Redoing a 135G

[sountfc]

Looking for advice on a strategy for redoing my 135G. It's fairly full of some decent sized Malawis at the moment. I'd like to paint the back and swap out the existing (and really old) black gravel for sand. I've got a spare 40G breeder that I could set up with an Aquaclear 110, so I guess I could cram all of them into that for a day or two. However, if I started in the morning, netted them all and put them into the 40G, then got the tank outside by 10:00 AM, I can easily have it painted by noon, let it dry until 5:00 or 6:00 PM, then bring it back in and get sand in it and have it filled with the filters going again by 7:00 PM at the latest. So it would be a 100% water change, but all of the filters would still be 100% seeded and I think that would be fine.

Any suggestions to that whole plan? Any flaws that anyone sees? Would be great to get it done in a single day.

[eklikewhoa]

Keep the filters running on the 40g and allow for the new water to settle and stabilize for a few hours and throw the old filters on.

Keep a close eye on everything and be prepared to do multiple partial water changes in the event of a mini cycle/ bacteria bloom.

[beto]

Wondering, would it be a good idea to put the water from the 40g ?

[eklikewhoa]

Water would hold little to no beneficial bacteria. It would be something they are acclimated to but other then that its just gonna be dirty water.

[rmalford]

I use easy to peel vinyl on my tanks. Pretty cheap at Home Depot. No dry time. Let me know and I'll come by and help move stuff around.

[sountfc]

Thanks for the offer! I probably won't try to tackle it for another couple of weeks.

GOt any pics of how that vinyl looks once it's on the tank?

I use easy to peel vinyl on my tanks. Pretty cheap at Home Depot. No dry time. Let me know and I'll come by and help move stuff around.

[rmalford]

Thanks for the offer! I probably won't try to tackle it for another couple of weeks.

GOt any pics of how that vinyl looks once it's on the tank?

My ujiji pics. You should come by and take a peek to be sure you want to go that route. I'm not far from you.

[rmalford]

Thanks for the offer! I probably won't try to tackle it for another couple of weeks.

GOt any pics of how that vinyl looks once it's on the tank?

Just let me know when "team lift" is.

[rmalford]

It took me about 2 hours to rescape and insert a background in my 125g tonight. I used drawer liner.

Here's some before and after and more before:
IMAG0678.jpgIMAG0714.jpgIMAG0715.jpgIMAG0720.jpgIMAG0721.jpgIMAG0727.jpgIMAG0728.jpgIMAG0729.jpgIMAG0730.jpgIMAG0731.jpgIMAG0732.jpgIMAG0678.jpgIMAG0679.jpgIMAG0705.jpgIMAG0707.jpgIMAG0708.jpgIMAG0711.jpg