EntitledSushi
Community Member
- Joined
- May 19, 2020
- Messages
- 81
- Reaction score
- 80
- What state or country do you live in
- Massachusetts
This is not exactly a new build but I basically have to start over after killing most everything in my tank. This first post is the story of how I got in this predicament.
I bought a Red Sea Reefer 350 about three years ago. My intention was to take my 7-year-old daughter to the local pet store to buy her a goldfish tank, and somehow we ended up walking out with a 75 gallon reef tank. These things happen I guess. Here’s a picture of the tank after 1 year:
Not impressive compared to other tanks I’ve seen here, but we enjoyed it. Mostly fish, a few corals, and a crazy BTA population. We bought one, and it split, and split and split. Sent a dozen BTA’s to the fish store to get rid of them, a few months later there were again a dozen in the tank. So if Fish + Bubble Tip Anemones = Mixed Reef, you could say we had a mixed reef tank.
The LFS had been doing all of the tank service including water changes. That’s really how I thought it was going to be since I viewed the aquarium as more of a decoration than a hobby.
Fast forward almost 2 years to December 2019. Tank is muddling along OK. Some of the corals have done very well (hammers, zoas) others looked great for a few months and then died off. Didn’t know much so that was a bit frustrating but maybe just par for the course. However I came to an important realization one day: Green Star Polyps are weeds. The patch in the first photo had grown to infest every rock and surface in the tank. Basically where there were no anemones there was Green Star Polyp, and where there was no Green Star Polyp there were anemones. This could continue no longer, so for the first time I prepared for battle inside the tank.
It took weeks, but eventually I had scrubbed every surface clear of GSP save for one rock of it that I isolated to an island. Since I removed some rock to do so, my daughter convinced me to buy a broken urn as a tank decoration to replace it. Though there was some coral loss, basically things look OK:
Two months later in March 2020, COVID-19 hits. Fish store closes and tank maintenance service is no longer possible. OK, it looks like I am learning how to do water changes. Maybe I can adjust the settings on the AI Hydra 26 lights too. One button press and Zap! one of the two lights dies. Great. Fish store closed. AquaIllumination is closed. Amazon is taking three weeks to deliver items that used to take two days. Long story short, half the tank is without light for two weeks, roughly. Half the corals die.
New light installed. OK things are looking up. Time for the next water change. Not a big deal since I figured out how to do it last time. Upon starting up the system again I try playing with the settings on the gyre pump controller. No response. Dead. Really? How long has it been dead for? I’m not sure, I never really paid attention to it before. Same situation as with the lights: stores closed, deliveries delayed. Find a replacement gyre pump on eBay that arrives a week later. More stuff dead.
Did a broken gyre pump actually cause the die-off? I guess so, but how to know? I do a water test. Nitrates and phosphorus a bit high, but they have always been high. Ammonia etc., are fine. Decide to check salinity a few days later. 1.020. What? It had been 1.026-1.028 consistently since tank install. How could that have happened? Looks like someone screwed up the last couple water changes. More stuff dead.
At least nothing else could go wrong. Well, my heater was not working properly. Temp was stable at 78. Now a little low at 77. A couple days later 76. Manually turn up heater a few degrees to try to keep temperature up. Couple days later, 74. Turn up heater again. Couple days later, 72. Turn up … wait, 72 is below the room temperature. How could that be? Oh, wait. Tank thermometer reads 68 now. Are you kidding me? Thermometer was slowly dying, not the heater. Actual tank temperature now about 83. Last two corals, once beautiful hammers, are half covered in brown jelly. Nice.
Alright, looks like reef keeping just became my COVID-19 hobby. Started doing research. Discovered Reef2Reef. Found incredible amount of helpful, useful, and completely contradictory information. Gave up in despair. Insert a couple days of self-pity. Put on big-boy pants and went back on Reef2Reef. Learned a lot and decided there is quite a bit about reef-keeping that just isn’t easy. Tossed fish-store ATI tests and bought Hanna and Nyos kits. Learned about water chemistry, carbon dosing, and Phosguard. Learned about fragging and for the first time I took a bandsaw to a living thing and tried to cut away the heads with brown jelly. Bought frag racks, frag plugs, and about 100 tubes of Super Glue later learned how to glue animals to rocks.
Tank looks like a war zone, but at least it is stable. Time to start over. Will post progress pictures tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
I bought a Red Sea Reefer 350 about three years ago. My intention was to take my 7-year-old daughter to the local pet store to buy her a goldfish tank, and somehow we ended up walking out with a 75 gallon reef tank. These things happen I guess. Here’s a picture of the tank after 1 year:
Not impressive compared to other tanks I’ve seen here, but we enjoyed it. Mostly fish, a few corals, and a crazy BTA population. We bought one, and it split, and split and split. Sent a dozen BTA’s to the fish store to get rid of them, a few months later there were again a dozen in the tank. So if Fish + Bubble Tip Anemones = Mixed Reef, you could say we had a mixed reef tank.
The LFS had been doing all of the tank service including water changes. That’s really how I thought it was going to be since I viewed the aquarium as more of a decoration than a hobby.
Fast forward almost 2 years to December 2019. Tank is muddling along OK. Some of the corals have done very well (hammers, zoas) others looked great for a few months and then died off. Didn’t know much so that was a bit frustrating but maybe just par for the course. However I came to an important realization one day: Green Star Polyps are weeds. The patch in the first photo had grown to infest every rock and surface in the tank. Basically where there were no anemones there was Green Star Polyp, and where there was no Green Star Polyp there were anemones. This could continue no longer, so for the first time I prepared for battle inside the tank.
It took weeks, but eventually I had scrubbed every surface clear of GSP save for one rock of it that I isolated to an island. Since I removed some rock to do so, my daughter convinced me to buy a broken urn as a tank decoration to replace it. Though there was some coral loss, basically things look OK:
Two months later in March 2020, COVID-19 hits. Fish store closes and tank maintenance service is no longer possible. OK, it looks like I am learning how to do water changes. Maybe I can adjust the settings on the AI Hydra 26 lights too. One button press and Zap! one of the two lights dies. Great. Fish store closed. AquaIllumination is closed. Amazon is taking three weeks to deliver items that used to take two days. Long story short, half the tank is without light for two weeks, roughly. Half the corals die.
New light installed. OK things are looking up. Time for the next water change. Not a big deal since I figured out how to do it last time. Upon starting up the system again I try playing with the settings on the gyre pump controller. No response. Dead. Really? How long has it been dead for? I’m not sure, I never really paid attention to it before. Same situation as with the lights: stores closed, deliveries delayed. Find a replacement gyre pump on eBay that arrives a week later. More stuff dead.
Did a broken gyre pump actually cause the die-off? I guess so, but how to know? I do a water test. Nitrates and phosphorus a bit high, but they have always been high. Ammonia etc., are fine. Decide to check salinity a few days later. 1.020. What? It had been 1.026-1.028 consistently since tank install. How could that have happened? Looks like someone screwed up the last couple water changes. More stuff dead.
At least nothing else could go wrong. Well, my heater was not working properly. Temp was stable at 78. Now a little low at 77. A couple days later 76. Manually turn up heater a few degrees to try to keep temperature up. Couple days later, 74. Turn up heater again. Couple days later, 72. Turn up … wait, 72 is below the room temperature. How could that be? Oh, wait. Tank thermometer reads 68 now. Are you kidding me? Thermometer was slowly dying, not the heater. Actual tank temperature now about 83. Last two corals, once beautiful hammers, are half covered in brown jelly. Nice.
Alright, looks like reef keeping just became my COVID-19 hobby. Started doing research. Discovered Reef2Reef. Found incredible amount of helpful, useful, and completely contradictory information. Gave up in despair. Insert a couple days of self-pity. Put on big-boy pants and went back on Reef2Reef. Learned a lot and decided there is quite a bit about reef-keeping that just isn’t easy. Tossed fish-store ATI tests and bought Hanna and Nyos kits. Learned about water chemistry, carbon dosing, and Phosguard. Learned about fragging and for the first time I took a bandsaw to a living thing and tried to cut away the heads with brown jelly. Bought frag racks, frag plugs, and about 100 tubes of Super Glue later learned how to glue animals to rocks.
Tank looks like a war zone, but at least it is stable. Time to start over. Will post progress pictures tomorrow. Thanks for reading.
You have done some great work bringing your tank back to life with the maintenance needed and the coral Location plan looks spot on. I’m following along.
