I rehabbed my tank!!!

glb · Mar 6, 2015

I'm happy to report that my 12g nano finally seems to be up and running again after a crash last summer. Here's my numbers:

pH: 7.8
Temp 79
Phosphates 0.03ppm
Nitrates 5ppm
Mg 1380ppm
Ca 490ppm
SG 1.024
Alk 168ppm

After testing I did a 1g water change. The numbers are consistent with last week with the exception of a 28ppm drop in alk and a drop in phosphates from .17 to 0.03. Needless to say, I'm thrilled that all my work over the past month has paid off. I'm planning on getting two clownfish tomorrow. The tank itself is 5 years old and wasn't totally broken down after the crash. The crash started with a days long temp spike of 92f when our air went out over a holiday weekend. It just went downhill from there, with cyano and other algae outbreaks. Any thoughts on how long I should wait before adding coral again? I only had softies and LPS before, but they all died during the temp spike. I'm ready to rebuild and will take any advice I can get! Here's my little tank, empty but happy:

ImageUploadedByREEF2REEF1425690029.967082.jpg

The rocks look green because of only using the white LEDs, but that's not algae.

tcarter1936 · Mar 6, 2015

Get an apex .I cant imagine my tank with out it.

glb · Mar 6, 2015

The controller? How much do they run and what can they monitor?

grizzlymint · Mar 16, 2015

Apex can monitor and control pretty much everything. The apex jr etc can all be added on to afterwards which is what makes them so customizable, but for example the apex jr would have been able to notify you that the temperature was rising as well as kick on an above tank fan and shut off your heater if needed. Etc.

lilnikiobx · Mar 17, 2015

glb said:
I'm happy to report that my 12g nano finally seems to be up and running again after a crash last summer. Here's my numbers:

pH: 7.8
Temp 79
Phosphates 0.03ppm
Nitrates 5ppm
Mg 1380ppm
Ca 490ppm
SG 1.024
Alk 168ppm

After testing I did a 1g water change. The numbers are consistent with last week with the exception of a 28ppm drop in alk and a drop in phosphates from .17 to 0.03. Needless to say, I'm thrilled that all my work over the past month has paid off. I'm planning on getting two clownfish tomorrow. The tank itself is 5 years old and wasn't totally broken down after the crash. The crash started with a days long temp spike of 92f when our air went out over a holiday weekend. It just went downhill from there, with cyano and other algae outbreaks. Any thoughts on how long I should wait before adding coral again? I only had softies and LPS before, but they all died during the temp spike. I'm ready to rebuild and will take any advice I can get! Here's my little tank, empty but happy:

The rocks look green because of only using the white LEDs, but that's not algae.

Sorry to bother... I am new to all this and I am in need of help.. can you help with why I can post? I have some strange red almost stringy stuff growing on my live rock here's a photo

again very sorry to inconvenience you I am in need of help

grizzlymint · Mar 17, 2015

Im bad at pictures, but it looks like redslime algae or cyanobacteria. Look at google images to see which one is more closer resembling of whats in your tank

glb · Mar 17, 2015

lilnikiobx said:
Sorry to bother... I am new to all this and I am in need of help.. can you help with why I can post? I have some strange red almost stringy stuff growing on my live rock here's a photo

again very sorry to inconvenience you I am in need of help

No problem. I'm not exactly sure what that is. It might be cyano algae which is usually caused by high nitrates or phosphates. If you want to post, find the forum you want to post in, say New Aquariums in the General Saltwater Forum. When you open the forum, you'll see three white dots on the top right of the screen, just click on that and then click on 'new topic' and you can start your own post. Good luck!