How to Re-Aquascape and not Hurt Inhabitants

[jonboyb]

I need to change up my rockwork, but I have several inverts and lots of good hitchhikers in my rockwork (see sig, damsels out now....in mantis tank). While the snails and hermits are easily collected, the shrimp and emerald crabs are escape artist and possibly the best hide-and-seek players of all time. My tank is small and I have alot of LR, so I can't leave the LR in the tank to re-scape. I don't want to hurt, shock, or kill anything. How should I go about this? My LFS said just yank it and let the critters fend for themselves for the short time they would be out of water, but shrimp just seem too fragile to survive something like that.

Any advice?

 

[HoCkEyGmC]

what i did was i put everything i had in a spare 16 gal i had laying around. moved the rocks, waited for the water to clear up most of the way then put evrything back in. but a warning: mkake sure u got EVERYTHING out of the tank. i ended up missing a peppermint shrimp and a fighting conch, but i ended up finding the conch and i think the peppermint was crushed or traped or something =[

EDIT: i see what you said about them hiding, i'd just pull all the rock out first and make sure theyre not on it then put net everything out and you can rearrange the rock.

 

[jonboyb]

Thanks. I think I have a workable plan now. I'm coming up on a PWC so I'll make it a big one and siphon the wastewater into a tub. Then place the bigger pieces of LR in there and not worry if they have a crab hidden in them. I can deal with moving the smaller LR in-tank then place my "show" pieces out of the tub. Should be able to scape it in under an hour (only 28 gallons....actually, just noticed we have the same tank Hockeygmc) and the only time anything is out of water will be the transistion from tub to tank.

While the bigger pieces are in the tub, it'll give me a great opportunity to suck out any LR die off and other waste from the sand too while the big rock is removed

 

[HoCkEyGmC]

yup, same tank! so what are you doin about the shrimps? now that i think about it, i think i left my emerald crab hide in the rock while i was moving it around everywhere. it got to the point where i was sweating and my arms hurt cuz i coldnt get the rock to look rite at all.

 

[jonboyb]

Once things start moving around in the tank, my peppermint shrimp usually hide in crevices between the rock and substrate. I won't be moving any of the bottom stones much as they are a good base, just the pieces above them that don't "fit" quite right yet.

Hockey: Any pics of your Nano-Cube? I bought the Nanotuners Actinic add-on and it really makes the colors pop in the tank.