Need some advice.. Migrating Almost (fully?) Crashed Tank.

[Mnemic]

Long Story short.

I Have a 5 Gallon Tank.
Real life kicked me about a year and a half ago.
Left my tank in my sister's care.
Past Year its had 2 Partial Waterchanges, and massive red algea explosion.

I want to correct my mistake now that the tank is back in my possesion, and get things back to a healthy state, or moved into a healthy environment.

the bad:
My tank is overrun by red algea.. covering allmost everything.
some of my corals died.. disapointing.
all my snails are dead. only thing alive that I added is the Fish and Corals.

The Good:
The one fish is alive and kicking (clown). He seems to be doing well. and has grown some.
My Leather corals are doing extremely well. two of them have taken over the left side of the tank. Cabbage leather, and Finger Leather.
Bristleworms appear to be abundant in the tank. They come out of the rock and sand when I feed the tank. I saw some small and medium sized ones.
There are some new growths that I have no clue what they are, but they are there now. Nothing harmful that I can tell, no aptaisa or anything.
Corraline algea is all over as well.

The Unknown:
The Sand (about 2.5-3.5 inches deep) is colored very dark. and spots all over it. I don't know if its healthy or not in the least. My guess is that it is extremely dense with bacteria making it look so dark.

Now I am looking at options for salvaging the tank if its possible, or try to get a new tank setup and migrate as much as I can to the new tank.

The lights are no longer bright, and are very.. Yellow in color, no longer a white light. I had them on a timer for 10 hrs a day light.
I belive I had a 50/50 10000/actinic bulb and a 6500 Bulb.

I'm in no hurry, as I want to do this right, as the tank has been, and contiunes for the moment to "survive".. but I'd like to get it back to a presentable state as quickly as possible.

What suggestions does anyone have an what to do.
I know the corals should move ok to a new home, but what about the LR and sand? Can I keep any of it to help establish a new tank?

As far as the corals go. I'm not going to cycle the tank with them, but I've never had to remove them from LR, so I imagine thats going to be a fun chore too.

Anyways, just looking for some advice as I get back into the hobby again.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Anonymous]

Ya know, I would try and salvage your tank as is and improve upon what you have rather than start over. It sounds like you have a stable tank at least, and some of the corals are doing well. I would start by manually removing as much of the algae as possible. Do a modest water change, around 30%, using DI water. Replace your old lights. Gently stir up small portions of your sandbed at a time and siphon off what gets stirred up. Run some activated carbon.

Whatever you do, changing things drastically all at once will probably lead to more disappointment. Make changes slowly, and try to keep the environment as stable as possible.

 

[_range_]

RO/DI and water changes were my best friend when I had a large cyano problem, it took a while to clear up but was well worth avoiding other more costly and time consuming fixes. I changed about 25% every few days until it cleared up. Manually removing some will speed up the process as well. HTH -

 

[ricky1414]

I dont think I would stir the sand bed. I could only imagine what has be going on in it for 2 years. If most of his corals have expired along with his snails, something is amiss. I would remove anything alive (along with the rock), and place them in holding buckets with powerheads and a heater. I'd replace the sand, scrub the rocks, put it back in the tank, and call it a night. Just my .02

 

[JeromeBaker]

Typically I would second Matt's advice but given the time frame, the algae and bacteria have probably built up to almost toxic levels so I'm gonna have recommend going the route that RIcky suggested. Good luck.