How to safely remove unwanted plants in RCS tank?

[Lovemyshrimpers]

Hello, I'm a "newbie" to shrimp and forums! I'm on my third attempt with RCS. I've read the rules and general facts here in this forum. I have 9 RCS in a 10 gal. After reading the facts I took out the only other fish in the tank which was a dwarf Pleco. I also took out one of the plants I had in the tank and will not use fertilizer in that tank anymore. I have three more plants in there that I want to take out so that I will then only have 2 moss balls, java moss, and a small amount of Christmas moss but, I'm scared of upsetting the substrate too much by taking them out and causing some sort of bad reaction to happen to the shrimp. Any advise?

Thank you in advance for reading and having patients with my "newbie-ness".

[Stalker]

Upsetting the substrate is not a big deal, do it gently it's enough. But remember, plants are good for the tank, and beautifull! Why removing them?

[Lovemyshrimpers]

Stalker thanks for replying. I'm removing some of the larger faster growing plants in my RCS only tank because I read in the facts article that fast growing plants will eventually be a problem and at this point of so far learning the hard way, I'm trying to listen to people who seem to have keeping and growing shrimp mastered.

[Stalker]

It's rare for me but i'm not ok with Mustafa this time! The main problem with fast growing plants is that it grow too fast and become ugly. And if your tank is very very planted, they may eat all the oxygen at night. I had this issue but at the moment my tank was more a box full of plants than an aquarium...

If the plants are competiting with filter bacteria its... A good thing! Some aquarist like me use plants (and some fast growing) to remove ammonia from water, transforming into living plant proteins. Changing water become useless because the filter is unable to produce nitrates without ammonia.

Shrimps love sand and hard surfaces, so you need some space for them to walk and search for nutriment between sand particuls. But some plants are OK, just dont over plant.

[Lovemyshrimpers]

Stalker, thank you very much for taking the time to reply. I have been carefully removing some of the plants one every few days and then vacuuming the gravel in the area where the plant was removed. The shrimp seem to be okay. I think I will leave one bigger size plant in there because the shrimp do seem to be on it quite a bit. I have to say its so nice reading all the information that is in this forum. Now I have other shrimp lovers to talk to cause my husband and all my friends think I'm a little shrimp crazy!