Rescaping questions

[DUHK]

Hey guys,

I currently am running a 10 gallon planted tank. I've been going for the iwagumi look. I guess you could say I roughly achieved it. This is how it looks as of right now:

tank.jpg

The question I have is that if I were to try to take everything out and rescape from scratch. Would that mess up the bacteria culture I have in my tank and damage it to where I would have to start to cycle it over? How would I go about trying to rescape it? I want to do something with sand substrate and driftwood. Do you think that's too drastic? How would you be able to plant plants if it's sand substrate? Is that possible? O_o Any nutrients from sand? Or would I have to do something to incorporate my eco-complete in it?

Also, would anyone be interested in buying my HC? My rescaping goal won't be possible if I don't get rid of the HC.

[cameracorpus]

I'm interested in the HC, but I live in Corpus.

[DUHK]

that's a bit far for me :\

[TheOldMan]

Sand has no nutriants to speak of. What is your substate now?

[DUHK]

Right now I have Eco-Complete but I want to move to Crystal River. It's by the same company. Have you had any experience with it?

[TheOldMan]

I have eco complete in one tank, but not familiar with Crystal River. If you remove the eco complete I'd suggest saving your media in all filters in tank water. Add your plants back to the new substrate and add some Seachem Stability or something similar. Put your filter media back in the filters and if you have it well planted it may not need to be recycled. Watch your ammonia levels for a month. Also you should save your eco complete as you may want to use it later.

[kwc1974]

shipping for the HC should be cheap. A small USPS priority box should be only $4.80

As for the re-scape. If you are going that drastic, I would do a complete take down and start from new.

The nutrenats in the substare will release into the water column when you try to remove the substrate. The sand is barren and could be augmented with your existing substrate or root tabs. It really depends on what you are trying to acheive in this new layout.

[DUHK]

Yeah, thanks for the help! I looked into doing root tabs. I know it says put one tab for every 5 gallons or so. But is it really possible for one of those things to provide enough nutrients to the many plants? How will the roots that are too far away from the tab be able to get nutrients?

[kwc1974]

Break or cut the root tab up. That way you are not "overdosing" and you can still spread the tab up more evenly.

[Roujin]

If you plan to use crystal river then it would be a moot point to densely plant it. Are you planning to do a heavily planted island as part of your scape and having the crystal river as a sparse highlight?

If so you can still use your old substrate and just separate it with a divider during the dry phase to prevent them from mixing. Keep in mind you will not be able to rescape.

[DUHK]

After switching to crystal river, I don't plan on densely planting the tank. I just want to put some driftwood and have some nice stem plants in the background. Have you had any experience with that?

[kwc1974]

What I have done in the past is, in a clean tank, place my nutriant rich substrate in what location I want dense planting. Then place the sand around it. after my main planting I will border these two differnat substrates with bare or moss covered rocks. This is a common practice in planted tanks. The rock border is not necissary, but it helps to keep from too much mixing of the two.

If the plant selection will allow you can skip the nutriant rich substrate altogeather. This is assuming that you are using anubias, ferns, mosses and other such plants with a small amount of stems if any.

[DUHK]

Have you ever had any trouble with the rooted plants floating up in the sand substrate?

My goal is to have sand as the main substrate and have driftwood and a bunch of rooted long stem plants to compliment it.

[OrandaMan]

I have a sand substrate in one of my tanks and the plants in it are growing like crazy.

I've heard, however, that rooted plants prefer if you put perhaps a three quarter inch layer of gravel at the bottom underneath the sand to give the roots something to anchor to.

But again, the plants in my tank with the sand substrate are doing really well.

*edit: I have a video of it on Facebook if you'd like for me to post the link.

[DUHK]

I'd love for you to post the link Thanks!