Post-nuclear scenerios

[Anonymous]

Well, I did it. I knocked down my 6 year old reef tank today. There wasn't much left apart from the aiptasia. I moved the fish, saved what corals I could, and dismantled the rest. My deep sand bed did not smell like a deep bed of roses. The aiptasia had won, and there was nothing left for the vultures.

So now that I have moved it out, I am on the verge of ditching the hobby at home. My fish are in other tanks at work now.

But assuming I start anew, I'd like to get some advice on what to do. Based on previous posts and people's advice, I am thinking along the following:

Replace the 55gal acrylic with a 75 gal. acrylic (Our place is small; this is an upper bound). I don't want glass.

Replace compact fluorescents with HQIs.

Little to no substrate.

Large sump with in-line skimmer.

New rock. Possibly use old stuff as base rock, although I kind of hate it enough to pay for new rock.


Anyway, without breaking the bank, I'd like to avoid all the mistakes I made the first time around.

Suggestions for everything are more than welcome.

The previous and eventual ichthio-inhabitants are:

purple tang
blue tang
pair of maroons

Surviving corals are all soft. I will move them back in as soon as I am convinced they don't harbor aiptasia.

 

[Anonymous]

Maybe you should go fish only for a while and ease back into the reef once the little misses gets used to the idea.

If you do go back with the reef I would take cuttings of the soft corals and get rid of the bases that have rock. Aptasia seem to be able to hide out for a lonf time.

 

[Anonymous]

Well, I think it is the tank, not the contents, that the bitter and twisted hag wants rid of.

 

[trigger0214]

I've manged to keep to my tank aptasia free, but I am very careful.

By careful, I mean that if I find one on a new piece of rock I litterally grab a concrete bit and drill the bugger out. I also, follow the base if it is in tunnel....I then rinse the area several times with RO.....seems to do the trick. :twisted:

P.S. My most recent costly mistake was runing an underated timer for my MH ballasts....that will fry em quick. I grabed an outdoor timer rated for 1000 watt tungsten/0.25 HP motor that I am fairly confident will hold up.... :roll:

 

[WRASSER]

I just take the rock out and burn the aptasia with a lighter, clean off the rock and away we go :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

About 50% of the tank's biomass was aiptasia. When I pulled it apart, I saw why.

 

[Anonymous]

why?

 

[Anonymous]

why?

Yeah...why? DSB?

 

[Anonymous]

When you start back if you see one or two aiptasia's appear, just bury them with superglue, expoxy, or better yet - both. That worked for me and they don't come back from that.

Of course if you have a complete infestation, this isn't practicle.

Little to no substrate.

Bare bottom or faux bottom is the way to go. Do a search for articles by me, righty or comotose for good info about how to do this. You can have higher flow with a BB tank and I beleive that is one key to an algea free tank and one that is less likely to come down with Old Tank Syndrome. My tank is less than a year old, so there is a bit of speculation in my opinion. I'd bet on it though.

Louey

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah, it was piles of gnarly goo in the sand. Is this old tank syndrome? It went from being my pride and joy to a disgusting hellhole in 2 years. I am surprised I didn't kill my fish (and am hoping the trauma of moving them doesn't kill them.)

Righty convinced me, but I didn't realize you had an article too. I will try to read it this weekend. But one quick question:

For cosmetic reasons, I wouldn't mind a little bit of stuff on the bottom. Would it be better to have something fairly course and a lot of water movement, i.e, something that didn't get stirred up when you blast it with a stream of water? I assume the goal here is to keep all detritus out.

 

[Anonymous]

The faux sandbed has sand glued to starboard. It looks quite natural and you don't have to worry about anything getting stirred up. Mine is mostly covered in coraline algea now. It looks great. I think I have some pics of it with coraline in my BB thread or maybe in my 300G thread in my sig.

Yeah, it was piles of gnarly goo in the sand. Is this old tank syndrome? It went from being my pride and joy to a disgusting hellhole in 2 years.

Probably so. High flow helps prevent this.

I have been storming my tank with powerheads for the last couple of days just to try and get "stuff" that settles on the rock, under the rock, and even on corals, stirred up. My fish aren't happy, but I hope that by really storming the tank good a few times a year, I can keep a clean tank that is less likey to have problems.

Louey

 

[trigger0214]

Would a cucumber help wit the detritus?

 

[Anonymous]

Would a cucumber help wit the detritus?

I had two. And I still have a brittle star from 7 years ago (!!) when I first set it up.

These things help, but I think several months of neglect while I was in England tipped it over the edge.

The water flow got worse every year, I had more kids, spent less time on maintenance, empty snail shells piled up, etc, etc etc. It is hard to blame one thing.