HELP! need motivation and advice :)

[fishroomlady]

I'm afraid I've let me tank go over the past couple of months or so I have some yucky algae, detritus buildup, coralline all over my side and front glass, tumbled coral frags, on and on - In addition, I have not cleaned my skimmer or return pump since installed (almost a year at this point - I know - bad). I need to do a deep clean and need some motivation to get 'er done lol - also, any advice on things to keep in mind when cleaning my pumps? I'm so afraid I'm going to break something when I do this

Maybe I should post a before and after picture? tomorrow is THE day - I'm going to take the advice from unique corals write-up and do some rearranging while cleaning since I'll need to remove some rock to clean it well.......

 

[vic67]

I would break the cleaning into two days. Do your glass one day and your pumps the next. Give yourself plenty if time so you don't get overwhelmed. Soaking the pumps in vinegar and water will make cleaning easier. Just keep thinking how great your tank will look again after your dine cleaning. GL

 

[mike007]

Once you get this tank back in good order that should excite you and give you some motivation. Get ur done!!!!

 

[saltyphish]

Because once you get it clean you need to go to Ideal Aquatics and get you some of the nice rainbow monti they have. Just stopped there yesterday and got me a Midas Blenny, frag of rainbow monti, and finally got me some Rastas. Which reminds me my tank is long past due for some update pics. But seriously you need to go there and get you something new.

 

[FishGuyTy]

Make sure you remove rubber components like gaskets and suction cups before soaking in vinegar. Also, as a person who cleans aquariums for a living, the worst thing you could do is clean it too much. I would break up the cleanings over 2 weekends. The first can be the scrubbing of rock and scraping. I would do a 25% water change max, and only 5-10% of that being siphoning of the substrate. Get all the rock and corals back in and do an intial clean on the pumps and skimmer. Next weekend plan to do another 15-25% water change and do all the fine cleaning and aqua scraping. Collect all the gunk that will enevitably collect after the first clean and this time remove the pumps and skimmer for a thorough cleaning. The first clean is going to leave a bunch of crud suspended in the water and your likely to miss some of the algae on the rock work. Letting the tank clear and run for a week will give time for stuff to settle. Hope this helps!

 

[fishroomlady]

can you tell me what you mean by an initial clean? is that just like disconnecting and rinsing and then take it apart for a deeper clean? and do I need to take the pump apart? that kind of scares me. That is great advice about letting the tank settle and clean the pumps after they've cleared the initial stir up of gunk.

you do really like Ideal Aquatics Salty. I need to get back over there - when I went there about 10 mos. or so ago, they did not have that much in terms of livestock. It's called aquatic artisans or something similar no?

 

[FishGuyTy]

The initial clean is still a full on clean. It's the removing of corals to buckets, the removal, scrubbing, and re-aqua scraping of the rock work, it's the scrapping of the glass with a Kent glass blade. I love a good stiff bristle toothbrush and a toilet bowl brush for scrubbing rock. You want to get as much coralline scrapped off and he gravel line and glass cleaned before you shut off the pumps to let the filter clear up some. Then I would remove corals and srub/clean as needed as you remove them. Next is shutting off pumps and removing some water to scrub the rocks in. Make sure you measure how much your pulling. I like Rubbermaid tubs to scrub my rock in. You can let the cleaned rock sit in empty buckets for the duration. I would selectively gravel vac the very dirty spots, but most importantly, the spots that are visible/not going to be under rock work. Finish the water change by syphoning up any crud left in your now bare (except for substrate tank). Only remove everything if your going for a full aqua scape rehab. Return rock to the tank, and add water. The initial clean for the pumps, skimmer should be a good toothbrush cleaning and removal of calcified crud. Next weekend, clean up the rock work with a toothbrush and fine tune the aquascape. After you have done that scrubbing with pumps on, shut them off and remove them for the vinegar water soak/scrubb. What pump(s) do you have? Taking them apart can and should be easy, they usually only go back together one way it will make a difference in performance if you do this step.

 

[bigsby]

Why would you take the rocks out and scrape the coraline off? That sounds like a horrible idea. I can understand scrapin algae off in that manner but for what reason would you want to scrape the coraline off of the rocks?

 

[leptang]

The initial clean is still a full on clean. It's the removing of corals to buckets, the removal, scrubbing, and re-aqua scraping of the rock work, it's the scrapping of the glass with a Kent glass blade. I love a good stiff bristle toothbrush and a toilet bowl brush for scrubbing rock. You want to get as much coralline scrapped off and he gravel line and glass cleaned before you shut off the pumps to let the filter clear up some. Then I would remove corals and srub/clean as needed as you remove them. Next is shutting off pumps and removing some water to scrub the rocks in. Make sure you measure how much your pulling. I like Rubbermaid tubs to scrub my rock in. You can let the cleaned rock sit in empty buckets for the duration. I would selectively gravel vac the very dirty spots, but most importantly, the spots that are visible/not going to be under rock work. Finish the water change by syphoning up any crud left in your now bare (except for substrate tank). Only remove everything if your going for a full aqua scape rehab. Return rock to the tank, and add water. The initial clean for the pumps, skimmer should be a good toothbrush cleaning and removal of calcified crud. Next weekend, clean up the rock work with a toothbrush and fine tune the aquascape. After you have done that scrubbing with pumps on, shut them off and remove them for the vinegar water soak/scrubb. What pump(s) do you have? Taking them apart can and should be easy, they usually only go back together one way it will make a difference in performance if you do this step.

I wouldn't bother scrapping off the rocks, or even moving any and or touching the rocks especially without gloves to protect your hands from bacteria infection from scraps from a rock that most likely will happen. Also scrubbing everything will shock the nitrogen cycle of the tank killing the vary good bacteria thats supporting the inhabitants of the tank.

Yeah slowly go over what you want to clean. But only one thing at a time. Glass, pumps, and filters not rock. I would at least start with taking a razer blade to the glass to scrap off coralline algae on one day, carefully doing so not to make marks on the glass. Then soaking a water pump in vinegar for a half an hour, scrub then rinse with rodi water. only doing a day or days apart. Nothing good happens fast in a reef.

 

[FishGuyTy]

I never said to remove the coralline algae from the rocks. Scrubbing them with a toothbrush or toilet bowl brush will not remove coralline algae. It will also not kill it to sit in a bucket for 30 minutes while you finish and prepare for the new aqua scape. The original question stated that he wanted to do a new aqua scape and needed to scrub the rock. The purpose of 20-25% water changes and selective grave vaccing is to clean enough, but not too much. That amount of cleaning will not throw off the nitrogen cycle. As for the risk of infection from handling live rock, it is a real risk. For me, I personally clean about 30 tanks a week and I handle live rock everyday. In 3 years, I have had one infected hand cut. I certainly agree that slower is better, but you don't really need to wait a day(s) between each step. They way I stated is the way I have done it hundreds of times for clients who have neglected their tanks. I will say that depending on your tank size, you may need to break it up.

 

[FishGuyTy]

She*

 

[Windy]

Why change now? Maybe you really don't want a tank.

 

[Zero Nitrates]

Clean one thing per week. If you do everything all at once you risk upsetting the biological balance of the tank.

 

[captainsaquarium]

Very sound advice there.

Make sure you remove rubber components like gaskets and suction cups before soaking in vinegar. Also, as a person who cleans aquariums for a living, the worst thing you could do is clean it too much. I would break up the cleanings over 2 weekends. The first can be the scrubbing of rock and scraping. I would do a 25% water change max, and only 5-10% of that being siphoning of the substrate. Get all the rock and corals back in and do an intial clean on the pumps and skimmer. Next weekend plan to do another 15-25% water change and do all the fine cleaning and aqua scraping. Collect all the gunk that will enevitably collect after the first clean and this time remove the pumps and skimmer for a thorough cleaning. The first clean is going to leave a bunch of crud suspended in the water and your likely to miss some of the algae on the rock work. Letting the tank clear and run for a week will give time for stuff to settle. Hope this helps!

 

[fishroomlady]

Why change now? Maybe you really don't want a tank.

what??

well, I went ahead and did a big cleaning. Once I started, it made sense to just keep going. I definitely need to tweak the scape. - 4 hours later, the tank is still settling but I'm sure will be much improved. I only did about a 15% in terms of water change. I found the venturi hoses majorly plugged on the skimmer so now it not only makes a whole heck of a lot less noise but has so many more bubbles - that should improve its performance immensely. I found some fallen corals that I'll place once I tweak the scape. thanks all for the great advice!

I plan on doing a small water change next weekend and changing out the filter pads and will clean the skimmer again as well. I think this just may re-energize my love for the hobby

 

[FishGuyTy]

I'm glad everything worked out for you In the future, you should clean you skimmer once a week. The gunk that builds up inside the reaction chamber and on the lid of the collection cup breaks the bubbles of the foam head produced by proper skimming. Regular cleaning ensures that your skimmer can continue to collect the organic goodies in your water. Every 3-6 months you should remove and srub the skimmer thoroughly to keep performance up. Happy reefing!