My Tank crashed! :( after a year!

[peter fumo]

Sorry for your loss....... go RODI you will love it

 

[kenzo]

I'm a little late to this but what happened was you released anaerobic bacteria when you stirred up the sand. Did you start sucking sand out before or after you removed the water? I read someone's post that a lot of their animals died when switching to BB and it was probably because you released anaerobic bacteria from stirring up the sand before you removed the water. I removed my sand a few months ago too but to keep the bacteria from killing everything I pulled all the water out until it was about 1/4" deep, removed fish, corals, rocks, then sand. Note that my corals were exposed to air for a few minutes and then I scrubbed my rocks with the old water, as soon as the water became putrid I scrubbed with more old water and then finally rinsed the rock with new water. Not a single animal died and everything was fine. Anaerobic bacteria depletes the water of oxygen when it's released into the water column, so I was told, not actually sure if that's true. This is why I switched to BB, no more sand for me, just not worth it

No I removed all fish and corals before removing sand.

 

[Elton20]

No that's what I'm saying lol. When you removed fish or corals, there's a chance you moved the rock work in the sand and released the bacteria. I'm sure you saw black stuff on the bottom of the rocks, that's the bacteria. You gotta remove all the water first, then fish, then corals, then rocks, then the sand. Bare bottom FTW

 

[kenzo]

No that's what I'm saying lol. When you removed fish or corals, there's a chance you moved the rock work in the sand and released the bacteria. I'm sure you saw black stuff on the bottom of the rocks, that's the bacteria. You gotta remove all the water first, then fish, then corals, then rocks, then the sand. Bare bottom FTW

Oh I see