How do I start over successfully?

[ou12004]

If you decide to restart, I would get high quality live rock, your corals will retain the hair algae and you will be seeding the tank with base rock and hair algae. If you go with good live rock the algae and bacteria's will already be present and will be able to out compete the hair algae for nutrients. I take rocks with hair algae out of my 29 and put them into my 100 for my tangs to clean up, I'm not worried about it spreading.

 

[lewisriverfisherman]

What are your nitrates and phosphates? What kind of clean up crew do you have? By the way what is your lighting cycle just so we have an idea? I see no reason to start a tank over, when you can deal with what you have. There will always be something in this hobby that you/we will have to deal with down the road. Besides starting over will just set you back 6-8 months.

 

[dsh92056]

Not that I'm pimping Dr. Tim but I use his refresh, waste away, and Eco complete weekly on a maintenance program (not all on the same day mind you) as well as his pearls in a reactor. I feed 3x a day. 85 gallon tank 7 fish. Lots of lps, zoas, softies. I have a refugium that grows Cheato like crazy ever since I purchased a kessil H380. Nitrates are under 5 and phos is at 0.01. no algae. Not everyone runs tanks the same but gets the same results. And two people can run tanks exactly the same and get different results. This is just one way that I find very effective

 

[davehead86]

What are your nitrates and phosphates? What kind of clean up crew do you have? By the way what is your lighting cycle just so we have an idea? I see no reason to start a tank over, when you can deal with what you have. There will always be something in this hobby that you/we will have to deal with down the road. Besides starting over will just set you back 6-8 months.

I think I’ve finally traced the culprit down to excessive TDS being supplies from water the I was getting that was supposed to be good to go. 400 TDS from a supposed clean water source at the LFS. Ugh. Now I’ll be getting a rodi system for sure.


I really appreciate everyone trying to help me not start over. I’m not giving up or just throwing in the towel and a Hail Mary to start over. There are several actual problems with the way the tank is setup and running that really need to be addressed before this tank becomes mature and impossible to take care of later down the road.

 

[davehead86]

Not that I'm pimping Dr. Tim but I use his refresh, waste away, and Eco complete weekly on a maintenance program (not all on the same day mind you) as well as his pearls in a reactor. I feed 3x a day. 85 gallon tank 7 fish. Lots of lps, zoas, softies. I have a refugium that grows Cheato like crazy ever since I purchased a kessil H380. Nitrates are under 5 and phos is at 0.01. no algae. Not everyone runs tanks the same but gets the same results. And two people can run tanks exactly the same and get different results. This is just one way that I find very effective

Totally understand finding a system and using it when it works for you. I’m going to be using the aqua forest product line after hearing good reviews and seeing good results with a few local tanks.



I’ve started a build thread in the members tanks section to show my progress and what I’m doing and where everything is going.