Saving a Innovative Marine 30L

AmyBolton

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Background

I started the hobby a couple of years ago starting with a JBJ 45 AIO. We have done a lot of moving in the past couple of years so I went down to a Waterbox 20, and now a Waterbox 25, which is my current display tank. Will be moving into our long term house next year where I will upgrade to a Waterbox 105.4 FRAG. I got the opportunity to grab this Innovative Marine 30L for FREE.. with lights, pumps, and other equipment. The catch was it was completely overrun with algae.

My goal was to get this back up and running, with the Clownfish that came with the tank, recover as much coral as I can that was in the tank, snails, rock etc. I will eventually move more coral into this tank and have another tank going.. why not!..

Also this is my first build thread.. was going to start with my Waterbox 105.4 but figured I would document this journey even if its just for my own satisfaction.

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Tank Setup

The equipment that I have put back in the tank
  • Innovative Marine 30L
  • AI Prime 16HD
  • Stock Protein Skimmer (NuvoSkim)
  • 2 Return Pumps (Unsure on brand)
  • 2 Eheim JAGER heaters
  • AutoAqua ATO
  • x1 MP10
Other
  • AI Prime 16HD on the way to add to the first
  • Changed filter socks to filter floss
  • Added Caribsea 20lb of sand that I found on Amazon (My usual was out of stock so figured it see how this goes)
(Ignore the mess, half dressed child and the mess of a house, still waiting to be able to move into ours)





Aquascape

The original tank was a wall of rock, I have nothing against this, however it is just not my style so I will be changing it to a more Habitat Negative Space Aquascape style arrangement (HNSA). During the clean up of algae I broke rocks, and tried to frag as much as I could. (Below photo is before)
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Steps

After getting everything back I first set up what I could pull out easily into my old Waterbox 20 that was empty, along with Rick and Morty the clownfish and snails.
I kept all the rock in a Yeti that I transported them back in so I could go through everything and clean.
The tank was deep cleaned and sand added along with new RODI water. Once everything was set up I put Rick and Morty back into their home.

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After breaking pieces of rock that I couldn't salvage, fragging everything I could (90% were zoas), hydrogen peroxide dipping, toothbrush cleaning, everything I could think of I slowly started putting things back in the tank.

Hermits and snails started going to town on anything that I missed, clownfish are back and happy.
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Below is the current situation, I threw on another light until the next Prime comes.
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What's next?

Right now I am waiting for the sand to go through its ugly phase, and parameters to be stable for a couple of weeks. I am currently setting up my Waterbox 20 as a frag tank, so all the frags and rock portions will go in there while I add other aqua scape into the mix, I have lots of ideas with what frags I am going to add into this just trying to be patient and make sure I tackle everything before hand!
Will update as I do things.
Go easy on me.. Im definitely not incredibly knowledgeable at all this yet! Especially trying to get something back from "the dead"
Also need to figure out what to do with the stick.. because I am NOT a stick head.. I prefer my softies. :)
 
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AmyBolton

AmyBolton

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Update: Added in some other coral that I have taking up space in other tanks.. Things seems to be going well and holding steady. Added a tiger conch in there along with a a couple of fish friends for Rick and Morty. Going to let this thing sit for awhile without having my hand in there before adding some more corals.
Phyto has just been set up and ill start pulling out of that Friday to use in all the tanks.

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AmyBolton

AmyBolton

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Update.
entering the Hanna giveaway so thought I’d do the bonus entry!
I use the Hanna phosphate and alkalinity tests.
today they were 10.1 and 0.06 :)
 
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