Assume every piece is occupied
In a tank with fry, the plants and decor are not decoration; they are the nursery. New fry shelter deep in plant stems, under leaf litter and inside any ornament with a cavity, and they are nearly invisible against green and brown. The safe method starts from the assumption that the piece you are about to lift holds fish, even when a first look says it does not — because the cost of being wrong is a fry stranded in a sink, and the cost of being careful is only a minute's patience.
Shake, lift slowly, inspect over tank water
Before a piece leaves its spot, wiggle and tap it gently underwater so its occupants dart out into the surrounding cover. Lift it slowly, letting water drain back into the tank as it rises, and hold it over a shallow tray of tank water rather than over the floor or sink. Shine a flashlight into crevices, holes and the undersides of leaves; fry flushed out at this stage drop into the tray, from where they can go straight home. Only a piece that has passed this inspection earns a rinse, and even then in removed tank water, never under the tap.
One piece per session, half the cover always standing
Resist the full-tank tidy. Clean a single plant clump or ornament per session and leave at least half the tank's cover completely untouched, so the fry population always has an undisturbed refuge and the bacterial film on the remaining decor keeps working. Work around the tank over successive weeks instead of through it in one afternoon. The algae will not win in the meantime; it grows more slowly than fry do, and a slightly green ornament is a feeding surface for them, not a failure.
Guard the water change too
More fry are lost down the siphon than at the sink. Start the siphon in open water away from the plants, keep a thumb ready to break the flow, and pour the bucket out through a fine net or inspect it carefully in good light before it is thrown away — a surprising number of fry come back from the bucket. The same discipline applies to filter intakes, which should already wear a sponge guard in any tank holding fry small enough to be drawn in. While decor is out of the tank, switch the filter off entirely: an uncovered intake that is harmless among the plants becomes a genuine hazard in open water, and inquisitive fry investigate the new open space long before they think better of it.
Set the cleaned piece back gently
Return the piece to roughly its old position, lowered slowly so the current it pushes ahead of it does not scatter fry into the open. Watch for a minute afterwards: fry should filter back into the cover rather than milling exposed at the surface. KinsLe Care Teams can spread these single-piece cleans across the tank's scheduled duties, one per session, so the rotation reaches every plant and ornament in turn while the nursery always keeps its undisturbed half.