Water Parameters for 7 year old tank.

[gstraw]

Hi there. I have a 75 gallon tank approx 7 years old. Only have I trigger in tank,no cleanup crew at all as Tigs is very aggressive.
10 gallon sump. Don’t run a skimmer as it broke a year ago. Have been running a bit of carbon and some Seachem Phoschem periodically.
Tank is very clear,no smell whatsoever and my leather corals are doing awesome.
except for the Aiptasia out of control all is well. Have been sick for last 6 mos so wife has been doing 10 to12 gallon water changes every week.
here are the tank parameter.
salinity 1.25 digital tester
ammonia zero Aquaforest test
nitrates pretty high 50 or more kind of ofor Chart,very hard to Read, Aquaforest test
Phosphates
hanna .24 but reagent is quite a bit expired.
aquaforest PO4.05 -.07 again very hard to read
aquaforest P .016 -.023 not sure what difference is between po4 and p.
Attached a couple pics of tank.
amjust asking if anyone thinks this is ok for age of tank. Have a new tank and stand coming This week.
am not planning. On using anything from old tank whatsoever because I don’t want the Aiptasia back.
May try an save corals. With a dip or may just rehire,not sure what to do there?
thanks for any advise

 

[Glenner’sreef]

I would start completely over with new rock. It doesn’t look like you have too much anyhow. Maybe trade in at lfs. If you like your leather corals, cut one or more of them off 1” above the rock they’re attached to and mount onto new rock. Who knows maybe time to trade trigger in on 2/3 new reef safe fish and expand your reef. Either way, looks like you’ve taken good care of things. Good luck and Happy New Year.

 

[brandon429]

that is a really great setup, I'd love to have that, excellent. no need to change course at all.

 

[gstraw]

I would start completely over with new rock. It doesn’t look like you have too much anyhow. Maybe trade in at lfs. If you like your leather corals, cut one or more of them off 1” above the rock they’re attached to and mount onto new rock. Who knows maybe time to trade trigger in on 2/3 new reef safe fish and expand your reef. Either way, looks like you’ve taken good care of things. Good luck and Happy New Year.

Thank you. Yes i am going try and find a way to save my Leathers for new tanknor will rehkme them. Juat super paranoid about spending a ton of cashbon new tanknand getting aiptasia right away.. All was going really well until the aiptasia outbreak and i got sick and couldnt pay as much attention to tank as k would have liked.

 

[gstraw]

that is a really great setup, I'd love to have that, excellent. no need to change course at all.

Thank you for your advise much appreciated

 

[brandon429]

hey do you keep extra surface area anywhere else in the tank beyond just that live rock and sand, such as floss packed somewhere or a bunch of bioballs packed in somewhere

 

[gstraw]

hey do you keep extra surface area anywhere else in the tank beyond just that live rock and sand, such as floss packed somewhere or a bunch of bioballs packed in somewhere

I used to have quite a bit more live rock. Was the real live rock when i got the tank 7 years ago. Used to have a couple decent sized ones in my sump but when the aiptasia started taking over about a year ago and i couldnt afford to keepbup with uaing aiptasia x i gave up and just moved rock from sump to main tank. A i have is 2 really small pcs in sump beside the 2 left in tank. Run a filter sock that change every 2 days. Other than that nothing.
Had a flood about a month ago when overflow failed thats why getting a whole new tank through insurance.

 

[Glenner’sreef]

There are ways to eliminate aptasias!!! My favorite is a Copper banded Butterfly fish. A beautiful fish that eats Aptasias. Life is good! Lol

 

[brandon429]

the reason that was a standout detail from the pics is I'd consider that a pretty high bioload tank, that fish isn't easy on the ammonia generation. you have such culled live rock it's nearly a quarter of what most use, I use these examples in tank cleaning threads to show people just how much overdone the live rock is in a given tank. you can reduce the amounts drastically, to negative aquascape levels if wanted, and even heavy fish bioloads are carried

you have some of the lowest surface area to bioload ratios we see daily, and everything is fine for sure in spite of that. I bet you could cull that live rock down by half, in the display, and then remove all the live rock from the sump and it would still run exactly the same ammonia control on a seneye machine that it runs right now

live rock is this powerful, you're still overdone but its not harmful at all. neat to see someone utilizing the benefits of just a little live rock for once, it sure makes tank cleaning easier from a messy eater to not have all the catchpoints. there is benefit in not overdoing live rock surface area twentyfold...and less attachment sources for aiptasia is quite a nice benefit as well.

your rock is not bearded with GHA 100%, it's pretty clean in fact for being in a high bioload setup. very nice reef for those reasons. the corals are healthy, he's not eating them/rare for triggerfish tanks if I'm not wrong. my reef is in a fishbowl so I never get to see many trigger reef setups.

 

[gstraw]

There are ways to eliminate aptasias!!! My favorite is a Copper banded Butterfly fish. A beautiful fish that eats Aptasias. Life is good! Lol

I tried but my trigger has been alone so long he eats anything that moves. Dont want to sacrifice another fish. They are so out of control anyway. Getting whole new set up very soon.

 

[gstraw]

the reason that was a standout detail from the pics is I'd consider that a pretty high bioload tank, that fish isn't easy on the ammonia generation. you have such culled live rock it's nearly a quarter of what most use, I use these examples in tank cleaning threads to show people just how much overdone the live rock is in a given tank. you can reduce the amounts drastically, to negative aquascape levels if wanted, and even heavy fish bioloads are carried

you have some of the lowest surface area to bioload ratios we see daily, and everything is fine for sure in spite of that. I bet you could cull that live rock down by half, in the display, and then remove all the live rock from the sump and it would still run exactly the same ammonia control on a seneye machine that it runs right now

live rock is this powerful, you're still overdone but its not harmful at all. neat to see someone utilizing the benefits of just a little live rock for once, it sure makes tank cleaning easier from a messy eater to not have all the catchpoints. there is benefit in not overdoing live rock surface area twentyfold...and less attachment sources for aiptasia is quite a nice benefit as well.

your rock is not bearded with GHA 100%, it's pretty clean in fact for being in a high bioload setup. very nice reef for those reasons. the corals are healthy, he's not eating them/rare for triggerfish tanks if I'm not wrong. my reef is in a fishbowl so I never get to see many trigger reef setups.

Great advise i really appreciate it. If wasnt for a major flood a month ago i would be takjng other steps but are having all flooring in house replaced so have no choice but to move tank so just going to stary again with a brand new tank and setup. I would have rehomed my Trigger but my wife (and me) love Tigs our trigger so want to keep him. Hes about 10 years old as far as i know bought the setup used 7 years ago so i hope he has 3 or 4 more years left in him.

 

[brandon429]

Very valuable livestock for sure knowing that detail.

When it comes transfer time I would like to plan the job remotely/ free because we use those finished reefs as examples in the official tank transfer thread. For fifty pages we have not lost a single tank, we know how to remotely build a tank transfer and type out the steps customized to the tank at hand. In fact I wouldn't use any other method to transfer that setup because it doesn't come with a fifty page thread you can verify ahead of time.

 

[gstraw]

Very valuable livestock for sure knowing that detail.

When it comes transfer time I would like to plan the job remotely/ free because we use those finished reefs as examples in the official tank transfer thread. For fifty pages we have not lost a single tank, we know how to remotely build a tank transfer and type out the steps customized to the tank at hand. In fact I wouldn't use any other method to transfer that setup because it doesn't come with a fifty page thread you can verify ahead of time.

Oh my. Thank you. I will have to read that thoroughly

 

[brandon429]

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

Don't let that be confusing

Not all of those are tank transfers but 100% of every example does the same steps

Tank transfer folks are in a new tank when they set back up the cloudless new system

Single tank owners there posting for an invasion fix aren't setting back up in a new tank, it's their current tank, but the procedure is the same for every reef in the thread

 

[bushdoc]

I had very similar situation, but my poison was Majanos, which totally took over my 120gal. Started with taking frags of my corals and put them in a small frag tank, then broke tank down, put fish in containers with live rock, heater, powerhead etc.
Cleaned a tank, pumps etc and started with mixture of new dry and live rock. I was watching coral frags for 6 weeks, before I decided that they are majano free. Biggest isue was a Deresa clam, which was covered in majanos. I had to scrub her shell every few days, why in holding tank.
It has been almost 4 months now and my New/Old tank is majano free and doing well.
Good luck with your project.

 

[gstraw]

I had very similar situation, but my poison was Majanos, which totally took over my 120gal. Started with taking frags of my corals and put them in a small frag tank, then broke tank down, put fish in containers with live rock, heater, powerhead etc.
Cleaned a tank, pumps etc and started with mixture of new dry and live rock. I was watching coral frags for 6 weeks, before I decided that they are majano free. Biggest isue was a Deresa clam, which was covered in majanos. I had to scrub her shell every few days, why in holding tank.
It has been almost 4 months now and my New/Old tank is majano free and doing well.
Good luck with your project.

Thank you!

 

[Dkmoo]

Keep those leathers. You'll be surprised how much of your tank's stability and nutrient/waste management is directly controlled by those leathers (A LOT).

I had 1 leather the size of yours in my tank, when I removed it, that alone caused a mini dino outbreak.

 

[KrisReef]

I wonder if Berghia nudibranchs would thrive eating the Aiptasia? I’m not sure if the Trigger would bother with them?

 

[Seansea]

Lol that trigger eats anything that hits the water im sure. He is pretty fat and sassy. Get an algae scrubber. Will out compete your apatasia for nutrients which are prob high because you been feeding tigs quite regularly. Will probably have to clean it alot im guessing but is greatfor nutrient export.