ariellemermaid
Well-Known Member
Following hurricane Helene our 200 gallon Red Sea Reefer XXL 750 has been a disaster. Our tangs died and with that came an insane amount of algae, cyano, etc. (and neglect, given everything). On the plus side, my pest paly’s have been beaten back. I’ve got some healthy planted mushrooms, zoas, and small livestock (2 clowns, 8 damselfish, 3 gobies and a pistol shrimp, inverts). To be fair, the cyano we’ve battled for years; Chemiclean beats it back for a little while but it always comes back despite good parameters. We’ve never been able to keep SPS alive long term either in this tank, or in the 20g coral QT despite perfect parameters and good par. It’s been a frustrating 5 year long hobby, and we’ve never had the successes we wanted (large branching acro’s, etc.). It’s just gone from ok to outright bad.
I’ve been brushing the rocks and a lot of filtering, but there’s just so much debris left in the tank. Everything I stir up ends up reattaching to rocks, sand, etc.
However, we’re also possibly looking at changing houses soon across town, so I’m looking for advice for a game plan. I have 2x 20g QT tanks that should be able to house the fish and surviving corals for a little while.
Either way, should we just go scorched earth on the copious live rock and bleach or acid bath everything? On the one hand I hate to lose all my bio filtration, but on the other I feel like this tank needs a complete reset. And, my livestock biomass isn’t that big for such a large tank. How long would I need to plan for soaking the rock?
In addition to that, my sump’s refugium gate brackets have released from the glass. If I try to re-silicone those back in, what kind of cure time would I be looking at? Should I consider a sump renovation and adding a rollermat? My hesitation has been 1) it requires permanent, destructive removal of the filter sock holders and 2) I don’t love the idea of being locked into relatively costly proprietary fleece rolls for life (vs. now I have the option of felt socks, mesh bags, filter cups with polyfill, etc.).
Should we consider upgrading or downgrading the tank? We bought into the idea that more water volume = easier success and more stability. Well, we’ve achieved stability for years and still had the same failures we had in a 40g tank. The additional challenges with this tank have been that large water changes are difficult, and maintaining/cleaning is challenging when the glass is 2 feet deep; I can barely even reach the bottom.
Lots of different topics brought up here. So if you had a tank in this situation and possibly have the opportunity to start over, what would your plan be?
(LED lighting set to white-ish)
I’ve been brushing the rocks and a lot of filtering, but there’s just so much debris left in the tank. Everything I stir up ends up reattaching to rocks, sand, etc.
However, we’re also possibly looking at changing houses soon across town, so I’m looking for advice for a game plan. I have 2x 20g QT tanks that should be able to house the fish and surviving corals for a little while.
Either way, should we just go scorched earth on the copious live rock and bleach or acid bath everything? On the one hand I hate to lose all my bio filtration, but on the other I feel like this tank needs a complete reset. And, my livestock biomass isn’t that big for such a large tank. How long would I need to plan for soaking the rock?
In addition to that, my sump’s refugium gate brackets have released from the glass. If I try to re-silicone those back in, what kind of cure time would I be looking at? Should I consider a sump renovation and adding a rollermat? My hesitation has been 1) it requires permanent, destructive removal of the filter sock holders and 2) I don’t love the idea of being locked into relatively costly proprietary fleece rolls for life (vs. now I have the option of felt socks, mesh bags, filter cups with polyfill, etc.).
Should we consider upgrading or downgrading the tank? We bought into the idea that more water volume = easier success and more stability. Well, we’ve achieved stability for years and still had the same failures we had in a 40g tank. The additional challenges with this tank have been that large water changes are difficult, and maintaining/cleaning is challenging when the glass is 2 feet deep; I can barely even reach the bottom.
Lots of different topics brought up here. So if you had a tank in this situation and possibly have the opportunity to start over, what would your plan be?
(LED lighting set to white-ish)
