Reef dying

[brandon429]

well lemme see tank pics first, if you are feeding that well and im just seeing about the tang, nice secondary coral feeding from that as well, you may not need a big change. the pics help so much by giving us unspoken variables aside from the testing specifics

I had posed the idea of fully resetting your water table back to any saltwater brands initial makeup, they are all ok for corals its how they vary in time that matters. even the cheapest salt IO runs many sps and lps tanks so I know any mix is ok for yours. if there was an accumulated something, a full change out removes it without tediously testing for it all but im curious to see pics there are already some outliers on the tank pics w help

 

[Harold Green]

Sometimes with a tank that's been set up for awhile detritus accumulates to the point it makes it very difficult to control the water quality. You might consider removing gravel a portion at a time, washing it well and then putting it back into the tank. If you vacuum the sand bed regularly you can avoid this. Just looking at the tank picture I would definitely check the phosphate and nitrate levels to see if they are the issue.

 

[Oceansize]

I don't know why anyone would give you grief for the tang. Tangs are a little delicate because they can be picky about food, and tend to be aggressive towards similar-looking tangs, but yellow tangs are considered the most hardy of the tangs and you've only got one so there shouldn't be any stress issues. Additionally they are algae-eaters, not coral pickers, so they can be great for a reef tank as long as you can keep them eating.

Based on the algae in the tank, it looks very nutrient-rich, moreso than actual tropical reefs. Therefore the algae may be out-competing the coral for resources. This means too many nitrates/phosphates, which means, you guessed it, more frequent water changes and/or more volume exchanged during the water changes. Vacuuming of the sand is important but it can be difficult with so much rock work; what I prefer to do is stir up a section of the sand every week and let the filtration remove the "snow" that gets stirred up.

 

[nport19]

 

[nport19]

Here's the pic guys

 

[nport19]

Oceansize- There's been a few people over the last few times I have posted on here who have said my tank isn't fit for a tang but mine is eating very well and is in good shape. I do have a protein skimmer that I empty everyday.

 

[brandon429]

couldn't see that pic above till I refreshed, that gives good detail. Something we can work with for sure

I don't play kid gloves with reefs, I force them to do my beckoning so contrast my advice with others that w build in this thread so you have a choice

if your tank was mine this is exactly what I would do and it would work 100% for sure. you may not like the fish part, but its what id do:

the tang albeit debatable for this tank isn't timed right. that's a luxury addition if ever for this tank, only when corals are growing and the major ecosystem is behaving. he's causing you to have to be careful on how you fix this ecosystem, so he's bad for that reason alone. you cant be as deliberate with him, so, id give it back or house it at the LFS until conditions allow.

I would place all coral frags, live rock, and fish in holding buckets carefully netted and lifted out. This will leave now only a tank with *undisturbed* sand bed cuz you haven't done anything yet to it, and water, and the growths on the walls of the tank. the rest is sitting in home depot buckets.

You dump out all the sand and not reuse any of it. not rinse and reuse, dump it out and start over w new sand for specific reasons of phosphate binding in the current condition. So the sand has now been dumped out, leaving only an empty tank with growths on the walls.

scrub every surface of the tank clean w vinegar and a razor blade to not scratch.

put in the highly rinsed caribsea sand, pre rinsed so well that when you pick up some and drop it underwater, no cloud forms. rinsed well. its bacteria are incidental and not needed now.

summary

you now have a crystal clear tank with pristine white sand or pink or black, clean brand new saltwater made with a 100% change. that's all that's in the tank.

reacclimate the fish from the buckets back into the tank without the tang.

now in the buckets is just the rocks and coral frags

clean off any areas of growth on those rocks with a toothbrush and a scrubbing of peroxide to get off the algae and growths, rinse that off and start stacking the rocks back in the perfectly cleaned tank that has 100% new saltwater from any brand.

clean each frag plug off *at the base* with peroxide so that you are reimporting as little algae as possible.

don't get it on the corals, this is for hard substrates to help remove algae and import less into your new tank.

So the new tank now has 100% water change, all new sand, totally clean corals and all rock surfaces its brand new now and doesn't have to recycle.

You need to focus on having hardly any fish at all, as their major waste contributed to your algae issues. focus on changing large amounts of your water weekly for two mos as you spot feed the corals with hq frozen feeds, then in a few mos when things are better consider reupping on fish. if you do, expect another cleanout next year, that's a high fish bioload currently.

 

[Naiad]

What Brandon said is one reason people frown on the yellow tang in the 30 gallon. Tangs are poop machines. I cringed when mine let one go in a 120. If you want one in a smaller tank you have to be prepared to go above and beyond in general husbandry.

 

[nport19]

Brandon I like you idea the only thing I have is that I really don't have the money to do a complete tank redo nor do I want to put the corals and fish through the stress of moving and stuff. Is there a way I can go without the sand all together and clean all the alge off stuff while it's still setup?

 

[Naiad]

Everything will be more stressed by your attempts to clean with them in tank then being placed in a separate container. You could always reset up as a bare bottom tank as long as you have no burrowing fish.

 

[brandon429]

I couldn't recommend in tank work because it doesn't address a huge source of issues coming from the current sand bed, it extends this out to months vs a 2 hour job. its full of waste that is feeding the algae. so as a cheaper stopgap, the only thing that costs above was the new sand and the change water...so, you could rinse this sand perfectly clean to save from buying new sand and still do all the other procedures, you can score various free containers to hold the items in during the clean up. the stress to your corals is in the current tank, not the change out, that saves them from stress. you cant spot feed them well enough with the sand as sinked as it is, partial cleaning of the sand risks kicking up these stores for more algae, imo only something totally thorough will work.

youd need to factor the cost of a full water change as well, my way involves 100% force and nothing partial.

if you took out all your sand 100% and rinsed it well that would be ok as a stop gap option lower cost. it needs to meet the post rinse test, when in your tank again, you should be able to scoop some up and drop it, and get zero cloud. now that's clean. this crazy method above is called eutrophication arrest so its a mean and thorough process, but not hard on corals. moving between containers and water variables isn't a big deal to them as long as both containers are within reasonable specs (so both containers are totally new saltwater matching between them, doesn't matter what water they came from)

your corals do not have to be reacclimated, just put em in. fish are causing your reacclimation needs.

 

[nport19]

I think what I'm going to do is take out the sand all together. And net up the fish and put them in a container and same with the coral. Then clean all the alge out of the tank and take all the water out and then put new water back in. Now will doing all this make the tank recycle? I really don't want that to happen.

 

[brandon429]

no. only partial dealings w dirty sand will make it recycle by kicking up rotting proteins, my system above separated your animals before touching the sand to prevent that. the rock doesn't die when moving between two sets of waters, youd have to have it in the air a long time for that to occur. doing anything partial to your sandbed, in the presence of corals or animals, is indeed the recycle risk.

just to clarify, its ok to go bare bottom altogether that certainly makes future cleanings easier. you were going to not reuse the sand?

I just took apart a nine year pico reef in the exact manner above with no recycle, its as predictable as clockwork.

also consider API ammonia tests, they often indicate .25 when its really zero, so that makes a mini cycle seem like it occurred when it didn't. we don't need to test for ammonia w the steps above, we have isolated all protein rotten stores with our physical timing and separations.

one last tidbit

rarely does going instantly bare bottom matter to reefing, people do it all the time. that's loss of a good chunk of filter bacteria, but it doesn't usually matter since the live rock does so much beyond what we need. your tank had a high fish bioload though so that live sand was pretty helpful filtering, so as long as you are reducing the fish bioload in some meaningful way upon reintroduction I wouldn't worry about having no sand the live rock is 99% still able to process it in my opinion. in my opinion if you keep that many fish the tank needs weekly large water changes not monthly and I wouldn't be dosing any iodine at all, the fish feed alone is more than you ever need. iodide overdosing can be detected in tanks that have red coloration issues and cyano, its highly possible here. iodide additives brings out red primary invaders in the reef tank and this eutrophication shown def has red invaders in it.

 

[nport19]

That's correct I plan not to reuse the sand.

 

[nport19]

Brandon if you don't mind could you message me the steps I need to follow to redo my tank?

 

[brandon429]

I would but I can't think of anything different than the above steps, to recap:

Rocks fish and corals come out and into buckets of clean water set at same temp and salt levels of the current water no others params need to match

Take down entire tank toss sand

Clean all filters hoses and all areas of the tank to brand new

Reassemble tank with 100% new water from any brand you use, add the rocks back and the corals after scrubbing off bad areas with a toothbrush dipped in peroxide just to speed up the algae kill

No acclimation needed since each water matches the temp and salinity of the previous water. PH alk calcium doesn't matter. All brands of saltwater make up to acceptable levels but they drift differently over time. Concern about that later.

I wouldn't move the tang back without having some clean new sand as a safety hedge, he makes lots of waste. If you are not using the tang then the other fish can move back into the bare bottom tank and the live rocks w be enough filtration so you don't mini cycle.

Make sure your lighting distance above the tank is correct and not over driving corals, we want to feed them better and change water weekly going forward, relative to how many fish you ultimately want. The current rates of export were not enough and the sand was helping to store wastes on top of that.


The specific risks to recycling were the sand, which isn't being used so that's addressed, and reintroducing an already too large fish bioload to a cleaned system with less surface area (we removed the sand )

Any reasonable fish bioload less the tang didn't need the sand as a filter it was just there

 

[SifuMemphis]

Simply by looking at your tank, I can tell that you do not need to dose Iodine. By doing water changes, if you're using good salt, it should have enough iodine in it, to support your tank.

 

[brandon429]

Agreed I think that's a real causative factor here, the lack of export made for easy accumulation issues

Almost nobody doses it anymore if we polled

 

[SifuMemphis]

Also, I would invest in a awesome clean up crew

 

[Macdaddynick1]

I have a few questions.
1 I did not see you post anything about the light . what type of light is it and what brand? is it an LED or a T5 or a small florescent i think its called PC light . I am suspecting that it is small bulb . by the looks of the corals.
2. You said you do w/c 5 gallons a week , do you make your own water or do you buy it from LFS?
2.5 . MOST importantly... You said you top off with fresh water , where do you get that water? Do you buy it at LFS , Do you buy it at one of those filters at the store, or do you just use tap?
3. its not he visual of your tank in the tang , it sure isn't working out for the fish , no offense.
4. it looks like you have a canister on it if so , do you have the sponges inside, and do you clean them often?
5. your kenya tree looks like its starving, it looks shrunk so is sinularia leather. 2 things cause them to do that . very low alkalinity OR very low light , like the light from the regular 6k bulb.
6. if you truly want to have a reef tank it will require a little bit of money . a buddy of mine wanted to have a reef but he didn't have the money to spend. his tank kind of looked like this. (and thats me not trying to bash on you but being honest)
7. I am sure most guys are willing to help you out , BUT we do need to know a little more about your chemistry , equipment and husbandry.
8. Also the parameters are the first thing . check them.
9. Please this would make it whole lot easier Post the Pictures of your skimmer , your light , your filter could also be helpful perhaps something isn't working properly.
10. You mentioned you empty the skimmer out every day , may be it needs an adjustment.

I apologize if my comment is a little rough around the edges, hopefully we can solve this . GL

Respectfully,

Nick