odyssey350kc
New Member
Hi Everyone, I am new to the forum and decided to start my own tank thread.
I posted last week about advise on what to do on my 8 year old reef tank that has been slowly failing for the past 4 years or so. After hearing what everyone had to say, combined with the history of my tank I decided the only way for me to be 100% sure that there is nothing in my rock or water causing my issues was to start fresh, so here we go.
I set up my old 20 long on the tv stand next to my tank, siphoned about half of the water out of the 40 breeder into the 20 long and transferred all of the fish, coral and about half the rock. Luckily I never throw anything away so I didn't have to buy anything to set up the 20 again.
I took the rest of the rock out and placed it in a bucket with bleach and water. Then I used an old cat litter scoop to get all the snails and hermits out of the sand. Turns out i only had 2 snails and 1 hermit crab left. Pretty surprising considering how many I put in there over the years. You can see in the picture how disgustingly filthy the sand was.
After the tank and sump were completely drained and emptied the next step was to tear out my old tank stand. I had used a piece of live edge wood braced with steel angle iron, and over the years the wood had warped to the point you could slide a quarter under the tank, and I felt that it would probably crack if given the right tap. The steel bracing had also rusted heavily in spots and I wanted to raise the tank a few more inches to get more clearance in the sump area.
My plan is to finish bleaching out my old rock and use that combined with some new dry rock to rescape the tank. When I'm done with that I will be doing a fishless cycle using Brightwell aquatics - microbacter dry rock starter kit.
I am undecided on whether or not to get a new LED fixture, my maxspect razor is coming up on 9 years old and I am wondering if I should just go all out and buy a new led to eliminate the light as a potential coral growing problem. If yes, What light would you recommend for a mixed reef, If everything goes right I will be leaning more towards SPS.
![20200926_125938[1].jpg](https://www.reef2reef.com/attachments/20200926_125938-1-jpg.1805836/ "20200926_125938[1].jpg")
![20200927_154844[1].jpg](https://www.reef2reef.com/attachments/20200927_154844-1-jpg.1805837/ "20200927_154844[1].jpg")
![20200928_070558[1].jpg](https://www.reef2reef.com/attachments/20200928_070558-1-jpg.1805839/ "20200928_070558[1].jpg")
I posted last week about advise on what to do on my 8 year old reef tank that has been slowly failing for the past 4 years or so. After hearing what everyone had to say, combined with the history of my tank I decided the only way for me to be 100% sure that there is nothing in my rock or water causing my issues was to start fresh, so here we go.
I set up my old 20 long on the tv stand next to my tank, siphoned about half of the water out of the 40 breeder into the 20 long and transferred all of the fish, coral and about half the rock. Luckily I never throw anything away so I didn't have to buy anything to set up the 20 again.
I took the rest of the rock out and placed it in a bucket with bleach and water. Then I used an old cat litter scoop to get all the snails and hermits out of the sand. Turns out i only had 2 snails and 1 hermit crab left. Pretty surprising considering how many I put in there over the years. You can see in the picture how disgustingly filthy the sand was.
After the tank and sump were completely drained and emptied the next step was to tear out my old tank stand. I had used a piece of live edge wood braced with steel angle iron, and over the years the wood had warped to the point you could slide a quarter under the tank, and I felt that it would probably crack if given the right tap. The steel bracing had also rusted heavily in spots and I wanted to raise the tank a few more inches to get more clearance in the sump area.
My plan is to finish bleaching out my old rock and use that combined with some new dry rock to rescape the tank. When I'm done with that I will be doing a fishless cycle using Brightwell aquatics - microbacter dry rock starter kit.
I am undecided on whether or not to get a new LED fixture, my maxspect razor is coming up on 9 years old and I am wondering if I should just go all out and buy a new led to eliminate the light as a potential coral growing problem. If yes, What light would you recommend for a mixed reef, If everything goes right I will be leaning more towards SPS.
