Should I take my fish out if I'm doing heavy maintenence/remodeling in my tank?

[Inferno2080]

I was wondering if I should take my 5 fish out of the tank and put them in a bowl or something (with water from their tank) while I do maintenence on the bottom. I'm replacing the tubing for the air pump because the tubing I have now isn't long enough and stretches across the tank. But to take out the old tubing and put in the longer one I'll have to dig into the gravel, move some plants, and move a large rock. Although I'll be replacing all those things to the way they are now, I was thinking it might really stress my fish out if I leave them in the tank. Plus there will be a lot of under-gravel debris that would unsettle and float around for a while. And it's a 20 gallon hexagonal tank, so it's taller than it is wide, so I'll have to really put my arm far i there- past my elbow. This makes it a very difficult task, so I'll be in there for over 5 minutes probably. So would my fish be OK with that? Or should I net em and put em in a (clean) bucket or something?

 

[mfdrookie516]

Welcome to AA

IMO, it would be more stressful for the fish to take them out... others may disagree though. What you might wanna do before doing this is a thorough gravel vac. There shouldn't be any debris in your substrate unless you're over feeding or not gravel vac'ing enough. I say leave them in there

 

[Inferno2080]

Yeah good Idea to gravel vac before I do it. But the only problem is it's buried under gravel by (artificial) plants, and under a rock, so I can't clean the gravel where I'm actualy going to be moving it. I can only vaccuum the gravel that I won't be moving. Which is kinda pointless

 

[mellawson]

I always leave my fish in the tank when I'm doing stuff to it I even left them in there when I switched the gravel to sand, but they are used to me digging around in there so I doubt there is much that stresses them out anymore...lol.

 

[Smitty]

I'll throw my 2 cents in there and say leave them be. I'm forever sticking my hands in the tank dealing with plants doing trimming, digging up and moving things around. Only think I would recommend if you stir up a lot of stuff is to do a big (50%) or so water change once done and possible another in a couple days (20% or so the second time). If you did release stuff this will help get things back to normal.

 

[brimac41]

I too would leave them in there . As rookie stated , you would stress them out more chasing them around with a net , netting them and moving them to a bowl or what not . My fish are so used to me sticking my hand in the tank trimming plants , moving things around that tit doesn't bother them in the slightest .

 

[mwe_ch]

Yeah good Idea to gravel vac before I do it. But the only problem is it's buried under gravel by (artificial) plants, and under a rock, so I can't clean the gravel where I'm actualy going to be moving it. I can only vaccuum the gravel that I won't be moving. Which is kinda pointless

What about vacuuming the sand, then taking the plants and rocks out you need to take out and vacuuming underneath? Then, leave the rock out but put the plants back, just don't did them into the gravel, and then do the major work a day or two later?

This would leave the gravel relatively clean, leaves the plants there for cover, and gets the rock out of the way for the major work.

Would something like this be do-able?