to rescape or not to rescape

KLittle20 · Sep 22, 2023

So lately I've been contemplating redoing my aquascape. When I first set up the tank I was in the middle of a move so I kinda just threw the rock in there and tried my best to make it look good, but also have places for the fish to swim through and good ledges to put corals on. I was never really a fan of how it looked because it turned out looking like a flat wall and a lot of wasted space. I really didn't want to try to redo it at the time because I didn't want to stress out the fish anymore after the move, but lately I have not been happy with the way it looks. What is making me seriously debate redoing the aquascape is that my fish have been showing a lot of aggression lately, something they never use to do before I added a foxface. I'm thinking maybe there is not enough hiding places for the fish and they don't really feel safe or maybe since the fish have gotten bigger hiding spots may not be big enough anymore.

If I do go through with it I think I would put all the fish and corals in a big tub with a powerhead and heater so I could take my time. I would want to use epoxy and try to make some interesting arches and what not. Something easier to clean and more places for the fish to hide around. I would reuse all the rock in the tank currently and maybe go bare bottom? I mostly have acropora so I like to keep my flow very intense and the sand has just gone everywhere except where its suppose to be. I would like to know peoples thoughts on this and any warnings, or negative side effects to basically restarting the tank.

Should I do it? or just leave it be.

Tank is 75 gallons, petco special! with 20 gallon sump
Fish stocking:
2x clown fish
2x lyretail anthias
1x tomini tang
1x one spot foxface

vlangel · Sep 22, 2023

I would hate to move the acropora and risk a bleaching or die off event. But then I have never had success with them. The fish will be fine either way.

Maybe you could just rescape a part of the tank? Then a month or so later you could rescape the other part.

EricR · Sep 22, 2023

If it's bothering you, you probably have to do something.
Fish in bin sounds fine as many have done similar (me included) for tank transfers and such.

Personally, I had an arch in half my tank (that I was OK with) and the other half was a ridiculous pile of large rocks that bugged me enough so I rescaped that half.
I went with moving all of that rock into bin of saltwater in the garage and just pulling out rocks and breaking them up on the garage floor,,, then just reassembled into something I like a lot better in that half of the tank.
*I didn't use any epoxy though because I like the ability to pull out rocks if necessary for cleaning and such

...so, that was kind of on the lines of what the last post suggested; rescape a portion at a time, if possible, without removing livestock

KLittle20 · Sep 22, 2023

EricR said:
If it's bothering you, you probably have to do something.
Fish in bin sounds fine as many have done similar (me included) for tank transfers and such.

Personally, I had an arch in half my tank (that I was OK with) and the other half was a ridiculous pile of large rocks that bugged me enough so I rescaped that half.
I went with moving all of that rock into bin of saltwater in the garage and just pulling out rocks and breaking them up on the garage floor,,, then just reassembled into something I like a lot better in that half of the tank.
*I didn't use any epoxy though because I like the ability to pull out rocks if necessary for cleaning and such

...so, that was kind of on the lines of what the last post suggested; rescape a portion at a time, if possible, without removing livestock

The initial idea when I was putting the rock in was to have two islands with a nice arch connecting them and they're all put together Jenga style, but what ended up happening was two large piles of rocks on each side and then a flat rock connecting the two haha.

I don't want to remove the fish and coral but I feel like it might make things easier if i was able to start with a clean slate.

KLittle20 · Sep 22, 2023

vlangel said:
I would hate to move the acropora and risk a bleaching or die off event. But then I have never had success with them. The fish will be fine either way.

Maybe you could just rescape a part of the tank? Then a month or so later you could rescape the other part.

I would hate to lose any of the acros, but I haven't been very impressed with the growth over the past year and a half. Maybe a rescape will put them in a better spot and improve growth? I'm still trying to figure acropra out myself.

Propane · Sep 22, 2023

You got a pic?

cilyjr · Sep 22, 2023

I've been doing this since 1998. I can't even count the times I've redone a tank.

There's always a possibility of losing something but more often than not it goes well.

Just epoxy won't cut it if I'm envisioning what you want to do.

To get the crazy overhangs you see people doing these days you'll need a big bottle of super glue gel some accelerator and some hydraulic cement. The cement that they will tell you is "reef safe" is either the Marco rocks stuff or the aquaforest stone fix.

Personally I just use hydraulic cement bought at the hardware store. If you do that you got to soak it for some time in fresh water.

KLittle20 · Sep 22, 2023

Propane said:
You got a pic?

You'll have to excuse the nasty glass. I'm waiting on a new glass cleaner to arrive.

KLittle20 · Sep 22, 2023

cilyjr said:
I've been doing this since 1998. I can't even count the times I've redone a tank.

There's always a possibility of losing something but more often than not it goes well.

Just epoxy won't cut it if I'm envisioning what you want to do.

To get the crazy overhangs you see people doing these days you'll need a big bottle of super glue gel some accelerator and some hydraulic cement. The cement that they will tell you is "reef safe" is either the Marco rocks stuff or the aquaforest stone fix.

Personally I just use hydraulic cement bought at the hardware store. If you do that you got to soak it for some time in fresh water.

I did rescape my old 40 gallon tank like 4 years ago, but that tank only had the clowns in it so I wasn't as worried about anything happening to the tank too much.

After doing some more thinking and google searching I don't think I want to go with crazy over hangs and arches. I want to be able to use mostly epoxy and glue to hold everything together. I just want a scape that has more swim throughs and something that doesn't look like a solid wall.