TheShepherdTrio
Community Member
We’ve had our 210 gallon mixed reef tank up and going for just over 2 years. Everything was flourishing then about 6 months or so ago we got infiltrated with some type of bug that wiped out every SPS we had and then other things started dying despite our best efforts. The tank is doing “ok” now but it’s depressing to look at with most of the coral dead.
We’ve thought about throwing in the towel and selling what we have and getting out of the hobby but have decided to give it one last shot at starting over. So over the next couple weeks we’re setting up two other holding tanks and moving the fish to those. We’ll be breaking down the 210 gallon and completely redo everything. Got a new sump, a bigger one so we can actually have a refugium (current sump didn’t have room because of the skimmer), will replumb all the pipes, replace the valves, reorganize all the electrical components, yank out all of the rock and either clean what we have or buy more, strip the sand out, and give the tank an overall good thorough cleaning.
After all of that then we’ll rescape the rock work and fill the tank back up to cycle. And fingers crossed we don’t end up right back at where we are today.
Would it be best to start over with new rock or bleach the existing rock we have (except for the zoa rocks)? Any other tips for completely restarting?
This is what we had.
And this is what’s left
We’ve thought about throwing in the towel and selling what we have and getting out of the hobby but have decided to give it one last shot at starting over. So over the next couple weeks we’re setting up two other holding tanks and moving the fish to those. We’ll be breaking down the 210 gallon and completely redo everything. Got a new sump, a bigger one so we can actually have a refugium (current sump didn’t have room because of the skimmer), will replumb all the pipes, replace the valves, reorganize all the electrical components, yank out all of the rock and either clean what we have or buy more, strip the sand out, and give the tank an overall good thorough cleaning.
After all of that then we’ll rescape the rock work and fill the tank back up to cycle. And fingers crossed we don’t end up right back at where we are today.
Would it be best to start over with new rock or bleach the existing rock we have (except for the zoa rocks)? Any other tips for completely restarting?
This is what we had.
And this is what’s left
