- Joined
- Nov 13, 2019
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So....yesterday was a true nightmare!!! I decided to re-aquascape my running 300 liter reef tank. I read all the posts here as to how I should do this and organized myself real well- or so I thought....
I knew from all you wonderful people here that I should do this carefully, trying to stir the sand as little as possible.So... I transferred all my corals -nothing special, just a few zoas, a candy cane, an euphyllia, , a xenia, a recordea and a few mushrooms to a separate tub with some water from the tank and a small powerhead. I turned off the pumps and skimmer, emptied about 50 liters of water so that I could immediately do a water change after I was finished, in order to minimize any bad effects I may have caused, and started transferring pieces of live rock to another tub full of tank water. So far so good.
I then moved the base rocks as gently as I could, but obviously not gently enough. I used epoxy putty to try and glue rocks together, but they started toppling over and blowing black clouds of nastiness from the sand. At some point, I realized I could barely see inside the tank, the water was so murky. I decided to do the water change there and then and just as I was mixing the first bucket, I saw my blue tang crashing to the bottom of the tank, not moving at all, with all the other fish swimming frantically around it. So much for anyone still believing that animals have no intellect or feelings. Anyway, panicking, I added 60 liters of fresh water to the tank, put some carbon in the filter, started up the skimmer and proceded to finish my rock work as fast as possible. Meanwhile, a small clown had joined the blue tang at the bottom of the tank, barely moving their fins. I tested for ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, everything was normal. The water was so murky, I could barely see the shadow of my new aquascape through it. I was sure they were dead or dying and the the rest of the fish would soon follow. I had probably stirred up a black cloud of bacterial nastiness with dire consequences.
I spend the rest of the day and evening looking at my very very slowly clearing tank and my two fish lying at the bottom. Strange as it may seem, the rest of the fish, two more clowns, two damsels,a pyjama fish and a mandarin seemed fine. And as by miracle, by midnight, my blue tang and the small clown started showing increasing signs of life and movement. By morning, all the fish were alive but as I am writing this post, the tank is still not crystal clear......Lesson learned. No more aquascaping with the fish inside the tank. It really is too risky and almost impossible to do this without stirring up things...Phheewwwww!!!!!
I knew from all you wonderful people here that I should do this carefully, trying to stir the sand as little as possible.So... I transferred all my corals -nothing special, just a few zoas, a candy cane, an euphyllia, , a xenia, a recordea and a few mushrooms to a separate tub with some water from the tank and a small powerhead. I turned off the pumps and skimmer, emptied about 50 liters of water so that I could immediately do a water change after I was finished, in order to minimize any bad effects I may have caused, and started transferring pieces of live rock to another tub full of tank water. So far so good.
I then moved the base rocks as gently as I could, but obviously not gently enough. I used epoxy putty to try and glue rocks together, but they started toppling over and blowing black clouds of nastiness from the sand. At some point, I realized I could barely see inside the tank, the water was so murky. I decided to do the water change there and then and just as I was mixing the first bucket, I saw my blue tang crashing to the bottom of the tank, not moving at all, with all the other fish swimming frantically around it. So much for anyone still believing that animals have no intellect or feelings. Anyway, panicking, I added 60 liters of fresh water to the tank, put some carbon in the filter, started up the skimmer and proceded to finish my rock work as fast as possible. Meanwhile, a small clown had joined the blue tang at the bottom of the tank, barely moving their fins. I tested for ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, everything was normal. The water was so murky, I could barely see the shadow of my new aquascape through it. I was sure they were dead or dying and the the rest of the fish would soon follow. I had probably stirred up a black cloud of bacterial nastiness with dire consequences.
I spend the rest of the day and evening looking at my very very slowly clearing tank and my two fish lying at the bottom. Strange as it may seem, the rest of the fish, two more clowns, two damsels,a pyjama fish and a mandarin seemed fine. And as by miracle, by midnight, my blue tang and the small clown started showing increasing signs of life and movement. By morning, all the fish were alive but as I am writing this post, the tank is still not crystal clear......Lesson learned. No more aquascaping with the fish inside the tank. It really is too risky and almost impossible to do this without stirring up things...Phheewwwww!!!!!
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