Inherited a neglected reef tank

EricD478 · Aug 7, 2018

A co worker has a 120ish gallon reef tank with a 40ish gallon refugium. Long story short my co worker due to family matters and money has neglected the fish tank. I'm now stepping in with very little knowledge and experience when it comes to reef tanks to try to save the tank as it kills me to watch it slowly die off when it was once such a beautiful tank. I did get permission from my co worker and he gave me the go ahead to move forward and try to save it. I am hoping if I can get it moving in the right direction it will motivate him to find joy in taking care of the tank. As for reef tanks I have very little experience with them. Now as for the fish tank I will admit I am overwhelmed on where to start. As of this morning I have purchased some new filter socks and I am going to keep up with replacing those on the regular (cleaning the old ones). As for manual day to day cleaning I am doing my best to pick out what is dead. The skimmer is working and I empty that on the regular. I realize a water test will be needed so I am going to dig through his stuff and try to find his testing kit and post the results asap. I am going to post some pictures of the tank in hopes I can be pointed in the right direction. Thank you guys in advance and I will continue to monitor the thread and answer any questions you undoubtedly have.

Oldreefer44 · Aug 7, 2018

I would start with water tests. Until we know what your Kh, Ph, Ca, NO3, Po4 and Mg levels are it is hard to know where to start as anything you do could be a waste of time and money.

NewGoby · Aug 7, 2018

Agreed with what @OLDREEFER44 posted, but one thing is for sure, you'll want to get rid of those glass anemone's (they're a pest) they consume a lot of the nutrients your other corals so desperately need.

It's the third picture, top-left rock, the brown anemones.

You can either get the rock out, if there's nothing on there, or buy a fish or invertebrate that'll munch on it, once parameters are known & decent

Breadman03 · Aug 7, 2018

OLDREEFER44 said:
I would start with water tests. Until we know what your Kh, Ph, Ca, NO3, Po4 and Mg levels are it is hard to know where to start as anything you do could be a waste of time and money.

Also salinity.

What I see is a tank that is loaded with nutrients, and the algae that is feeding on those nutrients. I would begin by ensuring you have o TDS (total dissolved solid) water for evaporation top off, as well as to use for mixing new salt water. You may find a RO/DI filter set up for this. Just be aware that the DI resin and the prefilters are consumables and can be expected to need replacement a few times annually.

Next up would be plucking and blowing off whatever algae comes loose easily, then doing a 10% or so water change to export some of those nutrients and replenish trace elements. Honestly, I believe that tank will take a long term steady hand to get back in shape.

You might try some of @brandon429's techniques, so long as the owner is comfortable with them. He advocates for deep cleaning methods, though I don't have enough experience with them to know how best to handle that relatively deep sandbed.

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/the-official-sand-rinse-thread-aka-one-against-many.230281/

brandon429 · Aug 7, 2018

Awesome big work job here

Remove the whole sandbed until rocks comply, tip of the century

Reefer Deez · Aug 7, 2018

I'm going to agree with the statements above that you need to test the water first and see what needs to be dealt with. Water changes won't hurt at all either, your probably going to need a few back to back to strip out Nitrates and Ammonia or Nitrites. The phosphates could be high as well as the salinity but it's just to hard to tell you where to start without testing.

Greybeard · Aug 7, 2018

Attempting to resurrect an old, poorly maintained DSB system is not an easy way to start into the reefing hobby.

I'd start with a full evaluation of what you're starting with.

A 120g tank, sump, stand, light, pumps, etc... hardware wise, it's a complete system. This part is wonderful

Hard to determine condition and quality of components from these photos, but no matter what kind of shape it's in, it's a huge head start.

Livestock wise... are there live fish? I don't see any. You've got lots of live rock, overgrown with hair algae and.... are those caulerpa prolifera strands? An old (how old?) deep sand bed... that technique went out of fashion for a reason, they're basically a time bomb, and you may well already be out of time. Corals, I see YSP, some mushrooms, leathers, is that a healthy Montipora Cap colony? Some sort of Candy cane, perhaps?

If it were me... I'd get a small tank, fill it with clean (RO/DI) fresh salt mix, match temps, and transfer over all of the healthy coral colonies you can save. Take the time to scrub off hair algae and such, as much as you can. I'd then power wash, bleach, and re-cure the rock, dump the sand and replace it with a new shallow sand bed (or bare bottom, if you can stand the look), scrub all of the hardware till it's spotless, and basically start over.

I know that's harsh, but as a new reefer, IMHO, you're setting yourself up for failure here. Resurrecting a tank like that is an expert level challenge. The failure rate in this hobby is high, and with good reason. There is a steep learning curve. Avoiding mistakes is key to success. You're starting with a whole heap of mistakes already having been made. My vote is for a complete reboot. Start over clean. IMHO, doing so is going to save you money, time, and frustration.

Reeferdood · Aug 7, 2018

Agreed with Greybeard...

cracker · Aug 7, 2018

Ist, It's fantastic You want to take this on !Also I beginner? WOW the tank is a hand full of work for sure& your about to get a crash course on Marine keeping. Hang in there & we can help You .
So, A few questions, What equipment is on hand? is there any salt, water filter, test kits ,etc? Can we have see some pics of this stuff ? Are there any fish?
If you measure the tank length width height we can tell you how many gallons. I will be honest here, The tank is in really bad shape ! It is savable but it might be easiest to tear it down & start over. Either way it will take a LOT of work. Not to mention a healthy amount of $ .
Grey beard gives excellent advice !

EricD478 · Aug 7, 2018

OLDREEFER44 said:
I would start with water tests. Until we know what your Kh, Ph, Ca, NO3, Po4 and Mg levels are it is hard to know where to start as anything you do could be a waste of time and money.

Kh- 125ppm/7dKH
Po4- 0
NO3- 0
Ph- Ph test solution was missing. Will swing by the store and pick one up. Will test it tomorrow first thing in the morning.
Ca- 160ppm ( I did this twice as the coloring never changed from pink to the purple color shown in the booklet. The worded directions however said blue so this reading was the point at which is turned blue. )
Salinity- 1.023
Only 3 fish I see in the tank after some cleaning where 2 Damsels and 1 Pinkbar Goby. If there is anything else I need to test I can pick the test kit up after work today and post it tomorrow morning.

EricD478 · Aug 7, 2018

cracker said:
Ist, It's fantastic You want to take this on !Also I beginner? WOW the tank is a hand full of work for sure& your about to get a crash course on Marine keeping. Hang in there & we can help You .
So, A few questions, What equipment is on hand? is there any salt, water filter, test kits ,etc? Can we have see some pics of this stuff ? Are there any fish?
If you measure the tank length width height we can tell you how many gallons. I will be honest here, The tank is in really bad shape ! It is savable but it might be easiest to tear it down & start over. Either way it will take a LOT of work. Not to mention a healthy amount of $ .
Grey beard gives excellent advice !

Very little salt left but lots of what I would call supplements for lack of knowledge on what to call them (ph up, ph down, prime, calcium, and much more) As for equipment hooked up and running is only the skimmer, auto top off, and chiller. Off to the side not doing anything but collecting dust is a co2 system, uv sterilizer, and some other gadgets that ive pictured. Only 3 fish at this time with no invertebrates. There are a total of 3 hid lights over the aquarium. Aquarium is 6ft x 18in x 23in refuguim is 53in x 17 x 14

Greybeard · Aug 7, 2018

Old test kits are rarely reliable. I'd start with getting a new one.

3x 20,000k 250w halide... great lights, but produce a lot of heat. Ain't much photosynthetic you can't grow under these. Would lead me to believe that the tank was originally set up a decade or more back. Halides have been loosing popularity for a long time, first, in favor of T5's, and later, LED's. Still, with good bulbs (they need to be replaced every year or so)

Chiller... yeah, with the halides, probably a good thing.

cracker · Aug 7, 2018

Great start ! I'm not surprised there are no/low ( N03) & low/no Po4 . All that algae is sucking it up . What do Ya think Folks ? Eric has to decide if he's going to try & save it or tear it down & rebuild. It's a big decision with different directions to go .
Most likely You will get a "lot" of differing advice/OP's. Don't let it overwhelm you. Wade thru it all & save the ones that make to best sense to you !

EricD478 · Aug 7, 2018

Greybeard said:
Old test kits are rarely reliable. I'd start with getting a new one.

3x 20,000k 250w halide... great lights, but produce a lot of heat. Ain't much photosynthetic you can't grow under these. Would lead me to believe that the tank was originally set up a decade or more back. Halides have been loosing popularity for a long time, first, in favor of T5's, and later, LED's. Still, with good bulbs (they need to be replaced every year or so)

Chiller... yeah, with the halides, probably a good thing.

Just saw your first post. I will look into buying a whole new test kit. It has been set up for 10-12 years and I agree the setup is outdated. Sounds like starting over would be the best option. I dont believe he would be even halfway interested in doing that. I do think he maybe interested in passing it off to me permanently for a small price or even free ( i have spent a lot of time on this tank just doing routine maintenance and water changes watching it well hes out of town and what not). However I dont have the space for a 120 gallon tank at home so the only option would be to downsize the tank and move it to my area at work if the boss is ok with that.