Left for ten days and everything went crazy

[mikeyfries]

I had a long trip planned and when I came back my tank had lots of algae. Just got a 2 small hermit crabs and also have a shrimp. Is this red algae bad? Do I clean it all out or let it go? Someone gave me this tank as is Help need advice

 

[xxkenny90xx]

Hey Mikey, welcome to the club! That red "algae" is cyanobacteria. Can you run some parameter tests on your tank and report back? Also if you can get some more water movement in there that might help.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Agree , its cyano. Take a turkey baster and blow it loose and either siphon or net up the loose matter. Lower white light intensity a little and Do not feed coral foods or NoPox for now as it may promote cyano

 

[mikeyfries]

I use simple strips for testing. Should I start using. More accurate tests

 

[face]

Probably something died in there while you were out even snails. They can cause a major cyano bloom.

 

[brandon429]

we have a thread where about five hundred reefs simply clean it all out, all at once, and do not wait for any sort of hesitation. that's an option here. with new water, your params will match what the bag of salt was and the reef will look like before you left.

 

[mikeyfries]

Probably something died in there while you were out even snails. They can cause a major cyano bloom.

A snail was dead

 

[mikeyfries]

we have a thread where about five hundred reefs simply clean it all out, all at once, and do not wait for any sort of hesitation. that's an option here. with new water, your params will match what the bag of salt was and the reef will look like before you left.

Can I take one of the three pieces of rock out. This tank was given to me. I’m not sure why it was setup as it was

 

[Fish_Fingers91]

Mikey, you said you have 2 small hermit crabs and a shrimp.. I see a clown fish in there.. Surprise! Keep on smiling!

 

[brandon429]

its very easy to fix the system this way

catch fish and hold them separate

drain out the water, catch it for rinse use.


take each live rock and swish it around in the drawn off reef water, twisting hard and using cloth or something to rub off all the hangers on that grew in place. clean it in saltwater then throw out the sw, and rinse the rocks one more time in new saltwater now they're clean.


take the rest of the tank which is a couple inches of water and sand, and clean out the sand by rinsing it in tap water for an hour until its 10000% clean sand. right now its cloudy, totally.

when cleaned, do sand's final rinse in RO water, to evacuate the tap.

reinstall the clean sand, add all new reef water. its not cloudy at all bc u rinsed for a long, long time in tap. pristinely clean.

set in your cloudless cleaned rocks in the cloudless clean tank.

put fish back in/corals, snails etc. match the temp and salinity of this water to the old.
done


none of that causes a cycle. taking shortcuts to the above, to lessen work, causes cycles and mistakes that above is already well known nano reef cleaning approach. well used. well documented.

there's only one mistake I can fathom in this process: not rinsing sand until cloudless, and specifically putting back in cloudy rocks or sand, though its outstanding we should not do that

 

[ApoIsland]

That tank looks like a mess. I have had the same thing happen to mine. Brandon's advice to do a rip clean is the best IMHO. Scrub the rocks real good and do a good clean rinse of the sand. Then either add more rocks/more mechanical filtration/or reduce feeding/bio load to prevent it from happening again.

 

[mikeyfries]

I had a friend feeding for 12 days.

 

[mikeyfries]

its very easy to fix the system this way

catch fish and hold them separate

drain out the water, catch it for rinse use.


take each live rock and swish it around in the drawn off reef water, twisting hard and using cloth or something to rub off all the hangers on that grew in place. clean it in saltwater then throw out the sw, and rinse the rocks one more time in new saltwater now they're clean.


take the rest of the tank which is a couple inches of water and sand, and clean out the sand by rinsing it in tap water for an hour until its 10000% clean sand. right now its cloudy, totally.

when cleaned, do sand's final rinse in RO water, to evacuate the tap.

reinstall the clean sand, add all new reef water. its not cloudy at all bc u rinsed for a long, long time in tap. pristinely clean.

set in your cloudless cleaned rocks in the cloudless clean tank.

put fish back in/corals, snails etc. match the temp and salinity of this water to the old.
done


none of that causes a cycle. taking shortcuts to the above, to lessen work, causes cycles and mistakes that above is already well known nano reef cleaning approach. well used. well documented.

there's only one mistake I can fathom in this process: not rinsing sand until cloudless, and specifically putting back in cloudy rocks or sand, though its outstanding we should not do that

How do I clean the sand

 

[brandon429]

clean out the sand by rinsing it in tap water for an hour until its totally clean sand. it will take a long time

when clean by tap, then rinse in ro water to evacuate the tap. this sand is now totally cleaned

 

[mikeyfries]

Do I put the sand into a bucket first? Do I rinse the sand in the tank with tap water. That makes me nervous?

 

[ApoIsland]

Do I put the sand into a bucket first? Do I rinse the sand in the tank with tap water. That makes me nervous?

You are going to pull everything out of that tank so you can rinse the sand in there if you feel like carrying it to the hose outside or to the bathtub. I didn't feel like moving my tank so I siphoned all the sand out into a bucket and then rinsed.

 

[SteveMM62Reef]

I've used Boyd's Chemi-Clean Red Cyanobacteria Treatment. Didn't loose a thing, even my Red Macro wasn't affected. just follow the instructions to the letter. I clean my skimmer cup out and leave it running, with it set for maximum Skim, but dump it right back into the sump, for the extra aeration they require. ** At the end of the treatment, I do a 25% water change, and repeat to make sure I got it cleared up. If you have a Sand Bed, I highly recommend Nassarius Snails, to take care of anything dying, that you don't catch, and for general clean-up of extra food. Also if you can get some Blue Plating Sponge, without breaking the bank, it will keep the Cyano's at bay. At Michael's Craft Store, they have these Artist Loft Mix & Save paint cups with lids, that are strung together, Item #10271583. I put the food "mostly the Frozen Stuff," in them and hide the other food, when I have someone else feed my fish. BTW I have a Zacro Fish Feeder, I got off Amazon, it is by far the best feeder, I've ever had.

**Check out my Forced Outside Air Post, for my Skimmer, to keep my pH up.

 

[brandon429]

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

Not only do I love that job, I did it in my vase :) so it’s been modeled already/ done your job is just bigger. I’m going to link a thread where nobody listens regarding aiptasia removal, apply this to your mushroom tank. the sand cleaning is already covered here / ridding newly cleaned rocks...

www.reef2reef.com

that shows the patterning for the tap rinse, agreed legit concern but its what we do there all actions

 

[mikeyfries]

You are going to pull everything out of that tank so you can rinse the sand in there if you feel like carrying it to the hose outside or to the bathtub. I didn't feel like moving my tank so I siphoned all the sand out into a bucket and then rinsed.

There is a bunch of worms in the sand

 

[brandon429]

they're not helping or it wouldnt have the invasion above. its ok to leave them, dose stuff, but in the end this is a succession of invasions not just one.

when we clean out the waste, we save your gha nightmare

chemi clean leaves it in. the worms w come back via the live rock as seeding over and over