Crashed my pico reef while building a 25; start new or continue?

[die.kriegerin]

Hi all. I’m a newb reefer. I have a 4 month old 5 gallon with 3 mushroom corals that are all doing fine.

About a month ago, I had a blood shrimp and a percula clown in there. 0ammonia, 0nitrites, ~10-20nitrates on average. Water changes were 20% once/week.

There was a really nasty green algae bloom. Then I thought it was cyano. All over— bad. So I cleaned the hell out of it; 75% water change. Woosh— destroyed the tank. Blood shrimp didn’t make it through the night. Clown fish lasted another week. 1ppm ammonia made me realize “oh no; I cycled it again”. Lost a goby and a cleaner shrimp 2 weeks later before realizing it was cycling again.

Lost my job in October; couldn’t start spending on treatments. Got some gift cards for
Christmas, and started building a DIY AIO 25 gallon. Should be coming in the mail tomorrow.

Do I let 4 months go to waste and break that pico down? Should I keep a tiny fish in there when everything is at 0 again? Or use it for “parts”? Should I take the rocks and sand when it’s cycled again and place it in the new tank for amped up cycling? Also, the green algae is returning. I don’t want to transfer that to the new tank.

I feel badly. I didn’t think I would crash the tank.

 

[brandon429]

all your bacteria are alive and can be re used

the rock needs cleaned

*the 75% vs 100% is what killed the system, ironically.

you'd have fully controlled ammonia if you did a 100% sandbed cleaning, ironic I know. but re use the rocks, they're still fully cycled. mixing waste killed your setup, not any insult to bacteria. Fish disease cannot be ruled out for the fish, within six mos is the common time window test for non fallow/qt fish, but small nanos tend to do ok there bc they don't allow a big mix of fish like large tanks do, some gobies and clowns are inherently tough a million nano reefs can show...ammonia really could be an issue here and it takes pronounced issues to cause noncontrol

the api part of the post isn't the swing vote, I can find 1ppm stated by api in perfectly running reefs.

 

[die.kriegerin]

all your bacteria are alive and can be re used

the rock needs cleaned

*the 75% vs 100% is what killed the system, ironically.

you'd have fully controlled ammonia if you did a 100% sandbed cleaning, ironic I know. but re use the rocks, they're still fully cycled. mixing waste killed your setup, not any insult to bacteria.

Oh wow, this makes a lot of sense. I do siphon the sand bed regularly, but it’s also a thick sand bed, so I do it in parts (which is what destroyed the tank from what you’re saying, right?)

I don’t think I want 1-2” of sand in this new tank. Just a little bit. Will lowering the sand bed moving into the new tank help or hurt the ecosystem?

 

[brandon429]

pico reefs are best dealt with in whole actions vs in parts so we can separate waste from sensitives, its true that if any live rock is used and is cleaned off in saltwater, so that its pores are now open vs clogged, that will handle all fish waste in a pico with or wo sand, or filters etc

 

[die.kriegerin]

pico reefs are best dealt with in whole actions vs in parts so we can separate waste from sensitives, its true that if any live rock is used and is cleaned off in saltwater, so that its pores are now open vs clogged, that will handle all fish waste in a pico with or wo sand, or filters etc

This is all very helpful for my new reef. Much appreciated.

 

[JumboShrimp]

All good advice, above. Now ‘emotionally’ speaking, I’d say if you start your brand new tank when it arrives “brand new”— using the knowledge you have gained— you will probably have the greatest peace of mind, if I am reading you correctly. Best wishes!

 

[brandon429]

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

I am fairly worried about moving my freshwater setup as it is fairly overstocked (reduces aggression as no one fish gets singled out). I did fail to think about the toxicity of nitrite on top of ammonia toxicity... Here is my plan for the cichlid tank. I have gradually reduced my pH from 8.2 to...

www.reef2reef.com

that work thread is handy because it uses other peoples money and time as the risk to test clean vs clogged science claims. not frivolously...we provide a benefit such as infinite home moves and nobody's tank dies...but in all the logged patterns there is extractable gold. its all scalable.

the science is a blanket safety approach to moving/swapping sandbeds/fixing invasions/ and it doesn't matter tank size. clean is skip cycle, and dirty clouding is dangerous, and the irony is the greater reefing world would always advise the partial approach because it removes less bacteria than a full rip clean. the hidden truth we show above was that being waste free at the price of removing some bacteria is better than being waste-included and saving some bacteria. we didn’t need the extras, what sticks after deep cleaning is always enough. Clean well. irony in truth via work patterns.

*a common aged sandbed from any perfect reef has these zones, its just not being mixed around as the reef sits there unless cleaning fish have always been in tow.

when its time to mix up zones, that's where safety outcomes range drastically or range 0 depending on the mode taken. we are about as mean as a person could be to reef tanks above, but its done in certain order of ops that also makes every tank live and none die, I use the patterns from this thread above to make my own pico cheat itself into gandalf-level old age.

 

[die.kriegerin]

All good advice, above. Now ‘emotionally’ speaking, I’d say if you start your brand new tank when it arrives “brand new”— using the knowledge you have gained— you will probably have the greatest peace of mind, if I am reading you correctly. Best wishes!

Hey thank you! I was thinking about your advice. There’s only one problem- I have a mushroom coral that lived through that crash, attached to a rock and it took a while for that little coral to get acclimated 4 months ago. It’s so beautiful. It was a gift from the local aquarium dude. The other mushroom corals are fine too (3) and they came on frags, so they’re just on the sand bed framing the rocks. I don’t want to kill that coral ): I need the tank to place under the stand to sterilize & re-cycle it brand new with no sand bed, so it can’t stay in there either. It’s done cycling now a few days after the die-off. So they look really happy.

What should I do to keep anything i don’t want from this tank from getting into the new one with the rock transfer?