Blooming123
New Member
- Joined
- Feb 2, 2019
- Messages
- 18
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- 47
Tank pics before starting any work. I’m embarrassed to show these....
Hubby and I started a 75 gallon fowlr saltwater tank back in 2004. It soon grew into a 120 gallon with 55 gallon sump. We progressed slowly from live rock and fish to snails and crabs, then added a few softies and LPS. Then in 2011 we had twin boys. Our time and funding for the tank decreased. We kept up water changes, but only monthly. Lighting was changed only when bulbs burnt out, ro/di went way too long between filter changes, and no fish or coral was added for several years. The few fish we had slowly passed on with age. About 2 years ago hubby lost his job for almost a year. Funding dried up completely. Then around that time our last and oldest fish, a coral beauty from 2005, decided to make a break for it. Sadly we found it dried to the floor after a long weekend away. The tank then sat as is until about a month ago. Only task completed regularly was topping it off as we soon ran out of salt mix and it was food for us or salt for the tank. The lack of life in the tank left us with little motivation to change things. The lighting was down to 1 actinic bulb and a half functioning metal halide. Not the way to keep a tank running. Now thankfully hubby has a great job and after a year of paying off our debts, we have funds to restart the tank.
The “progress,” hard to tell, but it has improved.
So far, I have done 3 large water changes of around 25-30 gallons each separated by 1-2 days plus weekly 10-15 gallon water changes. I added a few snails and hermit crabs to get a start on the algae. We added new lighting with 4 LED 165w lightimetunnel fixtures, new RO/DI, and a new reef octopus 150 EXT skimmer that will get installed next week. Hair algae is starting to brown and is covered with cyano. Been picking away at it also and it seems to be decreasing. Was hoping the clean up crew would be enough. Wishful thinking I know . I will have to pull rocks out of the tank and start scrubbing. I have been watching my phos and nitrates thinking they would start to spike as the hair algae dies off, but I’m pretty sure the cyano that’s taken over my sump and is growing on the hair algae is taking up the nutrients as my phos was zero and nitrates were between 0 and 5 ppm, barely any color change. Used brand new salifert test kits so I believe they are correct. Salinity 1.024-1.025. New ATO should help keep this more stable. As a side project, we also restated the 75 gallon with saltwater. It’s 2 weeks into cycling. Will use it as QT/hospital and eventually Fowlr tank.
Will post again once clean up is more complete. Also, will need to figure out how to set the lights for photos. Hubby set them up as I’m not tech savvy.
RB
Hubby and I started a 75 gallon fowlr saltwater tank back in 2004. It soon grew into a 120 gallon with 55 gallon sump. We progressed slowly from live rock and fish to snails and crabs, then added a few softies and LPS. Then in 2011 we had twin boys. Our time and funding for the tank decreased. We kept up water changes, but only monthly. Lighting was changed only when bulbs burnt out, ro/di went way too long between filter changes, and no fish or coral was added for several years. The few fish we had slowly passed on with age. About 2 years ago hubby lost his job for almost a year. Funding dried up completely. Then around that time our last and oldest fish, a coral beauty from 2005, decided to make a break for it. Sadly we found it dried to the floor after a long weekend away. The tank then sat as is until about a month ago. Only task completed regularly was topping it off as we soon ran out of salt mix and it was food for us or salt for the tank. The lack of life in the tank left us with little motivation to change things. The lighting was down to 1 actinic bulb and a half functioning metal halide. Not the way to keep a tank running. Now thankfully hubby has a great job and after a year of paying off our debts, we have funds to restart the tank.
The “progress,” hard to tell, but it has improved.
So far, I have done 3 large water changes of around 25-30 gallons each separated by 1-2 days plus weekly 10-15 gallon water changes. I added a few snails and hermit crabs to get a start on the algae. We added new lighting with 4 LED 165w lightimetunnel fixtures, new RO/DI, and a new reef octopus 150 EXT skimmer that will get installed next week. Hair algae is starting to brown and is covered with cyano. Been picking away at it also and it seems to be decreasing. Was hoping the clean up crew would be enough. Wishful thinking I know . I will have to pull rocks out of the tank and start scrubbing. I have been watching my phos and nitrates thinking they would start to spike as the hair algae dies off, but I’m pretty sure the cyano that’s taken over my sump and is growing on the hair algae is taking up the nutrients as my phos was zero and nitrates were between 0 and 5 ppm, barely any color change. Used brand new salifert test kits so I believe they are correct. Salinity 1.024-1.025. New ATO should help keep this more stable. As a side project, we also restated the 75 gallon with saltwater. It’s 2 weeks into cycling. Will use it as QT/hospital and eventually Fowlr tank.
Will post again once clean up is more complete. Also, will need to figure out how to set the lights for photos. Hubby set them up as I’m not tech savvy.
RB
