Taking down my Planted Aquarium, well, Most of it.

It had been just over a year and this setup will be modified by a lot. The aquascape was set up in September 2024 and taken down at the end of October 2025.

When this was started, the idea was to minimally use new aquarium soil, mostly re-used substrate from the older version of the same tank, a little bit of new aquasoil, and locally-sourced river sand. More nutrients was provided via nutrient tablets. Not even twelve months had passed and the plant growth slowed down as observed in stem plants not growing more than an inch in almost a month after replanting. Adding nutrient tablets didn't seem to work as I'd hoped, maybe because the sand used was too fine, almost like dust. Adding new aquasoil on top of the substrate didn't do much either and only algae had exploded after. These may not be observable in whole shots of the aquarium but a closer look at the stem plants, the rocks and wood, and when newer videos are compared to earlier ones, the changes can be seen.

In this video are snippets of the taking-down process. The removal of the fish and plant, then the substrate system.

Cinematic Documentary | Calling Home by Alex-Productions |
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE47tFpVEQw
Music promoted by http://onsound.eu/

0:00 Aquarium plants
0:20 A final look of the planted tank
0:35 water level down to catch the fish
0:50 Some plants removed to ease fish capture
1:05 Most plants and fish had been removed and captured
1:20 water level lowered for the removal of the substrate system
1:35 how the substrate system is
2:02 removed the substrate at the back
2:12 removed the muddy water so the mud doesn't settle
2:22 Before and after