Restarting after long term melt down...

[Jordan Pascuzzi]

This is going to be a decently long post but I'll try to keep it short...

I had a 25 gallon reef tank, I was running a current LED light on the loop. We had zoas, torch coral, a mushroom, hammer coral, 2 nems, and various fish all doing well. I did have some trouble with my BTA but an otherwise healthy tank...My only issue was that the tank was small and a few people said a bigger tank would be lower maintenance/easier to keep stable so I decided to buy a 55 gallon tank. That's where everything went wrong. Against better judgement I put in dry rock from a friend who has experience with tanks but not coral... she told me I didn't need to let it cycle and that it'd be fine to transfer everything over. Basically since then everything has went to ****. The current light no longer works, we're using an old t% current light and the bulb is bad so we just have a ton of algea. The friend I mentioned came to help clean and did a water change with tap water (even though we have RO) and created a bloom that killed all of our fish. We have 2 condys hanging on for dear life but they're obviously not happy. How do we start over???

My general plan is to find a cheap light and allow the tank to cycle for the next few months. Side note: we have a baby on the way due in September so not trying to spend a ton right now. Just want to get it HEALTHY again so we can slowly add fish again, eventually buy a new light, and then get back to our corals. Any advice is greatly appreciated!! It's a hot mess

 

[NashobaTek]

Welcome back to the team!

Congratulations on the new baby coming.

 

[Cell]

Welcome to the forum! So all that's left is the condy's, no fish or coral remain? Starting over is easy with little or no livestock.

What's the tank look like now, can we see a pic?

 

[Aggro]

This is going to be a decently long post but I'll try to keep it short...

I had a 25 gallon reef tank, I was running a current LED light on the loop. We had zoas, torch coral, a mushroom, hammer coral, 2 nems, and various fish all doing well. I did have some trouble with my BTA but an otherwise healthy tank...My only issue was that the tank was small and a few people said a bigger tank would be lower maintenance/easier to keep stable so I decided to buy a 55 gallon tank. That's where everything went wrong. Against better judgement I put in dry rock from a friend who has experience with tanks but not coral... she told me I didn't need to let it cycle and that it'd be fine to transfer everything over. Basically since then everything has went to ****. The current light no longer works, we're using an old t% current light and the bulb is bad so we just have a ton of algea. The friend I mentioned came to help clean and did a water change with tap water (even though we have RO) and created a bloom that killed all of our fish. We have 2 condys hanging on for dear life but they're obviously not happy. How do we start over???

My general plan is to find a cheap light and allow the tank to cycle for the next few months. Side note: we have a baby on the way due in September so not trying to spend a ton right now. Just want to get it HEALTHY again so we can slowly add fish again, eventually buy a new light, and then get back to our corals. Any advice is greatly appreciated!! It's a hot mess

First and foremost grats on the baby. Ok so keeping budget in mind you say you have a 55g is it drilled or are you using HoB stuff. The lights best bet I seen someone on here earlier selling a noopsyche light for 150 or you can for the same price find 2 used viparspectra lights used. Start there and don’t be afraid to ask questions even if it is going against what a friend is telling you.

 

[Erick Armanii]

If you don’t have any coral I would skip on the light while your tank cycles. The lack of light would also slow the growth of the algae blooms.

As the tank matures, the beneficial bacteria will begin to process the excess nutrients feeding the algae.

During this time, I would dose microbacter7 or doctor tims one and only to help boost the beneficial strands of bacteria.

Once your test are showing zero ammonia, introduce some copepods and phytoplankton to battle future algae blooms before they happen.

Then put a nice aquarium light on the baby register lol! Congratulations and good luck