Part 2.

AndrewB · Aug 2, 2018

This morning I woke up to a nightmare. Tank has crashed for one reason or another. I am fairly certain all coral have died. Only my 3 fish and 3 peppermint shrimp survived. So what's next?

My plan of attack is to get the living into a qt aquarium and set up short term care for them there. Next I will begin pulling the rock from the main aquarium, frag off any could be survivors (mushrooms, zoas) and put them on a frag rack in qt tank. After that I will empty water, vacuum sand bed, clean rocks, replace my scape. Fill with new water and.... wait.

I'm looking for feedback on how to get started again on main rank. I assume there was die off of beneficial bacteria as well as contaminates from the dying critters. Have I started a fresh cycle? Anything I should toss? Could the rock or sand have become toxic?

I am making a list of all the things I did wrong and areas to improve because this is just heartwrenching. Any input and advice. Hell, moral support... I'll take. Thanks

Florida Sunshine · Aug 2, 2018

Step one is to figure out why the tank crashed. If it happened overnight, there has to be a cause and you want to be sure to correct for that before starting over.

Moonfruit777 · Aug 2, 2018

Definitely find out what caused the crash! There must be some reason for it!
Maybe post some pictures?

If you set up a small QT for your fish, DO PUT A LID ON IT... some mesh... you know what i mean

I set up a too small tank while upgrading and all the fish went mad in there and one even jumped out

How to proceed with the new set up really depends on what happened in the first place.
Swapping the water and sand out sounds good... maybe run some carbon too... "Amonia sticker" might be interesting as well

But others will have better suggestions on how to do it - i'm sure of that!

I always had a crash with my tanks in the first year... it really sucks, there is no need to argue about it, but they always looked amazing and a lot better afterwards
"time will heal all wounds" is a nice saying that always comes true in my tanks - wether you accidently break off a piece of coral or crash the whole tank

Hang in there and keep going !
Best of Luck

Palyzoa · Aug 2, 2018

I agree with above posts, you need to figure out what caused the crash before you can continue. How old was the tank, did you overload the biological system to quickly?