Big restart needed, where to start?!

[Reef_scuba]

So, to the generous genius that would like to give me as much advise as they have to offer I would be extremely grateful.

As per my previous post I have several nasties in my tank sitting and waiting for their moment to take the whole thing down.. trying to take these on one by one is proving too difficult so I have decided to restart.

I have inherited this tank in all its glory and would like to keep it and all its occupants, who include:

1 x Mocha clown fish
1 x Darwin clown fish
1 x Spotted tail blennie
3 x red legged hermit crabs
2 x nassarious snails
1 x unknown species crab

All the live rock and substrate needs to go and I'm going to clear down the back wall but I obviously know it is not as easy as that..

Main things I need to know are:

- where and how to keep fish whilst stripping tank
- if I keep the old water or as much of it as I can and replace original stuff with 'live' replacements i.e live rock and live substrate can the fish go straight back in or do I have to get rid of the water too and in which case where do I put the fish as I do not have a spare tank only a polostirine fish transporter as I'm guessing it would need cycling

Thank you all so much in advance.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

That ones easy imo.
Last time I did my 30 it took 4-6 hours.

Get homer buckets.
Drain the tank down save the water.
4 in or so to the bottom , pull the rocks out put em in the water.

Take out the fish into the bucket.
Drain the water , I’ll be nasty , but keep it , well clean the rocks with it.

Put a pump or powered in the rock bucket.

Empty the tank. Clean

Put peroxide into a dirty water bucket , quick soak , scrub , second dirty bucket for rinse , back into clean water bucket.

Put sand in. Put rock in, fill up tank with old water , add new water to top off.
Add some dr Tim’s one and only.

If you have a canister filter or reactor , use floss and some carbon and it’ll clear the water quicker. Leave it on for a couple days.

You may get some diatoms from the new sand (with luck) , and you may lose some corraline. It’ll grow back. Depends on how long the cleaning takes.

It’s a skip cycle method.

 

[Robert McCreary]

good advice^

 

[FartyParty]

I had a leak many years ago on an acrylic tank and this is what worked for me:

- filled half of a clean 20 gallon bin with existing tank water and made the other half of new salt water.
- let the new salt mix for an hour and got all inhabitants out of leaking tank
- put a single mp10 power head on the side of the bin and a heater, then put all tank inhabitants into bin, along with whatever live rock would fit.
- dealt with the mess. In your case, clean your tank and set it up how you want.
- after 3 days I put lights over the bin to keep corals alive.
- transferred back after 2 weeks. Everything (that I observed) survived.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I had a leak many years ago on an acrylic tank and this is what worked for me:

- filled half of a clean 20 gallon bin with existing tank water and made the other half of new salt water.
- let the new salt mix for an hour and got all inhabitants out of leaking tank
- put a single mp10 power head on the side of the bin and a heater, then put all tank inhabitants into bin, along with whatever live rock would fit.
- dealt with the mess. In your case, clean your tank and set it up how you want.
- after 3 days I put lights over the bin to keep corals alive.
- transferred back after 2 weeks. Everything (that I observed) survived.

Also good advice.

 

[brandon429]

Dont discard that rock its perfectly aged

We can clear algae easily off it
Hold fish in current water in a bucket

Pre rinse a set of all new sand 100% cloudless clean

Put the cleaned off rocks on the clean sand, fill with all new water no old, acclimate and go, done. The new tank cycle, all bacteria, all transfer issues are covered. Those rocks already handle the current bioloading, no need to start over with them, they're just moved into the new water. That doesn't kill anything, or cause a cycle.

 

[pompeyjohn]

I wouldn't bother adding the same water back, just use it for cleaning the old rocks and then start with fresh water. As I understand it that there is very little biological benefit to using the old water.

 

[brandon429]

the live rocks already have all the carry-over filtration needed to carry the current bioload, the sand was excess and incidental, that's why removing it wont cause a lack of surface area/bioload support. The water always has amnts of filtration bacteria in it, but not enough to matter. That's why people who change 100% of nano water all the time don't have recycles. the floc that floats around in the reef carries nitrifiers by association. the live rock is all that matters here for instant restart

*you can use new purchased live rock for the same effect, see the thread titled here the microbiology of reef tank cycling. Get the same purple live rock quality, don't start with the barren stuff. its boring. takes years to get what you have above no prob.

Its commonly thought that we must remove sand slowly, to allow bac to build up on rocks, to take the place of the missing sand. No microbiologist for trade would agree with that.

Live rock carries its maximum measurable capacity for bacteria at all times, there's no way to add fifty new layers of bac, or they'd already be there, that rule governs microbiology across hospitals, food service labs, industry level applications. things like water shear, interspace competition from other strains of bac, and forty other regulators are running concurrently, and that's why we document people who pull the sandbed all at once in the big thread 'the sand rinse thread' to me its very cutting edge aquarium microbiology. we test it in other peoples tanks with their cash on the line. We do have ways to temporarily boon and suppress bacterial communities on live rock, but the inherent surface area is so excessive in even a few pounds, the net effect is always measurable as passing an oxidation test for a few ppm, any old time we want to test it.

The only time removing all sand at once, or replacing old sand all at once with highly rinsed new sand is a problem, is when the original condition was lacking the right amnts of live rock. That one above doesn't lack that.

 

[Reef_scuba]

Thank you all, really easy steps to follow there. Just researched the Dr Tims one and only looks like a good thing to have anyway!

I can't keep any of the current live rock as it is infested with hydroids and aptasia..

So with some good quality live rock and possibly keeping the sand how many days cycle would this need?

When it comes to keep the fish in a substitute bin our bucket during this process I have a spare filter and light and the old live rock can stay in there with them during that time but is there anything I should watch out for or need to do to make sure they stay alive this is what I worry about the most

Thank you all, been so helpful

 

[brandon429]

as you've captioned it above that will work there are no hidden risks. Ill still press for the live rock for two reasons,

you are going to always get hydroids in the new tank.

aiptasia too, these are easily removed with a flathead screwdriver. Its ok to start over, but Im certain that forcing this rock to comply totally affects your % likelihood to lose the next tank to similar challenges, you have a chance to hand guide here rock that is already coralline

but if you want to start over, simply buy aged real live coralline rock and all I typed above still holds. The lfs is going to sell you similar rock I bet.

 

[brandon429]

here is the thread that provides the extreme multi page details extracted above:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-microbiology-of-reef-tank-cycling.214618/

 

[Reef_scuba]

here is the thread that provides the extreme multi page details extracted above:

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-microbiology-of-reef-tank-cycling.214618/

Thank you Brandon you've been super helpful I'll post my progress when I crack on with it over the weekend!!

 

[Robert McCreary]

good luck!

 

[vetteguy53081]

Now would be a good time with its' small investment to set up a quarantne/hospital tank and start with fresh rather than old seawater which may have contaminents or undesireable foreign matter.
You can place your livestock in there while you repack main tank

 

[mcarroll]

consider the sources of replacement rock you have available.

What seems to be commonly available to most folks is very problematic in its own right.

Do some ressearch on whatever rock you plan to use for the replacement so you can avoid problems others have had.

Sell your current rock to someone who doesn't mind handling it as-is.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I wouldn't bother adding the same water back, just use it for cleaning the old rocks and then start with fresh water. As I understand it that there is very little biological benefit to using the old water.

It contains bacteria. As the fish excrete ammoina from gills and water it’s almost instantly processed. Same for coral if there are any.

 

[Reef_scuba]

UPDATE

Thanks to all your help!! Got this transformation done in a total of 12 hours! Long day but was well worth it, thank you all!

Kept a lot of the original live rock.. changed out the substrate.. kept about half the tanks worth of old water.. added beneficial bacteria mix.. cycled for 3 hours whilst we waited for the sand to settle

Clown fish acted a little weird at first but now are fine! In fact everything went so well and levels were really good we purchased our first soft coral (Xenia) that you can see in the photo!

Side note: added some shells for our hermits and just watched one of them change over, so interesting!!