Anyone ever change scape around after already cycling?

[mrcaleb25]

Was wondering if anyone has ever rescaped after already cycling their tank… My tank is over a year old and have recently been wanting to add a torch garden onto my rocks rather than having on the sandbed. I think it may be best to glue/cement rocks together to make the scape. Can anyone provide some info on the easiest way to do this? How long can cycled rocks stay out of the water for if I were to try to chisel, glue, etc, and put back into tank? TIA

Tank pic for fun: 15g waterbox peninsula

 

[Formulator]

LOL, of course! Many experienced reefers are chronic tinkerers. You can feel free to move things around any time you want. For more extensive work, just keep it out of water as short as possible. You can wrap the parts you aren’t working on in wet newspaper (wet with tank water) and it will be fine for hours if you keep it moist with a spray bottle full of saltwater.

 

[mrcaleb25]

LOL, of course! Many experienced reefers are chronic tinkerers. You can feel free to move things around any time you want. For more extensive work, just keep it out of water as short as possible. You can wrap the parts you aren’t working on in wet newspaper (wet with tank water) and it will be fine for hours if you keep it moist with a spray bottle full of saltwater.

Yes I get the whole moving things around, I’ve done that plenty lol… just think it may be time for an actual change in the scape (via gluing or epoxying rocks together). For as much as I’d like to buy a prebuilt scape to swap out (from ChandlerRocks or some sort) I wasn’t trying to spike the tank with another cycle as I’m sure my coral would not appreciate that! Thanks for the info

 

[Formulator]

When I moved my tank across town, I kept the rock in styrofoam coolers wrapped in newspaper wetted with tank water. It took all of a day to get the tank set back up and filled, so the rocks stayed in the damp newspaper for 8-10 hours and the tank did great after putting rocks back in. I did not have to cycle again and noticed no ammonia spikes.

So I think a few hours of building outside the tank will be fine as long as you keep things damp.

 

[PharmrJohn]

When I moved my tank across town, I kept the rock in styrofoam coolers wrapped in newspaper wetted with tank water. It took all of a day to get the tank set back up and filled, so the rocks stayed in the damp newspaper for 8-10 hours and the tank did great after putting rocks back in. I did not have to cycle again and noticed no ammonia spikes.

So I think a few hours of building outside the tank will be fine as long as you keep things damp.

Yep. I did much the same thing with my rock when I upscaled from a 75g to a 90g. No issues.

 

[deome]

I haven't changed my aquascape *yet*, but that's mainly because rock is expensive and I don't feel like building new rockwork.

Everything else I have changes all the time. New tanks added, new sump, new sump design, new refugium in sump (and now I'm back to bare bottom sump with spinning chaeto), small frag rocks added to main system, etc etc etc.

Nothing wrong with making a change, but if you remove established rock it could affect nutrient cycling (easily fixed with water changes).

 

[exnisstech]

Change yes but not building a new scape with dry rock. Been there done that and it was just like starting over. If you have a way to make the scape live first or at the very least keep some of your live rock in the tank would be my suggestion.

 

[PharmrJohn]

Change yes but not building a new scape with dry rock. Been there done that and it was just like starting over. If you have a way to make the scape live first or at the very least keep some of your live rock in the tank would be my suggestion.

But if you keep the rock consistently wet, will that not prevent the bacteria from exiting stage left?

 

[exnisstech]

But if you keep the rock consistently wet, will that not prevent the bacteria from exiting stage left?

If they use existing live rock yes. Which it sounds like the plan now that I read the post again oh well my post can be a precaution lol

 

[mrcaleb25]

If they use existing live rock yes. Which it sounds like the plan now that I read the post again oh well my post can be a precaution lol

yes the plan was to use all the existing live rock that is cycled, and has been for over a year, to create a new aquascape… just didn’t want to bring rocks out of the water to be glued and while waiting have “the live rock dying”… the last thing i wanted to do was to start a new cycle or end up throwing parameters off