Working on a partial re-scape of my African 45 gallon this morning….

It’s been set up this way about a year, with exception to rotating out several different floating plants… this is a hard tank to work on, as it’s built in, and exposed on both large sides, with walls above the tank… super cool to view, but a major pain to work on… substrate is 1 inch polished rocks, there are Coolie loaches that swim freely through the gaps in the rocks, that live pretty much subterranean, I do see them, if they run into a dead end, or parts of them as they swim across gaps in the rocks and they are thriving… they were not purchased as giants, but are the biggest I’ve ever seen… I don’t want to injure them, but need to vacuum the substrate…
I’m going to move one piece of driftwood, that has a vampire shrimp, and several king tiger plecos living under it… both the Coolies and the plecos don’t really belong in here, but I can’t catch them, with the limited access… so I’ve decided to embrace them… too bad the king tigers, aren’t better algae eaters… the bottom of the tank, is covered in a “tangle” of Java fern, that has been weathering the group of Armano shrimp in the tank… that group was purchased originally as adults ( large ) and over the course of about a year and a half have slowly died down to 5 or 6… the Java fern suffered, when there was so many shrimp, as they ate out between the veins, and made them look like lace plants… babies have been getting less holes, as the shrimp numbers slowly decline… this was one of the 1st few tanks I reset up, after my 20 year break from the hobby, and back then I was using squat jars with pond soil, covered by black aquarium gravel, to keep it in place… originally I had Val on top of these jars, and angel fish in this tank, and bad water ( pre RO ) and the angels suffered, but while suffering, they ate all the Vals… it was as at this point, that I introduced the Java fern, a tougher plant, which didn’t need the soil, but I weighed them, and put them on top of the 10 or so squat jars, so a lot of Java moss that’s been in the tank about a year to move so I can get the jars out and vacuum…
I have a resin hollow log for the king tigers to add, and have some tall Anubis plants to stuff in the smaller holes in the hollow log, to grow out of… and my current floating plants ( water hyacinth ) needs trimming, and the roots cleaned, & as long as I’m going in deep, the Tidal 75 will get cleaned today as well… I’m sure there will be a lot of solids in suspension to filter out… the African river tetras have all been doing great, and I’ve only lost one smaller than normal one, since they have all been added, and this tank got labeled as African…
It’s raining outside, so it looks like I have at least a couple hours, to complete this, before the outside chores start calling my name..

This is the new plants…

Removed the hyacinths, still tons of baby water lettuce intermixed… that stuff is about as bad as duck weed to get out… moved a bunch of the Java fern… in a year, it sent out some long roots… got my 1st 4 jars s out, and vacuumed the 1st 5 gallons of water ( mud ) will probably spread the total vacuuming out over an hour to give the heater a chance to keep up…
Got a huge Coolie, that’s mad as a wet hen right now… will try to get a picture of how big they are, if I can catch it out of the rocks long enough to get a picture

Moved the driftwood I wanted to move… can’t see the vampire in all the mucky water, but now have a bunch of mad king tigers… got 6 jars out, without incident

Just saw a wriggling white / tan worm… assuming a deterios worm, about an inch long, not a baby coolie… and amazing how many empty bladder snail shells… well I still see live ones, but know the assassins have been busy

Well, time to give this one a rest, and let my RO water build back up… 30 gallons of water exchanged via substrate vacuuming… this is the hard end to work on, every tool needs a 30 inch handle… I’ve not seen the vampire, but it’s likely in the other side, huge tangle of Java… lots of water lettuce babies in with the hyacinth… I think if I clean and trim the roots of the hyacinths once a month, and pick out the lettuce babies, I’ll eventually get them all out… already seen the king tigers checking out the cave

Next month, I’ll tackle the easier side to work on… still a few jars on that side, and a lot of muck in the substrate

4 of the big old Armano shrimp, munching away, I spotted while looking for the displaced vampire

Oh… another huge one

Been several hours, putting flashing on a roof… tank has settled out pretty well

And from the other side… you can see the other 3 tanks through this tank, when I take pictures from this side