I have seen a lot of people post that they need to go fallow, or that they did "a while back", but not much clarity on how to actually do it, the experience or how it went in the end. I am about to start this process and figured I'd document for others who may need to do so in the future to reference.
Background
My mixed reef has been up and running ~9 months. I have had a lot of fish deaths, usually in groups all dying in quick succession, but never wiping out all the fish at once. I have never seen any clear symptoms that point to a specific disease, so at this point I am just assuming some sort of parasite. The only symptoms I've noticed are inconclusive and "could be anything" - lethargy, stop eating, weirds/slow swim patterns, sometimes labored breathing.
Build
Red Sea Reefer 250 V3 (65g total water, 54g display + 11g sump), 2 AI Prime 16HD, ~60lb live rock, sand, 2 small cheap Tunze powerheads, Ice Cap protein skimmer, small ball of chaeto in one of the sump compartments. Nothing else worth mentioning.
Corals
One hammer, two torches, 4 palys, 3 zoas, 1 xenia, 1 encrusting monti, 1 branching monti, 1 acro, 2 acans, 1 duncan, 1 blasto. Only one of the acans is a "colony"-the rest are frags, but growing. They all seem healthy now except the branching monti-it has lost some color recently.
Inverts
2 cleaner shrimp, 1 brittle star, 3 nassarius snails, 3 astrea snails, 2 turbo snails
Feeding
When I had fish in the tank, I was feeding a few small pinches of Hikari marine S pellets in the morning and some frozen mysis+brine in the evening. I occasionally give the cleaner shrimp and brittle star some tiny chunks of dried krill.
I was dosing Red Sea AB+ 8ml/week and target feeding corals BRS Reef Chili once per week, but have since started dosing AB+ daily. I am almost out of the Red Sea and have some Brightwell CoralAmino to continue once that runs out.
Params
1.025-1.026sg salinity (bounces back and forth), 77-78 temp, phosphates ~5 ppb, nitrates 2-3ppm, alk ~7.8
Plan
I have one fish left in the tank that I am trying to get out but he is being difficult. I am going to surrender him to a LFS when I manage to catch him. Then I will run the tank fishless for 8 weeks. I will post a "starting picture" when I eventually catch him and the tank is truly fishless.
I will put a couple pinches of the Hikari marine S pellets once daily to keep some semblance of nitrifying bacteria running and stop nitrates/phosphates from bottoming out. I will manually feed the cleaners and brittle star some krill chunks 2x per week. I will keep dosing the AB+ daily until I run out, at which point I will switch to the CoralAmino.
I have already been toying with the idea of taking my skimmer offline as it has not generated a single cup of skimmate since I've had it-my theory is that my relentless changing of filter floss catches anything that the skimmer normally would. I change the floss 2x per week and will continue with this pattern but expect them to get dirty much less quickly now, at which point I will reduce frequency.
I currently change 10g of water weekly but I am going to skip 1-2 weeks and keep an eye on the nutrients and corals. My phosphates have been undetectable until this week when I started daily dosing the AB+ and I want to spur on some chaeto growth as it has been lacking-we'll see how it goes.
I'll post weekly pictures, observations (especially of corals), parameter changes and any adjustments I make over time. Hopefully in the end when I'm ready to add fish again others can look back on this thread and learn. If this sounds like a dumb idea that no one will find useful, or anyone thinks of a way to make it more useful, let me know, but I feel like I see a lot of "going fallow, what do I do with corals/inverts?" posts without much follow up.
Background
My mixed reef has been up and running ~9 months. I have had a lot of fish deaths, usually in groups all dying in quick succession, but never wiping out all the fish at once. I have never seen any clear symptoms that point to a specific disease, so at this point I am just assuming some sort of parasite. The only symptoms I've noticed are inconclusive and "could be anything" - lethargy, stop eating, weirds/slow swim patterns, sometimes labored breathing.
Build
Red Sea Reefer 250 V3 (65g total water, 54g display + 11g sump), 2 AI Prime 16HD, ~60lb live rock, sand, 2 small cheap Tunze powerheads, Ice Cap protein skimmer, small ball of chaeto in one of the sump compartments. Nothing else worth mentioning.
Corals
One hammer, two torches, 4 palys, 3 zoas, 1 xenia, 1 encrusting monti, 1 branching monti, 1 acro, 2 acans, 1 duncan, 1 blasto. Only one of the acans is a "colony"-the rest are frags, but growing. They all seem healthy now except the branching monti-it has lost some color recently.
Inverts
2 cleaner shrimp, 1 brittle star, 3 nassarius snails, 3 astrea snails, 2 turbo snails
Feeding
When I had fish in the tank, I was feeding a few small pinches of Hikari marine S pellets in the morning and some frozen mysis+brine in the evening. I occasionally give the cleaner shrimp and brittle star some tiny chunks of dried krill.
I was dosing Red Sea AB+ 8ml/week and target feeding corals BRS Reef Chili once per week, but have since started dosing AB+ daily. I am almost out of the Red Sea and have some Brightwell CoralAmino to continue once that runs out.
Params
1.025-1.026sg salinity (bounces back and forth), 77-78 temp, phosphates ~5 ppb, nitrates 2-3ppm, alk ~7.8
Plan
I have one fish left in the tank that I am trying to get out but he is being difficult. I am going to surrender him to a LFS when I manage to catch him. Then I will run the tank fishless for 8 weeks. I will post a "starting picture" when I eventually catch him and the tank is truly fishless.
I will put a couple pinches of the Hikari marine S pellets once daily to keep some semblance of nitrifying bacteria running and stop nitrates/phosphates from bottoming out. I will manually feed the cleaners and brittle star some krill chunks 2x per week. I will keep dosing the AB+ daily until I run out, at which point I will switch to the CoralAmino.
I have already been toying with the idea of taking my skimmer offline as it has not generated a single cup of skimmate since I've had it-my theory is that my relentless changing of filter floss catches anything that the skimmer normally would. I change the floss 2x per week and will continue with this pattern but expect them to get dirty much less quickly now, at which point I will reduce frequency.
I currently change 10g of water weekly but I am going to skip 1-2 weeks and keep an eye on the nutrients and corals. My phosphates have been undetectable until this week when I started daily dosing the AB+ and I want to spur on some chaeto growth as it has been lacking-we'll see how it goes.
I'll post weekly pictures, observations (especially of corals), parameter changes and any adjustments I make over time. Hopefully in the end when I'm ready to add fish again others can look back on this thread and learn. If this sounds like a dumb idea that no one will find useful, or anyone thinks of a way to make it more useful, let me know, but I feel like I see a lot of "going fallow, what do I do with corals/inverts?" posts without much follow up.