Tank rehab with large peroxide dip

[scrib 2024]

So my tank is about 4 years old and been severely neglected the last year. Divorce and life. No cleanup crew left no corals or inverts. One 4 year old clown. Had massive thick red and green slime algae covering everything. Don’t think I had done a water change in the last year. Possibly a year and a half


Sunday broke the tank down. Put the clown in a temporary tank with old water. Pulled the rock out. Scrubbed it all hard with a stiff brush in the sink in fresh water, soaked it all in a 5 gallon bucket with about a 2-1 mix of saltwater and peroxide. For 2.5 hrs with an old power head to keep the water circulating.


While the live rock was soaking mixed the sand bed well with my hands and drained the old salt water sucking up anything I could. Scrubbed the glass and just removed anything I could. Water was nasty brown with all the debris in the sand

Washed the rock in fresh water after the soak in peroxide, and put back in clean saltwater with the power head another 4 hrs to clean and cycle the peroxide out

Re stacked the rock, added 90%-95% fresh saltwater. One powerhead was broken and one not working well so upgraded them to
https://a.co/d/7kvA1TX
Light has been an issue so upgraded that today
https://a.co/d/5zTBYqo
Added a small CUC. 6 Astrea snails and 6 blue leg hermits, 1 nassurius snail, and a 3lb peace of fresh live rock to help seed the existing after the dip and clean

Expecting a cycle but so far so good, third day since I cleaned it


Tank is a 20x20 cube 35g, live sand, about 30lbs of live rock, Fluval 207 canister with the Fluval UV sterilizer, SMATFARM 140x led reef light

Sorry don’t have a before photo. But it was so bad you could not find the fish in the tank

 

[JumboShrimp]

Sounds like you have achieved a good sense of accomplishment. Two Thumps Up!

 

[BryanM]

Congrats on the restart!

 

[Mark82]

Good job bro. Life gets us all at times. I’ll be following along.

 

[scrib 2024]

So the one week update. The cycle I was expecting started Thursday and is in full swing today Sunday. Diatoms started and are on the lower 1/4 of the glass and here and there on the sand. I don’t bother testing till they are gone. My salinity was way off tested 1.031 so have been slowly bringing that down little bit at a time since Thursday. Evreytubg seems healthy and happy and eating well. So we will see how she looks next week also don’t 100% my refractometer it’s old so new one arrived tomorrow


Anyway one week pic update too

 

[scrib 2024]

Week 2 update. Tank is clean, Diatoms diapered Monday. Did a small topoff i am only loosing about a gallon a week at this point and added one small coral that seems to be opening up and doing well CUC is happy and plugging along Nemo is happy and eating well

 

[scrib 2024]

Also this app is really helping for taking better reef photos l, I have an older iPhone 10 and under the led’s it’s all washed out dark blue otherwise There are adjustments as well I have not figured those out yet

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/silkypix-aqua/id1631478332

 

[scrib 2024]

And it was 50% water day at my LFS so filled all my jugs. Just buying plain rodi and still mixing my own salt for my water changes. Have 10g fresh and 10g mixed salt in the closet now

For what it is worth. For any new reefer have enough water to do a 50% water change always on had and enough fresh and salt to be able to mix and do a second 50%. Within hours When in doubt a couple big water changes can save your backside

 

[scrib 2024]

So Sunday week 3 update. Did not do much this week. Did my first water change. 5g for a 25g system Changed to rodi for fresh water tipoffs and water changes. Water bright and clean evreything seems happy lost a couple snails to the clown being aggressive but that seems to have settled down after they moved into the rock work, Danton’s gone, algae growth minimal Still don’t have a skimmer yet that is this weeks goal