Safe Way to Transform Tank Without Removing Fish

[Copachick]

A safe way to transform a tank without taking all of the fish out and recycling the tank to do it... any thoughts?!

A little back history. We have a 29 gallon. Right now its the only tank with plastic plants(it was our very first tank). Th gravel is pink(the fish we use to have in there were fine with it). The plastic plants are green (we think its waaay to bright in there for the tetras we NOW have in there because they don't come out and swim when the light is on) and a very busy background. Our other tanks are all live plants and dark blue, and black gravel. We want to completely redo the entire tank. I know the gravel and stuff has alot of good bacteria and things and we dont know a good way to take out the gravel and everything in it and replace with new.

We were thinking of using our 10 gallon to put the fish in , in the mean time but I dont want to do that. It will be over crowded. we have 5 serpaes, 9 silver tips, and 1 lemon tetra.

Any thoughts? Sorry this thread is long.

 

[Coursair]

Maybe replace 1/2 the gravel, wait a few days, then the other 1/2 ??? Dark background, dark substrate, live plants and a few floating plants should make all the difference. And frozen or live food

 

[Copachick]

Yeah we started to do that. Change half the gravel. Now we have half pink, half black gravel and it looks just awful. I wouldnt want to be in there either. Lol. We definitely know how to make the tank dark now, cause my 75 is nice and dark. Black gravel , dark blue to black background on it, and all my tanks have live plants. We just never did live plants in this cause they never did well.
Oh they already love live food. Black worms the best.