Reviving a 12 gallon aquarium

starfishguy869

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So I just got back from vacation and noticed that my tank kind of looked like a dumpster fire, and I thought I’d share how I revamped everything.

IMG_2879.jpeg


Problems:
My ATO ran dry for 5 days
My aquarium has a salinity of over 1.032
The Return pump has failed
My alkalinity has dropped massively
There is a bunch of crusty algae growing everywhere

My corals were brought to the LFS and I only left a GSP and some Pocillopora.
Luckily, nothing died except for a snail. ):
I got a few pieces of equipment from an LFS including a dosing pump, a Jebao pump, and a Zoox algae scraper.

I started by wiping all the algae off the glass. Then I started slowly adjusting my salinity. Over the course of 1 day, I dropped the salinity to 1.026. I filled up the ATO and started mixing some fresh saltwater today. While that was happening, I tested the alkalinity and calcium and found out that the alkalinity had dropped by 3 dKH and my calcium had dropped by 225 ppm. Because the aquarium contains barely anything, I decided to raise the alkalinity over 3 days and the calcium over 2 days. I also don’t have any new saltwater so I will do a 2/3 water change once my saltwater mixed completely. I will update tomorrow.
 
How is your tank doing now?
 
It's great, I got all my corals back.
 

WHAT KIND OF SUBSTRATE ARE YOU RUNNING ON YOUR TANK?

  • Bare bottom

    Votes: 6 21.4%
  • A shallow bed of fine sand

    Votes: 7 25.0%
  • A shallow bed of coarser sand

    Votes: 6 21.4%
  • A deep sand bed

    Votes: 3 10.7%
  • Mixed substrate or varying sand depth

    Votes: 6 21.4%
  • Some other substrate (posted in the comments)

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • I don’t have a reef tank yet

    Votes: 0 0.0%
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