[Mattcosner10]

Hey just did a rescape on my 50 gal bow front and thought I'd share the experience and thoughts. Also open to criticism for next time.
I started this tank about a year ago, I had kept fish before but never had gotten into aquascaping or live plants. So after a year I decided I needed to rescape. Problem was the tank was fully stocked. I decided to drain the tank and try anyways, I'm a little afraid I'm ganna go through the cycling process again. I saved about 20% of the old water and 50% of the old substrate. Also I have an established sunsun canister filter running. Im now dosing with stability, prime, and excel. The project took about 6 hours. It was really hard work but a lot of fun. Paid my brother to be my assistant during the process lol. Went with mostly easy plants to grow, including ferns, anubias, dwarf sag, red tiger lotus, and a few others. Well anyways here are the before/after, and process pics...

 

[Convict with convicts]

Nice rescape man... I like it. When I have ammonia spikes after tank maintenance, usually doesn't last long. Your bio filter was taken care of through the process? My only advise is the seachem stability has never once worked for me... Tetra safe start has however pulled me from the fire more then once... I like the layout for the bow front. I have a 36 gallon bow front I've been paying a lot of attention to and have noticed that it can be challenging to get the right look with the bowed front, but also opens a few avenues up. But anyways man, nice job

 

[Mattcosner10]

Thanks! Ya I considered safe start but was told seachem makes a better product, not sure haven't used either before. I was told that the bacteria in the filter would live without running the filter for the time it was off...

 

[malANDmatt]

Wow! I love the rescape. It really opens up the tank. Looks great!

 

[Natasha]

As someone who has this exact tank, and knows all of its challenges, I can really appreciate your scape. You did an excellent job using the height in your hardscape. Can't wait to see it fill in!

Also, what's you're new substrate? It looks a lot like my flourite and moonlight sand, haha

 

[Mattcosner10]

Thanks. Not sure of the exact type of sand. Just your typical white sand I suppose. The black substrate is a mixture of the fluval plant substrate, forgot the exact name, and a plant substrate I picked up at petsmart when I realized I didn't have quite enough for the slope I wanted.