Replanting my 65g

[WBAC88]

I recently bought an awesome looking piece of driftwood from thedriftwoodstore.com which is coming in the mail sometime this week. It's a big one, though, and I'm going to have to do some replanting to make it fit and to get things a little bit more organized in the tank overall. I wanted to ask if anyone had any tips for replanting aquatic plants.

In particular how to make sure that the roots aren't too badly damaged by the process and that any of the taller plants' stems won't break when I have to drain the water. Also, do people take their fish out of the tank when you do a major renovation like this? Finally, anything that I can do afterwards to minimize the damage to all the plants and have them recover? Thanks in advance.

 

[TheFishBoss97]

1) don't take fish out of water, can lead to major/more stress than they are already facing

2) plants should be fine(tall ones) as long as you are draining properly

3) roots should be fine as long as you pull the plants out slowly(not yanking them out.lol)

4) they(plants) will most likely slow down in growth during the movement, so don't worry, they will resume growth/speed eventually

5) crypts and other delicate plants will melt but will grow back.........(not a full melt, but partial)

 

[WBAC88]

First off, I lost track of this thread, but Fishboss, thanks for the advice, definitely helped in the process.

OK, so after a delay because of an algae bloom, I've added the driftwood and moved the plants that were in the way. This weekend when I have some more time off, I'm going to go back in there and redistribute some of the smaller plants in around the base of the driftwood, since it looks a little bare there.

Other than that, any suggestions on better placement for things, etc? There are still a few more rocks that are to go in, but at the moment they're being used to weigh the wood down until it water-logs. The one thing I'm not sure about is the smaller piece of dritwood on the right. It gets lost amongst the java moss and ferns that are attached to it. Thoughts on how to make that work? It's definitely still a work in progress, so any suggestions would be appreciated.