90G, reborn Tank. (Aptasia infestation).

[Bolin]

Hi reefers,
3 weeks ago I was in the dilemma of almost quitting with my tank due to a massive Aptasia invasion, or I could invest time, money and all my effort to start again. As you can imagine I decided to put all my efforts and recover my tank.

This is a picture of how my tank looked 3 weeks ago. A huge infestation of aptasias, poor water quality, low salinity, low water circulation. In other words a recipe for disaster. Im still amazed that within these conditions my fish and some corals survived.
I also had a pretty big skeleton of a nice bird nest coral that grew huge and 8 months ago I had a light issue during a business trip and I lost 95% of the colony, after that Aptasias started to nest in the skeleton areas.

To make a story short, the aptasia infestation was so big that I needed huge amounts of aptasia X filling my poor tank with more chimicals , so I ended doing extreme measures, I boiled the rocks and scrubbed it with a brush. My kitchen had a weird smell and the whole operation took 4 hours. I ended up doing a 20% water change and started increasing the salinity levels to reach 1.024, that inmediatly caused a relief in the corals, as my Duncan now streched its polyps and started recovering its color. I also had 5 green sarcophyton that survived and were happy with the new salinity levels. I also had a homemade LED lights that I purchased in my LFS that needed to replace some LEDs, instead of fixing this old LED strip I bought a 39” coral grow smart strip from aquailumination and so far I love my new lights.

This weekend was the 3rd week of the recovery process and my water parameters are better kh 9.6, Mg 1260, Ca 430. I need to update the rest of the tests.

I went to a couple of LFS this past weekend and started imagining what to add. As this is basically my 3rd tank, (I consider this one a reborn one) Ill be smarted stocking corals as I already had added for example Clavularia coral and green star polyps that took over all the rocks. This time I want to focus on some Montiporas and add torch and some Goniopora coral.


Ill continue to show the progress of my tank. Im thankful that I decided to invest my time, energy to recover my tank, I forgot that sensation of peace staring at a reef tank. Ill be happy to receive advices during my process.
thanks for reading this.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Hi reefers,
3 weeks ago I was in the dilemma of almost quitting with my tank due to a massive Aptasia invasion, or I could invest time, money and all my effort to start again. As you can imagine I decided to put all my efforts and recover my tank.

This is a picture of how my tank looked 3 weeks ago. A huge infestation of aptasias, poor water quality, low salinity, low water circulation. In other words a recipe for disaster. Im still amazed that within these conditions my fish and some corals survived.
I also had a pretty big skeleton of a nice bird nest coral that grew huge and 8 months ago I had a light issue during a business trip and I lost 95% of the colony, after that Aptasias started to nest in the skeleton areas.

To make a story short, the aptasia infestation was so big that I needed huge amounts of aptasia X filling my poor tank with more chimicals , so I ended doing extreme measures, I boiled the rocks and scrubbed it with a brush. My kitchen had a weird smell and the whole operation took 4 hours. I ended up doing a 20% water change and started increasing the salinity levels to reach 1.024, that inmediatly caused a relief in the corals, as my Duncan now streched its polyps and started recovering its color. I also had 5 green sarcophyton that survived and were happy with the new salinity levels. I also had a homemade LED lights that I purchased in my LFS that needed to replace some LEDs, instead of fixing this old LED strip I bought a 39” coral grow smart strip from aquailumination and so far I love my new lights.

This weekend was the 3rd week of the recovery process and my water parameters are better kh 9.6, Mg 1260, Ca 430. I need to update the rest of the tests.

I went to a couple of LFS this past weekend and started imagining what to add. As this is basically my 3rd tank, (I consider this one a reborn one) Ill be smarted stocking corals as I already had added for example Clavularia coral and green star polyps that took over all the rocks. This time I want to focus on some Montiporas and add torch and some Goniopora coral.


Ill continue to show the progress of my tank. Im thankful that I decided to invest my time, energy to recover my tank, I forgot that sensation of peace staring at a reef tank. Ill be happy to receive advices during my process.
thanks for reading this.

Love seeing the progress of your tank!!

 

[spawn79]

H O L Y C R A P! Bravo for starting anew. That took a lot of time and effort I'm betting many would not bother with. I mean wow, great work.
Now just remember to keep up with it as much as you can so it doesn't get to that point again. We've all been there with things needing attention (cough* doing dishes *cough) and it gets put off till it's a huge mess down the road.

And of course I can't resist being snarky. How come you didn't just throw some peppermint shrimp and a file fish in?

 

[Bolin]

H O L Y C R A P! Bravo for starting anew. That took a lot of time and effort I'm betting many would not bother with. I mean wow, great work.
Now just remember to keep up with it as much as you can so it doesn't get to that point again. We've all been there with things needing attention (cough* doing dishes *cough) and it gets put off till it's a huge mess down the road.

And of course I can't resist being snarky. How come you didn't just throw some peppermint shrimp and a file fish in?

Hi Spawn, peppermint shrimp were difficult to obtain here in Mexico for a while, I actually found a couple last week and I hope they start working, (haven't seen the results in these past days), I also read that Berghia nudibranch are great for aptasias, however difficult to obtain.

 

[reacclimating 2 the hobby]

Great work! I had this same issue with my 525xl and I took it down and sold it. I didn't have the time to do all that was necessary and my time for reefing was just null after having my daughter, starting a business and working full time. This is great to see. I'm just getting back into it.

 

[Bolin]

Great work! I had this same issue with my 525xl and I took it down and sold it. I didn't have the time to do all that was necessary and my time for reefing was just null after having my daughter, starting a business and working full time. This is great to see. I'm just getting back into it.

At the end if this makes us happy, we will find time and ways to automate this to the point that it requires less time for the maintenance. However the joy of having a reef tank will makes us happy.