Changing rock/sand to fake/bare bottom help

[DracoKat]

OK so I have a dwarf seahorse tank, and I decided the rock is too big and I want to remove it to put artificial decor/plants in. I also want to take the sand out to go bare bottom for easier cleaning.

But I am concerned this would recycle the tank. I have no place to put the seahorses, so they have to stay in the tank. I have a sponge filter that I am not going to clean much in the process and hoping that's enough to keep the ponies safe?

Any ideas how I can go about reworking this tank (Take out sand and rock, replace with artificial plants) without going into recycle?

 

[blaxsun]

Take the rock, water and seahorses and place in a smaller rubbermaid container with a heater and filtration/flow. Add some smaller dry rock that would work in the seahorse tank. Clean seahorse tank and remove substrate. Wait a few weeks. Fill seahorse tank with saltwater, add some Bio-Spira and the new (smaller) rocks. Should be good-to-go.

 

[ylreefer]

I have never kept seahorses so I have no idea how much wast they produce.

But assuming your rock is acting as a bio filter, if you remove that and don't add any new source of ammonia then they shouldn't be a "cycle".

If the sponge filter is large enough to maintain the number of seahorses and the volume of water you have with the current maintenance plan you use removing sand and rock shouldnt be a problem.

Now I know fish are not seahorses but I recently did just that with my 180g reef.
Removed all sand and 75kg of live rock in a day and repacked with dead dry new rock the same day.

No issues whatsoever. Of course this is 180g and I do have bio bricks in the sump. The point is can the sponge sustain the wast. Which will depend on how old the system is, how long the spine had been running etc,