Restarting Abandoned Tank

[joefishtank]

I pretty much quit reef keeping but I kept my tank running since it had animals in it. As of now it has a bunch of limpets, aiptasia and two mushrooms that somehow survived.

My plan is to do a water change and add some cheap frags. I want to start off with a montipora and some kind of soft coral. What would you do if you were starting fresh with this tank?

 

[JumboShrimp]

Are all the rocks loose, where you could pull them out of the tank one by one and hit them with Joe's Juice or Aptasia-X and handle the problem now, before you get further into your rehab?

 

[TX_REEF]

How big is the tank? With aptasia as a factor, you need to eliminate that first before you do anything else. If it isn’t a massive tank, it would probably be easier to just restart from scratch. In fact, even if it is a big tank, starting fresh is probably easier than clearing out an established aiptasia infestation.

 

[joefishtank]

Are all the rocks loose, where you could pull them out of the tank one by one and hit them with Joe's Juice or Aptasia-X and handle the problem now, before you get further into your rehab?

How big is the tank? With aptasia as a factor, you need to eliminate that first before you do anything else. If it isn’t a massive tank, it would probably be easier to just restart from scratch. In fact, even if it is a big tank, starting fresh is probably easier than clearing out an established aiptasia infestation.

Its a small tank and I can easily take the rocks out. Is aiptasia really that bad? One of the aiptasia is the oldest animal in the tank and right now he isn't hurting anything so I don't feel like killing him for no reason. My plan was to get an aiptasia eating nudibranch if they took over the tank.

 

[TX_REEF]

Its a small tank and I can easily take the rocks out. Is aiptasia really that bad? One of the aiptasia is the oldest animal in the tank and right now he isn't hurting anything so I don't feel like killing him for no reason. My plan was to get an aiptasia eating nudibranch if they took over the tank.

if you don't intend to keep corals, aiptasia aren't a problem if you don't mind how they look. If you do intend to keep corals, get rid of them in advance, because they can damage and kill coral as they inevitably take over your tank.

 

[DaJMasta]

I don't think they're the end of the world, but the aiptasia will be easiest to address before other stuff is in. If you go the berghia direction, being able to run really low flow (bad for corals) is good for them. Otherwise, a few peppermint shrimp will do the job but will only be good at it if not fed much (not ideal with other livestock). Otherwise if you have the space, an aiptasia eating filefish or a copperband could both do a good job managing them (will never get the ones in crevices or plumbing), but both have some chance of nipping LPS.

 

[joefishtank]

I used a peppermint shrimp at first but the aiptasia that came with my live rock was too big for it and it also survived a filefish by hiding in a hole. I just bought some coral but theres a lot of empty space so I don't think they are going to get stung any time soon.

 

[JumboShrimp]

Again, in my humble opinion, if you want to clean up the tank in your photo before embarking on a new coral journey, now is the best time to kill those Aptasia.

In the little 20 gallon coral tank I keep, just to fool around with, all my rocks are loose. Now I will only get an occasional Aptasia once in a great while, and I will pick that rock out and put it in a bucket with some tank water and shoot the Aptasia with Joe's juice until it implodes. Then I swish the rock around in the bucket and put the rock right back in my tank. Easy-Peezy.

 

[joefishtank]

Again, in my humble opinion, if you want to clean up the tank in your photo before embarking on a new coral journey, now is the best time to kill those Aptasia.

In the little 20 gallon coral tank I keep, just to fool around with, all my rocks are loose. Now I will only get an occasional Aptasia once in a great while, and I will pick that rock out and put it in a bucket with some tank water and shoot the Aptasia with Joe's juice until it implodes. Then I swish the rock around in the bucket and put the rock right back in my tank. Easy-Peezy.

I get where you're coming from. I already had to kill two that were next to where I put this frag or at least try to kill it since I don't have any medicine.

I'll probably get a peppermint shrimp to handle things for the most part.

 

[JumboShrimp]

Make sure your LFS sells "true" Peppermints. Keep us posted. .

 

[BryanM]

Keeping aiptasia in check is usually a hard task.

 

[Biokabe]

Take it from me:

Before you go any further with this tank, do everything you can to absolutely nuke any and all aiptasia in your tank. Pull the rocks out of the tank if you need to. If you have the opportunity to get rid of aiptasia without dealing with an active tank, TAKE IT.

You may say to yourself that the aiptasia isn't hurting anything. It will. The only reason they haven't spread across every inch of your tank yet is that you likely haven't been feeding and maintaining the tank. Once you start doing so to support whatever life is in your tank, they will absolutely explode and cover every open spot in your tank. Berghia won't take care of it. Peppermints won't take care of it. An aiptasia-eating filefish won't take care of it. A copperband butterfly might, but your tank doesn't look nearly large enough for one of those.

I say this because, well, it's happened to me on more than one occasion. Once an aiptasia infestation takes hold with large aiptasia, it is very difficult to remove them, and large aiptasia can even kill fish (I lost a purple firefish to a large aiptasia).

So. Take the rocks out of the tank. Treat any aiptasia with kalk paste. Let them sit for 15-20 minutes. Then, using reef epoxy or superglue, cover their holes to seal them in. Rinse the rocks off, and then replace them in your tank. Ideally, do all the rocks at once to prevent re-infestation.

As an extreme measure you can cook your rocks in muriatic acid, but that will absolutely destroy all life on your rocks, and your rocks actually look pretty good other than the aiptasia. I wouldn't want to lose that if it were my tank.

 

[sjfishguy]

Just drain the tank, dry out the rockss for a few weeks, and start over. No need to deal with that mess right there

 

[Kingsley_Reef]

Curious what you parameters are at where it sits

 

[joefishtank]

People seem to hate aiptasia for some reason. I feel like I should try to murder them all since it's what everyone else wants. I could eradicate them but I'm keeping one of them as a pet lol

 

[joefishtank]

Curious what you parameters are at where it sits

I don't know I haven't tested it. It sat for more than a year without water changes I just added RO water to it. I did like 80% water change with coral pro salt.

 

[joefishtank]

Just drain the tank, dry out the rockss for a few weeks, and start over. No need to deal with that mess right there

I'm continuing the tank instead of starting over

 

[Kingsley_Reef]

I don't know I haven't tested it. It sat for more than a year without water changes I just added RO water to it. I did like 80% water change with coral pro salt.

A year with lights on also?

 

[joefishtank]

A year with lights on also?

Kind of at first I was using the light but it got a lot of salt on it and became dim so I turned it off a few months ago so it was only getting sunlight from a window

 

[joefishtank]

Checked a bunch of lfs’s and got a chalice frag. I’m checking new stock on Sunday and if they don’t have anything I’ll probably grab some lepto frags if they still have them and a peppermint shrimp and that’ll be my first batch of livestock