Tearing down a dirted 96x30 footprint

[jandb]

Hello. Is there any easy way to do this? I have a dirted, 96”x30” footprint tank that I want to tear down to rescape. I’m growing out a bunch of geophagus Sveni and just want to do a light sand bottom. The tank has about 3” of topsoil capped with sand and gravel. I really don’t want to shovel it all in buckets and lug it outside. Any ideas?

 

[monkeybike]

Shop Vac

 

[esoxlucius]

I wanted to get rid of a load of substrate from one of my tanks once. I didn't fancy painstakingly scooping it all out by hand. Then I recalled how everytime I vacuumed the substrate some always got sucked up. This give me the idea of sucking it all up with my vac pipe. Worked a treat. Mind you I had quite small substrate and my vac tube was 1" diameter so it had some fair suction on it, which helped.

 

[markstrimaran]

Rental store, 55 gallon drum 3 hp shop vac, 2" hose.

 

[jandb]

I like that idea. Thanks