog
I've had a run-in with my Johanni today - it nipped me while I was shifting some coflake. Ouch, it actually stung. Turns out, they've got some decent chompers.
I usually do my rescaping with the fish still in the tank, especially the cichlids. They're pretty quick to get out of the way, like kalevi said - my Malawis are always on the move, but they know how to avoid getting in the way when I'm messing with the decor.
Re: do fish stay in or out during rescape?
Posted: Sun Jun 26, 2022 6:54 am
by floriana
I had a similar incident, couldn't help but chuckle about you getting nipped by your Johanni. I once had a pretty feisty red zebra that bit me when I was trying to catch it, left a scar too. I can attest to cichlids being quick to move out of the way, especially during rescaping.