How to ensure all the fauna survive rescapping of tank?

[Ingen]

Itchy finger again, thinking to rescape my 1ft low tech tank that's full of snails and worms.

I'm planning to replace all the soils with bright sands. Some pieces of rocks, woods and just ferns and moss. The main concerns I have are the cherry, mixed sakura, mix fire shrimps that I have in it. Everything seem to be in good conditions and they breed like rabbits, not forgetting those ponds snails too.

What can I do to minimize casualties on the shrimps?

It's a 1ft cube with overflow filter system, should I keep the tank running to preserve the bacteria in the media while I scoop out the soil? Any better way to do it?

[Urban Aquaria]

Just get a large bucket or plastic container, take out most of the tank water and put into it, then shift the shrimps over. Take out the bio-media and sponges from the IOS compartment and put into the temporary container with the shrimps, so that most of the beneficial bacteria can still stay alive for a while. If possible get an air pump or a small hang on filter to keep the temporary container water circulated (a compact hang-on filter like the Dophin H-80 will do, cost only a few dollars at most LFS).

Clean your tank, along with the rocks, wood and plants. Add sand, re-decorate it, add back the bio-media and sponges, then run it for a few hours to make sure everything is stable. Once everything looks okay, drip acclimate the shrimps with the new tank water for a while, before adding them back into the rescaped tank.

[Ingen]

Should I add back the old water or just pump new and run with the old media and sponge? Would it go through another cycling process?

[thebaldingaquarist]

Can confirm that the reason that you want to rescape is due to worms and snails?

If so, i would recommend against using existing media as is.

I would recomend
1. take a large bucket..
2. extract water from existing tank. Clear water only. run it through a fine sock or fine foam.
3. remove all or large amount of the media from existing filter.
4. boil the media from step 3. this will kill everything from eggs to worm and unfortunately BB.
5. run a new filter or temp filter with boiled media and on the bucket with the extracted water.
6. after 1 or 2 weeks. extract fauna. be careful not to get any worms in the process and place them in the bucket.
7. remove remaining media and boil.. add boiled media into the filter in step 5.
7. remove, clean the flora... remove soil..
8. let the tank dry... wipe clean... or nuke with anti worm and anti snail medication.. nuking is faster.
9. rescape with your flora and do your hanky panky..
10. drip acclimatize live stock and put fauna back...also put back the filter..

my family is hysterical about planaria and worms.. so this is similar to what i did to guarantee that i don't get them. the difference is i did not reuse any flora or soil..

[Ingen]

Would it simplify the steps if I just throw everything away and get some media from the canister that I'm running for my two feet and use it after I'm done with whatever I need to do?
But that would also send the tank to go through the whole cycling process again?

[thebaldingaquarist]

Yes. That's the most costly method.. Hahaha

But you still need to treat the tank with anti snail and worm medication. Snail eggs might still be in tank.

[Urban Aquaria]

I guess if its just a rescape then the simplest method is just to clean and reuse everything, but high chance the snail and worms will resurface again (if you don't mind them)... though those critters are relatively common in shrimp tanks anyways.

If you want to get rid of the snails and worms, then have to do the process that Erctheandra listed out, it'll be almost like restarting the tank again from scratch.

[Ingen]

Yah... I'm not really incline to start over, I have a feeling will lose a big portion of the shrimps in the tank now.

Those worms in my tank are living in the soils and probably 2-3" long each. I can see some of them by the side when they venture to the glass panel and almost impossible to catch.

Got to really think through

[Urban Aquaria]

2-3" length worms?

Those sound like the "earthworms" that i encountered during my HC DSM project too, and they still thrived in the soil after i flooded the tank, so i guess they can live underwater.

Do the worms in your soil substrate look like this?



From what i experienced, they are harmless, seems they help aerate the soil by burrowing around and eating up organic debris under the substrate.

I guess if you switch to sand substrate, these type of worms will probably naturally disappear too.

[Ingen]

Yes, it's the same type haha