Aging tanks.

[Rufus’ goofs]

So my parter in crime inherited her tank from her second daughter when she moved out.

This tank started as a 55gallon tank 11 years ago. About 3-4 years after that everything from that 55 gallon tank (including undistrbed sand) went into this 125 when it moved to Idaho.
About 4 years ago it came back to Washington.

Now this is a very low budget tank. It's got a bio ball sump from an arrowana tank that came out of a Chinese restaurant. Water changes are far and few between, and there is a reefocto 110 that's about 5 years old I'm guessing. Sometimes a bag of carbon and GFO, but that is the entirety of maintenance and equipment.

Since it's return to Washington, this tank has fallen into disrepair. Aiptasia, Majano, flatworms and now that I've been coming over more. I've discovered something far worse.

Gina had been telling me that her starry blenny wouldn't go in the barnacles anymore, (this was over the summer) she had a couple corals die.
Just little red flags.

So I told her, "it might be time to start trying to replace some of that sand bed and make sure all of your circulation pumps are working well."

To be perfectly fair, Gina hadn't really done saltwater since the late 80's to early 90's. She didn't go look up new new information when she inherited her tank, and had been going off of her old info... thus that magnificent bio ball filter...
So over the last 4 or 5 months she's been catching up on her marine biology, taking out cupfulls of sand at a time and replaced a couple pumps.

Then I saw this earlier today. I feel stupid. I should have seen this a long time ago.

I will happily be wrong, and corrected, but that is a black layer over an 1" thick that looks like it goes quite a ways.
Hydrogen sulfide, right?

So I told her to stop touching the sand.
We're getting a 150 gallon stock tank for temporary housing while we tear this guy apart.

Even if I'm wrong though, we're still tearing it down and nuking everything from orbit.
Those flatworms are infuriating.;Rage

What do guys think? Am I a hypochondriac?
I can't imagine there is any way for me to test it while her fish are still in there.

 

[cracker]

Does look like time for e rebuild. Most likely the easiest way. I applaud You for bringing this tank up to it's potential.

 

[DSC reef]

I believe hydrogen sulfide as well. I agree, time to re-do the tank.

 

[Rufus’ goofs]

As much as I didn't want to hear that, thank you guys.

On the bright side, her and I are really stoked for rebuilding it.
I already made her a sump, and we're curing new rock that we can properly scape.

Does anyone have any experience with hydrogen sulfide getting into the water column? I've been googling trying to find more quantitative data on how much H2S in what size bodies of waters does ____ damage, but so far all of can find is "H2S is bad juju"

 

[DSC reef]

That I couldn't tell you. I had a pump seize on a gfo reactor and didn't realize how long it was actually down. As soon as the water started flowing I could smell the sulfur. Just that little bit caused issues though.

 

[Rufus’ goofs]

That I couldn't tell you. I had a pump seize on a gfo reactor and didn't realize how long it was actually down. As soon as the water started flowing I could smell the sulfur. Just that little bit caused issues though.

Scary stuff, man.
Thank you for your input. I really appreciate it.

 

[DSC reef]

Anytime my friend. I've never had to deal with it as far as sand goes. Keep us updated on the progress. I'm sure you'll have that tank looking great in no time.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

As much as I didn't want to hear that, thank you guys.

On the bright side, her and I are really stoked for rebuilding it.
I already made her a sump, and we're curing new rock that we can properly scape.

Does anyone have any experience with hydrogen sulfide getting into the water column? I've been googling trying to find more quantitative data on how much H2S in what size bodies of waters does ____ damage, but so far all of can find is "H2S is bad juju"

I kinda have here on the R2r. I've spoken to several folks in real time 911 calls with the entire house smelling of eggs and nothing happening in the tank. And the other way around , no smell nuked tank and a huge black piece uncovered in the sand or in the reactor. And also both.

As a precaution , run aggressive gfo and lot s of air. Randy Farley has a very good article on it.
IMO. If you follow the same methods on a transfer , i.e. Slowly drain water remove fish retc. And stir anything up, youre probably fine.

 

[Rufus’ goofs]

I kinda have here on the R2r. I've spoken to several folks in real time 911 calls with the entire house smelling of eggs and nothing happening in the tank. And the other way around , no smell nuked tank and a huge black piece uncovered in the sand or in the reactor. And also both.

As a precaution , run aggressive gfo and lot s of air. Randy Farley has a very good article on it.
IMO. If you follow the same methods on a transfer , i.e. Slowly drain water remove fish retc. And stir anything up, youre probably fine.

I'm not sure if I feel reassured or not, haha.
I appreciate the info all the same though.

We've been running mass amounts of carbon, I didn't really think much about the GFO.
I'll grab an air pump and stick it in the sump, hopefully between the skimmer and it, itll help negate whatever may be leaching into the column.

I think the biggest issue with this right now is that she wants a pest free tank when it's all said and done, so we've been curing rock for the stock tank everyone is going in, but it's still not ready, and buying enough live rock would be quite a pretty penny.

I've planned on traps for Bubbles and Napoleon (her yellow and powder blue tang, respectively) and I was just going to net her smaller fish as we drain the tank.
But that's about the extent of my plan so far.

I'll definitely update this thread when we start cracking though.

Also, thanks again to everyone for the kind words and support.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I'm not sure if I feel reassured or not, haha.
I appreciate the info all the same though.

We've been running mass amounts of carbon, I didn't really think much about the GFO.
I'll grab an air pump and stick it in the sump, hopefully between the skimmer and it, itll help negate whatever may be leaching into the column.

I think the biggest issue with this right now is that she wants a pest free tank when it's all said and done, so we've been curing rock for the stock tank everyone is going in, but it's still not ready, and buying enough live rock would be quite a pretty penny.

I've planned on traps for Bubbles and Napoleon (her yellow and powder blue tang, respectively) and I was just going to net her smaller fish as we drain the tank.
But that's about the extent of my plan so far.

I'll definitely update this thread when we start cracking though.

Also, thanks again to everyone for the kind words and support.

Lol. You're welcome and sorry.

The gfo pulls the sulfur.

And yes. Scrub that baby and reset!
It's quite easy.

Good luck!

 

[Rufus’ goofs]

So 2 months and loads of carbon later, we’re working on step one!

Actually I’ve got about 50 pounds of rock I’ve been curing for the last 2 months, but we still have about 75 gallons to put in here and mix up, so until we’ve got that taken care of the rock is staying where it’s at.

 

[Rufus’ goofs]

So we got the tank as full as we want it, I put the “been curing” rock in

That was about a week ago.
Today I got an order I placed with BRS.

20 pounds of Tonga branch rock
15 pounds of Pukani.
It doesn’t look like much, but they’re actually quite large pieces.

Here it all is in the water.
I should also be receiving 25 pounds of Tonga shelf rock tomorrow, so hopefully we can make some pretty fun structures with all these rocks. I’m thinking acrylic rods for securing it all together.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

Fun stuff!!