Restart or let it ride?

[ryudo80]

I'm pretty new in this hobby. While my first tank was in fallow for velvet, I started a new 15 gallon AIO tank to hold my QT'ed fish. The 15 gallon tank started with live sand and new rocks and has gone through fishless cycle with bottle bacteria. The fish have been living in it fine for a few week and the tank was clean since I didn't start reef light and no corals. Once I added corals and started up my light, the tank got hit by the ugly stage pretty bad. My rocks turned green brown fairly fast and lots of hair algae visible on the clove polyps, empty snail shells, and rocks. Slowly, the new corals started to not open as much. Initially, I thought it was due to flow being too strong (I have a jebao slw-5 running in its slowest speed). I moved some corals over to the fallow tank as a test and they improved fairly quick.

The 15 gallon tank water wasn't very cloudy but I can definitely see a lot of tiny particles floating everywhere. I bought a mini Green Killing Machine internal UV and aimed the powerhead at the water surface but the situation didn't improved. I noticed my fish becoming lethargic and stopped eating so I transferred them to my fallowed tank that just completed the process and their behavior also improved drastically. After I transferred the fish, I left my CUC that includes some hermit crabs, trochus snails, and a fire shrimp in the 15 gallon. A day later, I saw that the fire shrimp had died. It molted a few hours before and when I later looked for it, it was dead and the hermit crabs were eating it. I don't know if it died due to the tank situation or something occurred during the molting process. Also, my hammer coral with a few branches had also died. I decided not take bring it to the other tank because it didn't look good at the time when I moved the fish. At this point, I have a couple of kenya trees and a couple of barely opened clove polyps left in the 15 gallon tank. I also noticed there is a large amount of copepods all over the glass. The CUC, besides from the fire shrimp, are still alive.

At this point, what should I do? The tank looks to be in a sad state. Should I just leave the tank alone and just let it ride with low light or should I start over with live rocks from the fallowed tank? If I leave it alone and continue to feed it?

The tank parameters:
ammonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates 5
phosphate 0.03
ph 7.8
kh 8
salt level 1.026
tank temp: 78

 

[bossman818]

Let it ride. I would change a very small amount of water daily for a while. Patience is the key with this hobby. I had similar issues to begin when I had my 20 gallon. Changed 3 cups of water daily for about two weeks and out of nowhere, tank took off. Just have patience.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Its hard to comment on an empty tank, but me personally I would turn up the flow and maybe add another powerhead. More flow will push more water to your filter intake to get rid of the particles and also help against algae. It also looks like a tall tank which is hard to create good flow throughout, and also hard to oxygenate, so make sure you have good ripples moving across the water surface to help with oxygenation. What kind of light do you have?

 

[PharmrJohn]

Edit: Let it ride.

 

[ryudo80]

My fallowed tank didn't have this bad of an issue when I started it but I also put in a small live rock from a LFS. I didn't do it this time because I wanted a clean tank to start. The tank is a innovative marine 15,with 15 inches in height . I took out the wave maker a day before I took out the fish because I saw the clowns looked like they have been struggling with the higher flow.

I've since upgraded the stock pump to a sicce 1.0. So I currently have good ripple on the water surface from the return nozzle. I'll put the wave maker back and crank up the speed since there's no fish left in the tank. A few days ago, I changed about half the tank water. I'll follow the advice of changing water daily in small amount.

 

[ryudo80]

Its hard to comment on an empty tank, but me personally I would turn up the flow and maybe add another powerhead. More flow will push more water to your filter intake to get rid of the particles and also help against algae. It also looks like a tall tank which is hard to create good flow throughout, and also hard to oxygenate, so make sure you have good ripples moving across the water surface to help with oxygenation. What kind of light do you have?

My light is the noo-psyche K7 Mini. Initially, I was running it with 5% white, 40% blue, 40% purple. Later, I reduced it to 5% white, 30% blue, 30% purple. I am currently running it at 0% white, 20% blue, 15% purple.

 

[vetteguy53081]

I'm pretty new in this hobby. While my first tank was in fallow for velvet, I started a new 15 gallon AIO tank to hold my QT'ed fish. The 15 gallon tank started with live sand and new rocks and has gone through fishless cycle with bottle bacteria. The fish have been living in it fine for a few week and the tank was clean since I didn't start reef light and no corals. Once I added corals and started up my light, the tank got hit by the ugly stage pretty bad. My rocks turned green brown fairly fast and lots of hair algae visible on the clove polyps, empty snail shells, and rocks. Slowly, the new corals started to not open as much. Initially, I thought it was due to flow being too strong (I have a jebao slw-5 running in its slowest speed). I moved some corals over to the fallow tank as a test and they improved fairly quick.

The 15 gallon tank water wasn't very cloudy but I can definitely see a lot of tiny particles floating everywhere. I bought a mini Green Killing Machine internal UV and aimed the powerhead at the water surface but the situation didn't improved. I noticed my fish becoming lethargic and stopped eating so I transferred them to my fallowed tank that just completed the process and their behavior also improved drastically. After I transferred the fish, I left my CUC that includes some hermit crabs, trochus snails, and a fire shrimp in the 15 gallon. A day later, I saw that the fire shrimp had died. It molted a few hours before and when I later looked for it, it was dead and the hermit crabs were eating it. I don't know if it died due to the tank situation or something occurred during the molting process. Also, my hammer coral with a few branches had also died. I decided not take bring it to the other tank because it didn't look good at the time when I moved the fish. At this point, I have a couple of kenya trees and a couple of barely opened clove polyps left in the 15 gallon tank. I also noticed there is a large amount of copepods all over the glass. The CUC, besides from the fire shrimp, are still alive.

At this point, what should I do? The tank looks to be in a sad state. Should I just leave the tank alone and just let it ride with low light or should I start over with live rocks from the fallowed tank? If I leave it alone and continue to feed it?

The tank parameters:
ammonia 0
nitrites 0
nitrates 5
phosphate 0.03
ph 7.8
kh 8
salt level 1.026
tank temp: 78

Lights out for 3 days, vacuum/siphon/scrub with toothbrush and add snails such as nerite, cerith, margarita, astrea and a few blue leg hermit crabs- Carribean version

 

[Sleeping Giant]

My light is the noo-psyche K7 Mini. Initially, I was running it with 5% white, 40% blue, 40% purple. Later, I reduced it to 5% white, 30% blue, 30% purple. I am currently running it at 0% white, 20% blue, 15% purple.

good idea keeping the white off, I did the same thing. it's way to powerful with the whites on even a little bit

 

[Uncle99]

Phosphate running at 0.03ppm may also be zero with margin of error. This condition, over time, will starve everyone in your system.

You’ll also need more time for increased population and diversity of your good guy algae’s and bacteria, which in part, feed our corals as well.

I’d bump phosphate to .1ppm and nothing else, let it mature up a bit more.