20% Aquascape change

[AlexVic]

I made a post about this yesterday but i want to go a little more in depth about it. I have a 40 gallon tank with 7 fish at the moment. Will this affect my cycle or my fish to a significant degree?
Should I change the rock work before a water change? I was think about taking 10 gallons of water out the tank and then changing the rock work with the new one. After that I would add 10 new gallons of water. Do you guys think it’s a good idea?

 

[Fish Fan]

Looking at the post you made yesterday, I think you got sound advice; go slowly and precycle the rocks (assuming you are using dry rock).

Was there a specific question that's concerning you here?

 

[AlexVic]

Looking at the post you made yesterday, I think you got sound advice; go slowly and precycle the rocks (assuming you are using dry rock).

Was there a specific question that's concerning you here?

The question was whether to do it before I do a water change cause I heard its bad to disrupt the sand bed. Also I was watching videos and reading forums that said changing less than a 1/3 of your aquascape won’t won’t effect your cycle or fish to much. It just might create a “mini cycle”.

 

[Fish Fan]

In my opinion, it would not be wrong to do a water change here.

Yes, disturbing the sandbed can be problematic, but it's worse on older thanks than younger tanks.

Just make sure that you're monitoring the tank for any ammonia spikes, and if you see ammonia getting up over 0.50 ppm, you can bring that down with water changes. I think likely you'll just see a small "mini-cycle".

One of those SeaChem Ammonia Alert badges may help give you some peace of mind during this process:

https://www.petco.com/shop/en/petcostore/product/seachem-ammonia-alert-accessory-242047?store_code=282&mr:device=c&mr:adType=pla_with_promotionlocal&cm_mmc=PSH%7CGGL%7CCCY%7CCCO%7CPM%7C0%7CaxsvnXfjRWFFwpetHmZu75%7C%7C%7C0%7C0%7C%7C%7C21467366052&gad_source=1&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIt9DzmoLYiwMVvHJHAR3WhxWPEAQYASABEgKMm_D_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds