Tank Tear Down

[Ralph]

How often does everyone tear down their show tanks and redo them? And why?
It's been about five months for my 50 gal and it is looking bare in some spots and overgrown in others. That's probably reason enough, I guess I just need some encouragement to start such a big job. Anyone know any shortcuts?

[tjudy]

:)
I only tear them down if there is a problem or I am changing the entire system. I do not have any super heavy planted tanks, but when I did I found that they were best managed like a garden. Some plants will come and go. Replace the poor performers. I used to grow aponogetons in a separate tank just to place in a 135 show when the ones in there began to fade a bit.

5 months seems a bit short to be doing a change over due to shabbiness IMO. I have had tanks going for well over a year before the need for a major overhaul.

[Wahter]

The only times I've torn down a tank was when I replaced some of the gravel with Flourite and when I moved a tank. Sometimes when I'm pruning some stem plants, I'll remove all of them, gravel vacuum, trim and then replant, but I do not usually remove a big sword plant (unless I am selling it).

What plants aren't doing so well for you - maybe there's a substitute plant that you can use to fill in the bare spots?


Walter

[ChloroPhil]

Ralph,

I just took up 90% of my plants last night and re-arranged them. I guess you could call that a tear down. Depending on how fast my plants grow and what types I need to trim I may take up a significan portion of my plants for trimming/thinning every month to six weeks. My tanks usually get a new design at that time as well as I try new things.

Some shortcuts are:

1. Uprooting portions of our tank an a rotating cycle. Every time you do a water change redo a given portion.

2. Using lots of stem plants that you can just cut the top of (Topping) and leave the rest planted. This saves a bunch of time and can result in very lush growth. Amano does this a lot with his tanks.

3. Using only plants that you can tie to things. That way you can take them out of the tank when you want to clean up. You can create a new arrangement each time too for the interest of your fish.