Rescaping Established Tank

[IndySE]

Hallo,
 
After a lot of deliberation and being incredibly impressed by some of the tanks on here I've decided that I need to rescape my 200L tank as it looks a bit pants. Currently it has about 2-3" of mixed gravel, 3 resin ornaments (including obligatory pirate ship) and a bright blue background sheet.
 
My questions are:
 
 
1) Whats the best way of tackling this? I'm guessing several buckets for the fish and some waterbutts for the cycled water while I'm doing the changes?
 
2) Regarding live plants, do they need sand to survive or will they be ok in gravel? Likewise, would there be a problem with taking out as much of the gravel as I can and replacing it with sand or can I do a mixture of for example 1" gravel and 2" sand?
 
3) I'm thinking of going for a rock/slate theme, can I go to any garden centre and pick these up? Do they need some form of 'conditioning' or can they go straight in the tank? I've seen some of the 3D backgrounds with embossed rocks but I'm guessing its not gonna be possible to do that now as the tank will be 'wet'?
 
4) Although I'm not planning on putting in any ornaments I really want to put in my 1980's yellow Hulk Hogan figure somewhere, is that possible?
 
5) Finally, how much time should I set aside to get this done, is it something that can be done in one day or will it need to be done in stages?
 
 
A fair few questions there but I really look forward to getting your answers to them!
 
Cheers,
Indy

 

[Elrohirthehasty]

1) Do you have a hospital tank or other tank?  Overstocking for a few hours is totally fine.
 
2) Gravel is okay for most plants in my experience.  Mixtures are cool too.  If you mix I would do sand on bottom gravel on top.  Roots will dig down.
 
3) Just wash them without any bleach or soap (or very diluted).  Consider boiling any rocks to kills things, although there is a slight chance they will explode if there is random trapped air inside them (volcanic rocks).  Slate you should be find just rinsing it and sticking it in - it's a known safe rock.
 
4) Anything you want.  Most plastics are fine.
 
5) Judging by the size of the tank, I would say you could do it in a day, maybe even an afternoon.  Your fish will be fine in a smaller/hospital tank for the day, but I would avoid buckets unless you think you can do it in a few hours.  If you do stages, you only need to take the fish out for the first stage: the substrate swap.  Adding plants and moving small rocks and things around later shouldn't over-stress the fish.  Just try not to squash any under a rock!
 
Good Luck! These are just my thoughts on the matter (from someone who has done a fair bit of re-scaping).

 

[haleem8777]

i think the reply above is good to follow as i just did a rescape yesterday and i followed the same procedure and everything is fine

 

[IndySE]

Thanks for the reply, it looks like everythig can happen that I want and all I need to do now is buy some extra buckets and decide what I want to do with the tank, the easy part (!)
 
Cheers,
Indy

 

[Electric Warrior]

Sand! If you wanna do a rock/slate kind of thing, it will look so much better on sand IMO, unless you are talking about a very, very fine gravel.

 

[IndySE]

Yeh I think I will take out about 80% of the gravel and get black sand, seen some pics of people's tanks with that and rocks/slate/greenery really pops out, looks great!

 

[IndySE]

One other thing...
 
I currently have two filters in there, a Fluval U3 and U4. I always wanted to eventually upgrade to an external filter, something like a Fluval 306. 
 
The question is would it be worth doing the filter change at the same time as the rescape? I'm thinking it may be a case of too much at once and if it is then should I do it beforehand to establish the media or will I need to have that and the two internal ones running in parallel for a while?
 
Cheers,
Indy