How do I start over successfully?

[davehead86]

Long story short is that I have a mixed reef tank that went to crap. My tank got overrun with GHA, i lost half my corals in the battle, the GHA is still there and I cannot get rid of it without spending what seems like hours of time each day and hundreds of dollars a month to get rid of it. I hate looking at my tank now, and with the summer coming around and the free time it provides me (Im a teacher) I really want to just totally start over. But I have no idea where to begin with that.

I have a 65 Gallon DT ...
2 Radion G3 in a canopy
2MP 10
2 Hydor Korila for surface agitation
40 Breeder sump in the basement
K2 120 Skimmer
Eshopps 2 channel doser (dosing 2 part obviously)
BRS Carbon / GFO Reactor run by MJ1200
M1 return pump running at 35%


Ive got the equipment to be successful and I had the tank running great for 6+ months before I introduced several frags with GHA and didnt address the problem initially. I want to go back to my tank looking awesome like it did before with giant growing corals and happy fish. I just need advice on how to get there.



Current Plan ...
Buy a 40 gallon tank, put all of my fish in that tank and all of my corals in that tank and run it with the algae covered rock and some of the sand from the current tank so that I dont cause a cycle / can keep all of my fish and surviving corals.

Totally redo all of my tank setup with dry rock and brand new sand. I dont want ANY type of algae introduced into my tank again to cause these types of problems again.

Questions Im currently having ...
1. How do I ensure that i have removed all of the baddies from the old tank / setup before I start trying to get fish and rocks back into the tank?

2. Will the transfer of rock and sand to a new tank to hold the fish cause and cycle and kill my fish? I dont think it will but the last time I moved stuff I didnt take sand with me and I didnt have any corals besides ZOAS and GSP.

3. What method should I use for this tank from here on out. Continue with 2 part dosing and the "old school" method but just add an Algae Reactor to encourage algae growth in a controlled part of the tank, or go Triton? Aqua Forrest? Zeovit is out of the question for me (unknown bottles are not a good idea IMHO).

 

[Ocelaris]

I'm kind of in the same boat. I have to redo my tank because we're redoing the floor underneath it. I've got a 110 gallon display tank and I just set up this weekend a 40 breeder and 50ish gallon tank plumbed to one sump. I'm cycling the temporary tanks and I'll be moving frags over at a reasonable pace to make sure they do all right. I have a new tank coming in about 6 weeks, but I have to be out of the old tank in three weeks for the flooring people to do their work.

My take is to bring as little as possible over and go slow in the new tank. I give my mistakes to introducing nuisance algaes from ignorance about quarantining stuff. So frags go into the new tank and old rocks get bleach. Old sand gets tossed (too small).

New tank will get a month of cycling at a minimum and low lighting until the rock has started to get a coating. Then it's slowly introduce the fish and frags. I may loose some frags, but that's fine, but my lps and fish must be saved.

I may try Triton, but I think the key is keep up the maintenance with what you have learned the first time around. It's the long game that counts.

 

[mcarroll]

Starting over is always an option, but your tank does not look like a gonner to me. IMO, that's not the best way to go.

So if you're up for it, I'm up for helping you take your tank back.

I have a 65 Gallon DT ...

Sweet tank! 36x18x24"tall, right?

2 Radion G3 in a canopy

Potentially quite a lot of light. Can you take a PAR or lux reading from the water surface? (Phone app lux meter is fine if that's all you have, but I'd look for at least an LX-1010B to have around.)

Also what's your photoperiod like?

2MP 10
2 Hydor Korila for surface agitation

Flow pumps definitely need an upgrade. mp10's are nano pumps and probably not making much of a dent in the tank. The Hydor's might be too small too....what model are they?

Consider replacing what you have with a set of Turbelle® nanostream® 6045's....I'd probably go for four of them @ $78/ea....so that's about $312.

Tunze has lots of other great options too, controllable and non-controllable, depending on budget.

40 Breeder sump in the basement

Wow...for such a small tank I think I'd have considered the Tunze Reefpack 500 instead of the remote sump:

Reefpack 500
Comline® DOC Skimmer 9012: Designed for mixed aquariums or soft coral aquariums with 200 to 1,200 ... mehr

0500.000

608.40 USD

At $600 you may or may not have saved money if you'd gone this way, but you would have a better, much smoother setup IMO.

Includes ATO, skimmer and media-filter unit (which is where the ATO sensors hide).

GFO Reactor run by MJ1200

This may be another big part of what's feeding the algae....using this may only be limiting your corals if you ever managed to get PO4 down to zero or near-zero. It's probably not having much effect on algae.

Questions, questions!
Do you register any NO3 or PO4 in tests currently?

What have levels been like historically?

Are you doing anything else besides the GFO reactor for "nutrient control"?

What do you have for herbivores in the tank? (Forget about hermits and nassarius....we're only interested in herbivores for now.)

I see that yellow tang.....is he a loafer or a worker?

Also what is the rest of your fish population? And what do you feed regularly?