Changing plants

[feelmyseams]

Hi Guys,

I will like to ask if it is alright to uproot and change some plants, if I have some live stocks inside the tank. Will it affect the live stocks in any harmful way?

Some live stocks in my tanks are:

Endler Guppies
Panda Guppies
Tetras
Blue Lantern
Otto
Sakura Shrimps

I am also using base fertilisers under the soil. Any advice will be greatly appreciated!

[cephelix]

sudden major uprooting would cause ammonia spikes.

the safest bet is to try and net out whatever livestocks you have before slowly and carefully uprooting the plants you want to change.
Try to cause as little disturbance as possible. If the plant roots are too long just snip them off.
After that do a large water change.

Other forumers might be able to give better tips.

[josephogk]

theoretically any major uprooting of plant will cause ammonia spike, which I totally agree with it.

However there is once I did a major rescape of a 3feet tank, uprooted all the plants, added new driftwood and replanted. Everything was done with the fuana (tetras, RCS, yamato etc) in the tank, matured eheim 2217 canister filter running, no water change was done. It was a big mess and water is basically brown after the rescape.

Surprisingly next morning the water cleared up with zero casualties. All fauna are still active and feeding as per normal routine. My guess is that the matured canister filter has enough beneficial bacteria which is strong enough to remove any ammonia cause by the rescape.

Attached is the photo of the degree of change during the rescape.
Before: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-uwkZCws-6N...9+08.37.10.png
After: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O0CUdMdfDY...9+22.03.41.png
note: I'm not saying you should do what I did as I personally won't recommended it, just sharing my personal experience. The ideal method should be separating your livestock while you perform the rescape as per cephelix's suggestion.

[cheetf]

I had an experience that was on the other end of the spectrum though. After I pulled out my plants, my yamatos curled up. Some died but some recovered after a major water change.

[sqwerc]

I think if your filtration is very solid andyoi slowly uproot say 1/3 per day should be fine. It can be difficult to net out all those tiny shrimp when rescaping so I can relate.

Maybe you can consider dosing seachem prime that claims to bind ammonia. Not sure if it will work just a suggestion. If I were you I'd just run an extra filter for 2 weeks prior and dose some prime.

[feelmyseams]

Thanks Everyone for sharing! I managed to uproot the plants without any casualties!