Marine Iguana
Active Member
Howdy all!
I’m in the process of planning a reboot of my 65 gallon reef. If I’m being honest, the tank has been neglected over the past 2 years as I’ve been in college, but it’s managed to still look good as I shifted mainly to softies and kept stocking pretty light. However, this summer I was away on a missions trip for 6 weeks, during which my family was taking care of the tank. Long story short, my mother became incredibly ill two weeks into my trip and had to be hospitalized. My dad spent most of the time caring for her, and neglected the tank while I was gone. I came back to find that my custom LED’s had burnt out, most of my corals had died, and all but one of my fish were missing. Most of my motivation to get the tank back to where it was before was gone, and so the tank has sat in the dark for the past 5 months. I’ve topped off the water when the sump level gets low, but besides that, I haven’t touched the tank.
I have decided that rather than tear down the tank and exit the hobby that I’m going to try to reboot the tank. I ordered a replacement light, and will be trying an Aqua Mars fixture (first time dabbling in anything other than T5’s or Custom LED’s). My question for you is, what should I do to properly reboot this tank?
I’ve thought of removing the corals that have been hanging on (mainly a few polyps, some leathers, and one resilient mini carpet anemone), and baking the rocks- or do you think this is overkill? I also thought about replacing the sand bed, but I don’t know if this will do more harm than good?
My main concern is doing something that will drastically affect the tank, because my banded serpent star and Yellow Sea cucumber, which have been with me over 5 years, managed to hang on, and I want to make sure that the reboot won’t kill them. Is simply doing a few large body water changes going to fix the tank, even if it’s been pretty neglected?
Any and all advice are welcome. Thanks for being understanding and helping me re-enter the community.
I’m in the process of planning a reboot of my 65 gallon reef. If I’m being honest, the tank has been neglected over the past 2 years as I’ve been in college, but it’s managed to still look good as I shifted mainly to softies and kept stocking pretty light. However, this summer I was away on a missions trip for 6 weeks, during which my family was taking care of the tank. Long story short, my mother became incredibly ill two weeks into my trip and had to be hospitalized. My dad spent most of the time caring for her, and neglected the tank while I was gone. I came back to find that my custom LED’s had burnt out, most of my corals had died, and all but one of my fish were missing. Most of my motivation to get the tank back to where it was before was gone, and so the tank has sat in the dark for the past 5 months. I’ve topped off the water when the sump level gets low, but besides that, I haven’t touched the tank.
I have decided that rather than tear down the tank and exit the hobby that I’m going to try to reboot the tank. I ordered a replacement light, and will be trying an Aqua Mars fixture (first time dabbling in anything other than T5’s or Custom LED’s). My question for you is, what should I do to properly reboot this tank?
I’ve thought of removing the corals that have been hanging on (mainly a few polyps, some leathers, and one resilient mini carpet anemone), and baking the rocks- or do you think this is overkill? I also thought about replacing the sand bed, but I don’t know if this will do more harm than good?
My main concern is doing something that will drastically affect the tank, because my banded serpent star and Yellow Sea cucumber, which have been with me over 5 years, managed to hang on, and I want to make sure that the reboot won’t kill them. Is simply doing a few large body water changes going to fix the tank, even if it’s been pretty neglected?
Any and all advice are welcome. Thanks for being understanding and helping me re-enter the community.
