Secondhand AIO recommendations

[Dave Forrester]

Hi all , just after a few suggestions as to what ‘you’ would do in my situation .

To give a quick summary I’ve decided to have a go on the salty side after keeping tropical for over 20 years , so I scoured my local ads and fleabay for a secondhand tank , finally settling on a 94 litre Resun all in one that a guy locally has had running for the last two years successfully , it came with all the hardware (I’ve upgraded the skimmer to the fluval PS1 as the original Kent skimmer was tiny and noisy) plus 10kg of live rock and approx 5kg of what looks like coral sand. I got it all back home (only short journey and transported the rock in water filled buckets and put the saltwater in barrels) and set it all back up again. I’ve had it running for just over a week now to check out what little beasties are lurking in the rock and sand before going any further .
Right , now down to the questions (finally I hear you sigh ) , so far I’ve come across -
2 feather dusters
Approx 6 bristle worms
A pest anemone (identified in another of my threads)
20+ tiny starfish ( I know what the name is but minds gone blank )
And 5-6 Rissoid snails (positively ID’d )

SO ...... in my position would you -
A - dip the rock and wash the sand in RO water and start from scratch ?
B - Dip the rock in RO and give the sand a good sifting while still in tank ?
C - Discard rock and sand and start with new (although new rock stands a chance of hitchhikers )
D - Treat each pest independently prior to adding any livestock etc to the tank and try and keep as much of the rock and sand ‘live’ as possible ?

Sorry for the large post but thought I’d just put it out there and see what the general consensus was amongst you more experienced reefers

 

[kyleinpdx]

Personally I'd prioritize maintaining as much biodiversity as possible, a tank thats been setup for 2 years will have a good biological filter and plenty of other useful organisms. The feather dusters arent pests, keep them around, many of us pay for their larger cousins. The pest anemone is probably aiptasia or a majano, if you only have a few its no big deal. Dap some super glue gel on them or cover them with reef putty and they'll die off. The bristle worms are also good to have around, in large numbers they can get unslightly but wont hurt anything, a useful scavenger. The biggest issue with the organisms you've listed might be the pyramid snails but thats only if youre going to be keeping clams.

If the sand bed wasnt cleaned properly for the past two years it probably contains a ton of detritus and harmful organics that will get stirred up during the move. These should show up in high nitrates and phosphates. Id suggest checking those to see where you're at before deciding whether or not to keep the sand or replace it with new. If your phosphates arent super high I would absolutely leave the rocks as is, outside of possibly scrubbing them down in a separate container of saltwater.

 

[Dave Forrester]

Thanks for the info , was leaning more towards protecting whatever good was in there and just dealing with the pests one at a time but just thought I’d see what other opinions were out there from more experienced saltwater aquarists

Attached a pic of the tiny snails in question just in case anyone can 100% ID them (not the best pic but they are really tiny )