Neglected Aquarium

[ItsAName]

Hi everyone,
I've poorly maintained my mix tank over the last 10-12 weeks. Had a death in the family, got injured and sick, then the holidays. It's the first time I've gone any period of time without regular maintenance. Haven't done anything to it besides feed the fish and empty the protein skimmer. The results show. My plate coral and chalices look in bad shape (surprisingly everything else looks ok), there's algae (rocks, sand, glass) and bryopsis everywhere. Oh yeah, my patch of clove coral got choked out from algae too, thought nothing would kill it.

Time to get it back in shape. Any recommendations? I was concerned about trying to fix everything at once, thinking maybe a sudden change is bad. Also, any parameters and things I should look our for right now?

My plan is to do a 20% water change and pull out half the algae and bryopsis. Then a week later, do the same thing, and do this for about 4 weeks. I was also going to replace the soda lime and get any dying algae out of the refugium on day one too and clean all the filters.

Let me know, thanks!

 

[brandon429]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/s...rk-skip-cycle-reassembly.525310/#post-5475069





Let's see current pic if possible. It's ok to go slow, but sometimes it stretches on months and months compared to just cleaning it all up. Starting from the clean condition vs the invaded one is an option to be considered at least.

 

[Scurvy]

Sorry to hear of the rough stretch. Plan sounds pretty reasonable to me. Just get a fresh set of test numbers before you begin so you can set your targets and track your progress. Good Luck!

 

[Sandbox]

I'm sorry about your loss. Good luck with the tank!

 

[Lovemyreef2015]

@ItsAName sorry for the loss and your troubles. I actually like your idea of going slow. I don't agree with an aggressive approach but that's just my opinion. There is absolutely nothing wrong with patience and going slow to remedy tank issues. I say stay the course of your current plan and keep us updated so we can continue to help. Nothing good happens fast in this hobby.

 

[ItsAName]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/s...rk-skip-cycle-reassembly.525310/#post-5475069
Let's see current pic if possible. It's ok to go slow, but sometimes it stretches on months and months compared to just cleaning it all up. Starting from the clean condition vs the invaded one is an option to be considered at least.

Here's a current pic, I'm embarrassed :(



Maybe today I'll test all the water parameters. Usually takes me an hour and half to two hours to test everything. Won't have much motivated after that to do much more. Then tomorrow I'll start the cleaning.

 

[Jonathan Troutt]

Here's a current pic, I'm embarrassed :(



Maybe today I'll test all the water parameters. Usually takes me an hour and half to two hours to test everything. Won't have much motivated after that to do much more. Then tomorrow I'll start the cleaning.

Don’t be embarrassed man. Unfortunately bad things happen and when they do we have to make decisions on what is more important. I am sorry for your loss.

I recently had a major issue with nitrates because I was lazy and didn’t replace a failed refugium light. On top of that I left the chaeto in the sump. Nitrates shot up to over 160ppm. I lost two corals. Might end up loosing two more. Hopefully they will recover.

Anyway I chose the hurry up and change route. Got a new light. Replaced chaeto, and did a 90% water change. Started dosing vodka. Nitrates are down to 25ppm as of last night.

 

[brandon429]

Hey that's a solid setup, not a problem at all thank you for posting. This is long but I respect your efforts and I studied the heck out of that before pic and became rather sure of something.

Your corals are healthy now I really want to work with it, badly, complete potential.


The truth is if that was my tank i wouldn't want to parameter or doser starve the algae. Vibrant, fluconazole, those are for growback prevention, if we can take apart clean it then the algae is gone/scraped off/wiped with peroxide only on the target areas + we preserve that fine coralline you've earned

We don't want to dose, dip or starve anything


I'm positive based on that pic this order will work:

Drain water to discard, prepare new for final setup. As water goes down catch and hold organisms elsewhere in a mix of half tank water half new makeup water, now what's left is a drained tank with rocks corals and sand and the last few inches of water are cloudy/what we're resolving here.

Lift out all rocks and set them on the kitchen counter as is


Have a spray bottle of saltwater ready, keep corals misted as you work like a dentist on them. Knife tip scrape all the algae off. Debride it, rough, unanchor it and be rinsing it off down the drain with old tank water from the drain catch

Use peroxide 3% directly on the cleaned spots, to target cell kill left overs, be rinsing and picking and scraping and peroxide targeting till clean. Don't touch the good parts, I see nice coralline in places. Work until rock is restored, about an hour no big deal. Target scrape up and under anchored corals; remove accumulations with the knife tip not a brush, a brush doesn't dislodge holdfasts.

Rinse rinse using old tank saltwater till rocks look good and while all this is going on the rest of the tank is taken apart and vinegar cleaned. Glass, pumps, and now we're at the sand, last step before assembly.

Replacing it is best and keep a shallow bed like you did now, this above doesn't look bad to me at all. Rinse your new sand before use, regardless of the kind of sand it is just trust me, rinse out cloudless, then it's ready for use.

Use tap water and rinse the sand (even if you don't buy new, rinse your old to re use it this way) like I do here. Till it's clear. Not mostly clear---clear. Then the final rinse is in saltwater, so there's no tap water left between the grains. No matter what sand you use, even if it's the old sand, handle it this way.



The final step is the skip cycle reassembly then acclimate animals back into all new water. Your corals and bacteria will not care about going back into all new cloudless water, fish and shrimp are your acclimate needs

Since there is no clouding that goes back into the new tank, ie the sandbed is cloudless and the rocks have been cleaned and rinsed as well, nothing recycles in the reset tank. When you fill up your tank with the rocks and sand and new water, nothing clouds, the corals start to open better than ever in three days and you're on your way

So glad you posted, that's definitely a tank which will respond well to that careful, but deliberate, order of ops

Can't wait to see some progression pics, it will help others to watch you reclaim this aquarium and it's got a great base of life to work from. Though this surgery method seems harsh, it's not. It's best for your system vs months slow param alterations. To de cloud in one fell swoop will save that tank. You're about to inspire someone else to reclusion.

One of the interesting facets of quick reclaim, perfect after pictures, is that's not the end of the road. You'd only be so lucky if it is... Regrowth is the real unspoken beast and that ranges tank to tank.


We need the clean, unanchored, and certainly de clouded condition in order to evaluate your systems growback potential. The immediate turnaround is not hard, we do that all day in threads linked to that one above. It's the long term we need to clearly assess; so you don't have to do another rip clean as long as possible.

 

[brandon429]

Also it's ok to not test any parameters, we wouldn't factor those at all regardless of the reading. All you have to do to turn that system around is de cloud it/clean the sandbed and scrape detail the rocks back to clean... all manual work, no chemistry involved

 

[Katrina71]

You have some fantastic looking stuff in there! This is a very cool way to show other people honesty in reefing. I'm sorry for your loss:(

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

@ItsAName sorry for the loss and your troubles. I actually like your idea of going slow. I don't agree with an aggressive approach but that's just my opinion. There is absolutely nothing wrong with patience and going slow to remedy tank issues. I say stay the course of your current plan and keep us updated so we can continue to help. Nothing good happens fast in this hobby.

I’m the opposite.

When I see a tank that gets that far on the wrong side of where we want it, I just rip it apart, clean it, and shift it more in my (read: the coral’s) favor.

Under the premise of, storms happen in nature...

With a tank in @ItsAName ’s tank’s condition, I would pull a most of the water, put the corals in buckets, and then just rip through all the algae on the rocks, take the rocks out, let the junk settle, siphon out the algae/detritus, put the cleaned rock back, corals back in, and then back in business.

When trying to stabilize a system, it’s far easier when you’re starting from ahead rather than chip away for months and months trying to get things back on track.

 

[brandon429]

Now this is rule breaking stuff.

Try to imagine teleporting ourselves back to 2001, seeing someone advised to take their whole tank apart, and envision not having a recycle battle eighty pages long. It makes me wonder what we grip tightly now that might be loosed in '29

 

[DSC reef]

I’m the opposite.

When I see a tank that gets that far on the wrong side of where we want it, I just rip it apart, clean it, and shift it more in my (read: the coral’s) favor.

Under the premise of, storms happen in nature...

With a tank in @ItsAName ’s tank’s condition, I would pull a most of the water, put the corals in buckets, and then just rip through all the algae on the rocks, take the rocks out, let the junk settle, siphon out the algae/detritus, put the cleaned rock back, corals back in, and then back in business.

When trying to stabilize a system, it’s far easier when you’re starting from ahead rather than chip away for months and months trying to get things back on track.

And that's why we all have opinions. If she wants to tear apart a tank and start over then so be it, that's her choice. I absolutely do not agree with brandon's approach and I wish the best to the OP. All in all we hope her tank comes around for her no matter her choice. To the OP, good luck. BTW, flucanazole works great @brandon429 so to say its temporary is false. I have tried your peroxide method and algae came back stronger, flucanazole and parameter checks, all was good.

 

[LBReefer]

Hey that's a solid setup, not a problem at all thank you for posting. This is long but I respect your efforts and I studied the heck out of that before pic and became rather sure of something.

Your corals are healthy now I really want to work with it, badly, complete potential.


The truth is if that was my tank i wouldn't want to parameter or doser starve the algae. Vibrant, fluconazole, those are for growback prevention, if we can take apart clean it then the algae is gone/scraped off/wiped with peroxide only on the target areas + we preserve that fine coralline you've earned

We don't want to dose, dip or starve anything


I'm positive based on that pic this order will work:

Drain water to discard, prepare new for final setup. As water goes down catch and hold organisms elsewhere in a mix of half tank water half new makeup water, now what's left is a drained tank with rocks corals and sand and the last few inches of water are cloudy/what we're resolving here.

Lift out all rocks and set them on the kitchen counter as is


Have a spray bottle of saltwater ready, keep corals misted as you work like a dentist on them. Knife tip scrape all the algae off. Debride it, rough, unanchor it and be rinsing it off down the drain with old tank water from the drain catch

Use peroxide 3% directly on the cleaned spots, to target cell kill left overs, be rinsing and picking and scraping and peroxide targeting till clean. Don't touch the good parts, I see nice coralline in places. Work until rock is restored, about an hour no big deal. Target scrape up and under anchored corals; remove accumulations with the knife tip not a brush, a brush doesn't dislodge holdfasts.

Rinse rinse using old tank saltwater till rocks look good and while all this is going on the rest of the tank is taken apart and vinegar cleaned. Glass, pumps, and now we're at the sand, last step before assembly.

Replacing it is best and keep a shallow bed like you did now, this above doesn't look bad to me at all. Rinse your new sand before use, regardless of the kind of sand it is just trust me, rinse out cloudless, then it's ready for use.

Use tap water and rinse the sand (even if you don't buy new, rinse your old to re use it this way) like I do here. Till it's clear. Not mostly clear---clear. Then the final rinse is in saltwater, so there's no tap water left between the grains. No matter what sand you use, even if it's the old sand, handle it this way.



The final step is the skip cycle reassembly then acclimate animals back into all new water. Your corals and bacteria will not care about going back into all new cloudless water, fish and shrimp are your acclimate needs

Since there is no clouding that goes back into the new tank, ie the sandbed is cloudless and the rocks have been cleaned and rinsed as well, nothing recycles in the reset tank. When you fill up your tank with the rocks and sand and new water, nothing clouds, the corals start to open better than ever in three days and you're on your way

So glad you posted, that's definitely a tank which will respond well to that careful, but deliberate, order of ops

Can't wait to see some progression pics, it will help others to watch you reclaim this aquarium and it's got a great base of life to work from. Though this surgery method seems harsh, it's not. It's best for your system vs months slow param alterations. To de cloud in one fell swoop will save that tank. You're about to inspire someone else to reclusion.

One of the interesting facets of quick reclaim, perfect after pictures, is that's not the end of the road. You'd only be so lucky if it is... Regrowth is the real unspoken beast and that ranges tank to tank.


We need the clean, unanchored, and certainly de clouded condition in order to evaluate your systems growback potential. The immediate turnaround is not hard, we do that all day in threads linked to that one above. It's the long term we need to clearly assess; so you don't have to do another rip clean as long as possible.

This is terrific advice. I really appreciate the time folks dedicate to sharing with others.

 

[davocean]

Honestly this tank is not really that bad IMO.

I have been here and by far worse before, and cleared up w/out break down, though I have done that in the past too.

This tank could be cleaned up w/ good WC's, maybe a 3 day lights out period, and a little toothbrush scrubbing( I have a sonic scrubber electric toothbrush type scrubber that works great for this kind of thing)

I have also used flucanzole once when I had bryopsis and HA and while I'm normally not a magic bullet/chem fan, this really did the trick when I really needed help getting back on track, and no issues from it at all, and it's lasted for me.

Good luck to you however you go about it.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

And that's why we all have opinions. If she wants to tear apart a tank and start over then so be it, that's her choice. I absolutely do not agree with brandon's approach and I wish the best to the OP. All in all we hope her tank comes around for her no matter her choice. To the OP, good luck. BTW, flucanazole works great @brandon429 so to say its temporary is false. I have tried your peroxide method and algae came back stronger, flucanazole and parameter checks, all was good.

For sure. Agree completely.

I’m typically coming at these situations from another angle...they’re not my tanks so I don’t have the benefit of time and constant access to work on issues. So I go for brutal effiency. 3 hours is better than 3 months. Having done that countless times over the years has shown me that the boundaries are a lot further out than we might think.

But...I always preface it with ‘This is what I would do...’ in order to offer the option, rather than ‘This is what you should do’ and send them out of their comfort zone.

I’m fearless in a reef tank, so I don’t even think twice to do things most people wouldn’t even consider trying. But I’m cautious about recommending them to others.

That said, what I would do with OP’s tank I would consider to be a mild Level-1 intervention.

 

[brandon429]

The part where I said fluc is best used after cleaning, that came from collecting threads where fluc cured gha then cyano wrecked the setup with the available detritus from the first go

Restated: use fluc as a growback preventer, it's powerful when wielded correctly against the three whole genera it works on~

Using fluc at the start of the invasion is better positioning than using it to rot the current invasion in situ and contribute to more detritus.

Going right to water dosing we find to be a recurring issue, the rarity was making the tank shine overnight from making it cloudless, work vs dosing, that's what we found to stop the trade-off invasion cycle



There are many ways to approach an invasion but I'm condensing about eight years in two threads alone with the above offer. It's a relay of how fifty aquariums followed up after they either chose water dosing + keeping the cloud of waste, or properly cleaning the aquarium. We found the winning pattern to be in the cleaned system.

the pictures posted for the before pic are familiar ground for sure.

fully agree that vibrant, fluc, and the sludge digesting bacteria options just might work, but might is a poor option compared to what we collect. It's fun to recommend the #1 action people do not want to resort to, and then watch to see who's serious about getting uninvaded. That type of resolve can be contagious, and effective.

 

[Auto-pilot]

And that's why we all have opinions. If she wants to tear apart a tank and start over then so be it, that's her choice. I absolutely do not agree with brandon's approach and I wish the best to the OP. All in all we hope her tank comes around for her no matter her choice. To the OP, good luck. BTW, flucanazole works great @brandon429 so to say its temporary is false. I have tried your peroxide method and algae came back stronger, flucanazole and parameter checks, all was good.

I like peroxide. I have 12% and I use a pipet to Target areas that are hard to get to. I usually scrub with a toothbrush(if I really have to) and where there is alge I'll inject it to spot treat the problem. I feel like once alge starts growing you have to kill it by the roots. If there Is a little bit of bryopsis or hair alge that pops up in my tank I will just inject it peroxide and it does a great job to nock it out. I try not to use it hard because If I do my cheato starts suffering and I want it to grow!

 

[RCS82]

I also think it doesn't look to be too tough if a job. Couple good water changes with a gravel siphon. Then pull the middle tall rock out and scrub it up, maybe chisel the top portion off to move that flower pot looking coral. A little tooth brush action on the left side rock and I think you'd have most of it cleaned up in no time. I'm one of those that enjoys cleaning and pulling and rearranging a few rocks so this actually looks fun. In my opinion just looking at the pic of your tank I dont think it is serious enough for a restart.
Water changes, gravel vac, toothbrush, maybe some urchins and run some carbon.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Here's a current pic, I'm embarrassed :(



Maybe today I'll test all the water parameters. Usually takes me an hour and half to two hours to test everything. Won't have much motivated after that to do much more. Then tomorrow I'll start the cleaning.

Hopefully all is well with you and family at this hustle and bustle time of the year AKA Christmas. This is an easy recovery and I would focus on and begin with a good clean up crew. ( suggested- 4-6 turbo snails, 2-3 margarita snails, 2 cerith snails- 2 nerite snails, an algae blenny, perhaps a yellow eye kole tang OR Foxface rabbitfish. They will clear this tank up in no time. Start now and you may find yourself popping that champagne bottle to a near clear tank.