My Tank crashed! :( after a year!

kenzo · Jul 21, 2015

Well I was learning about reef keeping everyday and spent lot of time on my tank and money on corals. I thought this will never happen to me. But I had to move out and my whole tank crashed and all the sps corals that I had died and many soft corals died too! Only some zoas, palythoas, some mushrooms and my candy cane coral only made it! And my favourite flame angel died!

These are few pics of my tank from the beginning till it crashed!

kenzo · Jul 21, 2015

these are more pics

kenzo · Jul 21, 2015

and these are the pics of my tank after I moved into my new apartment! My tank look like crap now and my skimmer is gone mad, it won't stop foaming and fish aren't eating well. Everything is so messed up! Any suggestions guys? Anyone with similar experiences?

kenzo · Jul 21, 2015

Too sad I only started my tank last year (2014 ) in August! Oh and one of my clownfish which I had for almost 11 months jumped off my tank when I wasn't home and died.

bobbychullo · Jul 21, 2015

sounds like your tank had another cycle. we need more info. you have to tell us what your move process was in order to determine what happened. have you tested ammonia or nitrite/nitrates? did you re-use your old sand? how deep is your sand bed? any changes made during your move?

Cment · Jul 21, 2015

If there are things still alive I would start doing some water changes and get some Prime to help. You need to test for what bobbychullo said. It does sound like a cycle...

kenzo · Jul 21, 2015

yeah I changed the sand bed. I used dry sand and threw out my old sand I know I should have kept some. But I used live rock though and I completely had to use new water. Yeah all my other fish except the flame angel and that clownfish which jumped off are alive. And my cleaner shrimp and there's a red shrimp I forgot what it is, they are alive.

bobbychullo · Jul 21, 2015

i would guess a small cycle. definitely do a water change if you can like Cment said. I would google how much you should do as I am not too certain, I would think a 50% change is on order, may do one now and then another in 3 days or so, just to get rid of any ammonia that may still be in there.

I'm guessing you took all of your sand bed out at once... ?

luke33 · Jul 21, 2015

Like mentioned above your having a bit of a cycle. I'm sure the dry sand was the biggest issue as it probably leached phosphates into your tank, not to mention you pulled out your good bacteria with your live sand. I would definitely be testing for am and trites as you could loose everything in your tank. Water tests should help as long as your using rodi water. Are you?

twilliard · Jul 21, 2015

I moved my 125 once in my life.
it was more difficult moving that tank than moving in general.
huge mess and dealt with algae for months even though I kept as much water, rock, sand as I could.
I guess stirring a tank is one way to make it very unhappy

kenzo · Jul 21, 2015

bobbychullo said:
i would guess a small cycle. definitely do a water change if you can like Cment said. I would google how much you should do as I am not too certain, I would think a 50% change is on order, may do one now and then another in 3 days or so, just to get rid of any ammonia that may still be in there.

I'm guessing you took all of your sand bed out at once... ?

Yes I removed the old sand bed and put new sand (dry sand ) I thought the live rocks would seed them so there would be no need for live sand.

kenzo · Jul 21, 2015

Phosphate is 0.25 ppm, ammonia is 0 ppm, nitrite is 0 ppm , pH is 8.2 , but nitrate level is little high 20 ppm

Mattrg02 · Jul 21, 2015

Happened to me awhile ago too. I went from sand bed to bare bottom. I left behind a few rocks and replaced with cured rocks from LFS.

I lost a lot of very nice corals. Corals I had for years. Also lost a fish. Zoas and the like lived.

It was a cycle. I didn't think to get some Prime until it was too late.

I'll never forget that. The corals were growing great! Lost very expensive corals.

It'll come back though. Watch the ammonia.

kenzo · Jul 21, 2015

luke33 said:
Like mentioned above your having a bit of a cycle. I'm sure the dry sand was the biggest issue as it probably leached phosphates into your tank, not to mention you pulled out your good bacteria with your live sand. I would definitely be testing for am and trites as you could loose everything in your tank. Water tests should help as long as your using rodi water. Are you?

I never used rodi water and I always used tap water with AmQuel. It never affected my sps corals, as you see from my pics they grew beautifully. Even though I'm thinking about buying a rodi system.

Mattrg02 · Jul 21, 2015

kenzo said:
I never used rodi water and I always used tap water with AmQuel. It never affected my sps corals, as you see from my pics they grew beautifully. Even though I'm thinking about buying a rodi system.

Man, tap water in a sps tank? How was the algae?

kenzo · Jul 21, 2015

Mattrg02 said:
Happened to me awhile ago too. I went from sand bed to bare bottom. I left behind a few rocks and replaced with cured rocks from LFS.

I lost a lot of very nice corals. Corals I had for years. Also lost a fish. Zoas and the like lived.

It was a cycle. I didn't think to get some Prime until it was too late.

I'll never forget that. The corals were growing great! Lost very expensive corals.

It'll come back though. Watch the ammonia.

I know all my sps corals died, even some mushrooms and *xenia died*. Luckily my kryptonite candy cane coral survived. I thought it's dead and I was ready to throw it out but, then I saw it is alive ( half of the colour is gone, but I see that it's getting the neon colour back ).

kenzo · Jul 21, 2015

Mattrg02 said:
Man, tap water in a sps tank? How was the algae?

I used a phosphate reactor when red slime grew over my sand and it wasn't a big problem. There was algae here and there but wasn't a problem.

Mattrg02 · Jul 21, 2015

kenzo said:
I used a phosphate reactor when red slime grew over my sand and it wasn't a big problem. There was algae here and there but wasn't a problem.

What is your tap water TDS? Mine is 325ppm!

I was distraught when my Xenia died awhile back....okAy, I was actually pretty excited! I hated that mess. Over grew the tank and killed some acros.

Mike in CT · Jul 21, 2015

Maybe the tap water in your new place is not as good as where you moved from.

kenzo · Jul 21, 2015

Mattrg02 said:
What is your tap water TDS? Mine is 325ppm!

I was distraught when my Xenia died awhile back....okAy, I was actually pretty excited! I hated that mess. Over grew the tank and killed some acros.

I never really tested my tap water, but I live in NY and they say tap water here is pretty clean. Anyway now I want to check it

I had xenia in my tank and it never really grew that much and for 10/11 months that's all it grew from the frag I got. My sps corals grew faster than it.