Need expert advice!!!!!!

[Tri0 #3]

This is my tank. It has been running for about a year now. Its a cadlights 22gal tank LED with built in refugium. As you can see I am fighting a algae problem and massive amount of aptasia. They are even in the refugium. Recently my pump broke. I ordered a new one already. I need some serious help on fixing this tank. Im not sure what to do. Heres what livestock I have

Purple Firefish
2 mated clowns
yellow clown goby
Paired pistol and goby
Lots of snails, they multiplied cant count now.
1 favia coral
and 4 polyps of zoas

The rest of my corals were killed by the aptasias that took over. I really got lazy on this tank working crazy overtime at my job and going to school full-time. I really want to get this thing back running. I want to be able to be successful and not have a crappy looking tank. Im looking to invest but not a crazy amount. I am a student strapped on cash. I am running this tank completely stock. I only have filter floss in 1st chamber and rock rubble in the bottom. THATS IT!! I know thats my problem but what are suggestions. Here is my plan to keep this tank maintained.

PLAN!!

-submerge all live rock into RO water to kill all aptasia
-ditch sand and get new
-keep filter floss in 1st chamber
-keep 2 week water changes on check (dont get lazy this time)
-get mini protein skimmer 115 (what chamber works best?)
-keep rock rubble
-run media purigen and chemi pure elite (what size media bags and how often should I change) (should I run activated carbon or will chemi pure eite do the job? ive heard different theories?)
-2nd chamber use cheato
-maybe a GFO?!? is there something small enough and will it hurt my pocket to much?

I want a setup that lets me slack off a little. I dont want to be completely lazy. you must understand Im working 50hr weeks, attending part-time school, and I have a family to care for. It has not been easy. I just want to be able to procrastinate a water change 3 to 4 days if that is possible. One of my main concerns is how do I start over?!?! I really dont want to get rid of my fish. I want to keep them and I see no way of that happening if I decide to start the tank over ( and I think I really need to theres about 30 aptasia in the back compartments). I am stumped. I appreciate any advice. Thanks alot guys

 

[Hawkeye]

I'm going to be in the minority here but my 2 cents - if i were strapped for time and cash i would seriously consider breaking down, sell. Pouring more investments into it when you are strapped for time is not going to end well. Lacking money is not too bad because everyone here will help out (e..g frags, borrow equipment whatever). Lacking time is more problematic because you have to maintain it.

Either you are not changing the water enough, there's too much food going in...that's what is fueling the algae/aiptasia. Removing those items will not help unless you act on the root cause. Root cause appears to be a lack of time to do water changes...it's really a circular situation here.

So let's say we start over. Go to petco, i think they have a $ per gallon sale now. Pick up a 10 gallon, sponge filter, hob filter whatever - should fit all your fish and inverts. Or borrow a tank. Then i'd leave the rock out in the sun, soak it, wash it, soak it again, wash it because that stuff is going to be loaded with nitrates/death. The tank would get a vinegar bath. Then start over.

p.s. i use chemipure elite but a cheaper way is just get use carbon/gfo and put it in a bag (basically the equivalent).


maybe other folks here can chime in to provide some encouragement!

 

[NikkiT]

Step one: get some new live rock, and some new sand. As Phil said, temporarily relocate the livestock to another home (tank, brute container, you get the picture).
Step two: Empty the tank and vinegar everything. E.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g.
Once the tank is clean and scrubbed, step three: add new sand bed and rock. I would suggest using fully cycled live rock; you may want to consider real reef.
Step four: put live stock back in, add instant cycle product if you want to help add additional bacteria to the tank.

Mike and me have a 12g tank that we run without a skimmer. We use chemipute elite, filter floss, and we do water changes. We tried rubble in our fuge, it just trapped detritus. We change the filter floss every week, do a water change of at least 10 percent per week, and change chemipure once a month.

Nanos are tough, once one thing gets out of wack, it can be difficult to get everything back on track. I really think removing the rock and sand, vinegaring the tank, giving it a good scrub, and starting over with new sand and rock will help you. You can also consider some more ornamental maco algaes; we have a couple in our tank, to me, they are not unattrsctive, and they are soaking up excess nutrients and are easy to "prune".

Just as a point of reference, at least once a year the 12g seems to get ripped apart completely, the rock coral and fish relocated to a salt bucket, and scoured top to bottom. I find that it needs the deep cleaning, or it gets out of wack due to the detritus that gets trapped.

 

[mnat]

Ok so at this point the good news is you have a small tank and you don't have a ton of corals. If this were my tank this is what I would do:

Get rid of the liverock, that much algae and aiptasia is going to be a constant battle. If you just dip it in RO you are going to kill the beneficial bacteria on the live rock rendering it pointless and probably start another cycle in your tank. It would actually work against you to do that. Now if you can't buy more live rock (I would look at the fake stuff so you are not bringing in any pests and you are starting over) I would setup a small (maybe 5g) tank and put all your live stock in there while you pull all the rock out and scrub and cook the heck out of it. Aipstaia is a PIA and it takes a lot to kill it and keep it from spreading.

Sand bed: You only need like 1-2 inches so you don't need that much. Pulling it out may help and it will also get the detritus down.

Water changes: This is really the most critical part. You can do everything else with this tank but if you don't do water changes it won't matter. 10% every week. That is 2 gallons a week and it will save you massive massive headaches. Nanos are so hard to balance that it why small consistent water changes are so important. I had three nanos running for 18 months (30g, 20g and 12g) and I made the effort every Sunday to spend the hour to do the water changes. I did not even have an RO and drove to Trop to buy water every week. Without the weekly changes especially when you have a nutrient issue (Your algae shows that) you will always be fighting an uphill battle.

Carbon and chemipure run together will help you out so you can buy the half units of chemipure and I always like the bagged carbon from JBJ for the back of their nano systems.

Not sure about the skimmer you mentioned, just be careful and read a ton of reviews before you purchase. Nano skimmers for a long time where just a rip off. If you can find a good one I would use it as that will help you out tremendously.

I would pick a day when you have a bunch of time and just tackle the tank. Drain it completely, put the live stock in a holding container, ditch the LR and sand, clean the tank, put in the new sand, new LR, all new water, and basically just hit the reset button. I would be worried with that amount of algae and aipstaia that if you did not do a full reset you would just be fighting and uphill battle and never be happy.

Again you are lucky you have a small tank and only 2 coral frags so you can do all that without great headaches. I understand what Hawk is saying, this hobby takes time and if you can't carve out an hour a week your tank is never going to look pristine.

 

[Jcurry@wesketch]

you may want to consider running a small canister filter filled with carbon after you get the tanked cleaned up.

 

[Tri0 #3]

All great advice. I understand about the water changes. Last semester I was taking 5 classes and working at least 55 hours a week, including weekends. So i was leaving home 4:30 and coming back at 11pm to start all over. It was because I wanted to finish my degree. This time around ill be taking 3 classes and not working weekends so I feel confident in performing weekly water changes this time. I promise to keep it consistent. I really want to find a way to keep my rock. It will cost about $150 to get new LR. I want to kill everything on the rock even vital bacteria. Then ill start a new cycle even if it takes longer I can put some extra live pieces but it will be cheaper. So my question is how long can my fish live in a bucket with a pumP and heater? And should i fill the whole tank in vinegar and let it sit over night?

 

[mnat]

The fish can survive for a long time in a 5g bucket if you throw a heater and a HOB filter on there and perform water changes and what not. You can keep your LR you are just going to have to essentially make it dead rock and restart your cycle. I would give it some though as aipstaia can be nasty and come back from almost nothing, same with some macro algaes. Just be prepared to leave the fish tank up for maybe several months depending on how you can get it all cleaned out and redo a cycle. Now you can cut some time down with some quick cycle stuff like Dr. Tims but again my main concern is you spend all the time and energy cleaning your rocks only to pop them back in and have it all come back. Even with pristine water conditions, aipstaia can come back and continue to spread.

 

[Tri0 #3]

Your right. Im thinking maybe I should get some store credit for my livestock and get rid of everything and take my time starting back up, but this time the right away. Its gonna hurt my pocket and take alot longer saving up but I think its for the better. I dont want to be dealing with this stuff again. do you think a store will take rock like this and give you credit for it? Again thanks for the advice. It hurts my soul to take alot longer to start up but I think its for the better. Thanks!!

 

[mnat]

If you are going to take a step back, you can get some credit for the fish or sell them on here. If you are going to break down you are not going to need new rock, you now will have the time to nuke the rock properly and set it all back up again. The same goes with the sand, you can rinse it until your hearts content with whatever you want and just keep it. It will be dead and then you can reseed it when you set the tank back up again.

 

[Tri0 #3]

Whats the proper way to nuke the rock? (I heard a blow torch but I dont have one)

 

[ultracorals]

just another take on this.. from the looks of your tank from what i can see you do not have hair algae but some type of macro. you don't have a lot of coral in there. I would remove the rock. pull off as much of the macro as possible and toss it... then i would bleach the rock in a bucket for a couple of days with some good circulation. then do a vinegar bath for a few more days this will kill anything on or in the rock. while killing the rock I would manually remove all the giant aptasia from the sand bed with a 3/4 " tube. this will get them out before they can expel any thing. I would then add 2 peppermint shrimp to the main tank and one to the fuge. do not disturb your sand bed just yet. leave it there to act as your biological filtration while your rock is out.. you can clean the top layer of sand with a smaller siphon tube. this will get rid of most of the detritus and most of the little aptasia in the tank. replace this with fresh salt water. give your peppermints a couple of weeks and they should remove any and all aptasia that are left in the tank. after the vinegar bath rinse your rock in some ro water for another day. do a second dip in ro and replace back in your tank. while your tank is going through this feed very sparingly. it will keep the detritus down which feeds the aptasia and will also encourage your peppermints to eat the aptasia instead of the food. your tank is small enough to try this first. this way you won't have to get rid of anything. you won't upset the tank and hopefully you'll get rid of all the nasties. it will also prevent your tank from going through any huge cycle.. good luck in what ever you do..

 

[Chrisgarrick]

If your interested i hAve a small protein skimmer that works great. Its extra lAnd extra tanks. I'm in Howell

 

[Tri0 #3]

Hey,

Just wanted to let you guys in on a update. I decided to fix my tank without getting rid of any fish. I really wanted to solve this dilemma due to everyone's advice. Solving it versus starting over is a better option. If I ever run into the problem again I would surely be able to fix it. Starting all over really felt like running away from the problem. I needed to face it.

I already bleached the rock for 2 days and now its in the vinegar bath. Today is day one. After day two I will soak in RO water for one day. Change out the water for new RO water and run for a second day. After this I dont know whether to keep the rock in a bucket with saltwater and let it cycle in there.

I am getting mixed feedback. Lots of fellow reefers say that adding the rock back to my tank would be suicide for my fish because of the ammonia spike. Others say I can safely add the rock back to the tank with no problems. Should I first cycle it in a bucket then add to my tank?

Im happy to say I did alot of changes to my tank. I added chemi pure elite to the back chamber and carbon, cheato with fuge light, and the hydor nano protein skimmer. Water is looking pristine. What advice do you guys have?

 

[reefsandrotts]

I wouldnt use the old rock at this point in the tank,cycle it outside the system
If you pm Bob (radiata) he usually always has some nice rock for sale cheap,buy 1/2 of what you need or want and after your old rock cycles out slowly add it back to your main system.

 

[redfishbluefish]

You need to cure/cycle that rock by itself in it’s own tank/tub/bucket with a heater and powerhead. You can slightly speed up the process by running your heater slightly higher….say 82F or so.

 

[Tri0 #3]

How long do you think it will take for the rock to cycle? I plan on adding water from established systems to the rock. You think it will help? Im hoping it will only take 2 weeks.

 

[reefsandrotts]

Not going to happen in 2 weeks
maybe 4-6 and thats pushing it.
your system will need to rebuild its bacterial colonies from scratch,there is very little if any bacteria floating in the water column.

 

[redfishbluefish]

+1 on what Jim said. You’re looking at a good month….you can’t rush this….need to wait until you have zero ammonia and nitrite. Now I’ve never used this to cycle rock, but you might be able to speed the process up by adding a nitrifying additive, like Bio Spira. Again, no direct experience with rock, but I’ve got to believe it speeds it up a bit.