Restarting tank, what to do with existing rock?

[Leyth]

I've decided to restart my tank. It's a 300 gallon and I've had nothing but problems ever since using chemiclean about a year ago. I lost a bunch of corals, but many survived and all my fish are healthy and doing fine. I also want to redo a lot of the plumbing.

Therefore, my plan is to move some rock to a big rubbermaid tub and fill it with the tank water. Move all inhabitants to the tub and maintain the tub while I perform my changes and reset the main tank. However, what can I do with the existing rock? I'm not opposed to starting with new rock, but is there a safe way to re-use this rock?

 

[Dburr1014]

I've decided to restart my tank. It's a 300 gallon and I've had nothing but problems ever since using chemiclean about a year ago. I lost a bunch of corals, but many survived and all my fish are healthy and doing fine. I also want to redo a lot of the plumbing.

Therefore, my plan is to move some rock to a big rubbermaid tub and fill it with the tank water. Move all inhabitants to the tub and maintain the tub while I perform my changes and reset the main tank. However, what can I do with the existing rock? I'm not opposed to starting with new rock, but is there a safe way to re-use this rock?

Let's start off with what kind of problems did you have with your tank since using chemi-clean?

 

[Leyth]

Let's start off with what kind of problems did you have with your tank since using chemi-clean?

dinos, I got rid of them with a UV sterilizer and dosing phosphate. I went out of town for a week and it came back worse than before. Chemiclean messed up the balance in my tank and I can't seem to get it back.

 

[Dburr1014]

dinos, I got rid of them with a UV sterilizer and dosing phosphate. I went out of town for a week and it came back worse than before. Chemiclean messed up the balance in my tank and I can't seem to get it back.

Need to find out what type of dinos. You have a microscope?

If you have the type that going in the water column, uv sterilizer is great. We can get your tank back and balance without having to restart if that's what you want to do.
Keep your N and P up to keep dinos away.

 

[dochoot]

Agree with above but if you restart, may want to separate the fish and the rock if you inadvertently start a massive cycle. Happened to me last month.

 

[Nate Chalk]

If you keep the same rock. And a rebuild . What makes you think the dinos won't come back off the rock you are keeping wet?

 

[Nate Chalk]

I would recommend fixing what you have.

 

[Paleozoic_reefer]

I agree with many of the comments regarding figuring out the problem first before a hard reset. Looking at your tank build you have a beautiful set up and probably just need some time figuring out the specific needs for this size tank. I feel that each tank has its own requirements even if they are the same size and number of gallons. Some pics of the current state of the tank may help in our advice on whether to hard reset or not.

 

[Leyth]

Yea I have a microscope and I id'ed it as ostreopsis. The UV sterilizer helped, but I turned it off while I was on vacation.

I'm also wanting to move the tank to another room and redo some of the plumbing so I figured this was an opportunity to just take care of everything at once.

 

[The_Paradox]

Just throw everything in totes with heaters and power heads. All tanks have dinos otherwise you would not have blooms from time to time. This honestly sounds more like a moving tank question than reusing rock question.

 

[Dburr1014]

Yea I have a microscope and I id'ed it as ostreopsis. The UV sterilizer helped, but I turned it off while I was on vacation.

I'm also wanting to move the tank to another room and redo some of the plumbing so I figured this was an opportunity to just take care of everything at once.

I had ostreopsis. The couple things that helped me were:
1) UV, I only ran at lights out. Makes sense to me cuz that's when there in the water column and not on the rocks. Pull from tank, dump in tank.
2) dosed h2o2 at night. 1ml per 10 gallons. Got them moving.
3) some bottled bac in the morning. For competition of surfaces.
4) made sure po4 and no3 were not at zero.
5) no water changes at this time or any other dosing of any products. Unless to feed our make the water dirtier. That what is needed for competition.

If your moving the tank it would make sense to do this after the tank move. I would not, IMHO, reset the rock or dry it out to start over.
Instead, I would keep them wet to keep what live bacteria you have alive. I would also add diversity by buying a piece of live, wet rock from a LFS or a couple different rocks from different LFS's.
Competition is what's needed.

 

[lmfbs]

I had ostreopsis. The couple things that helped me were:
1) UV, I only ran at lights out. Makes sense to me cuz that's when there in the water column and not on the rocks. Pull from tank, dump in tank.

I've seen a few people mention running the UV from the tank to the tank, but I can't figure out why. Would be grateful for an explanation!

 

[Dburr1014]

I've seen a few people mention running the UV from the tank to the tank, but I can't figure out why. Would be grateful for an explanation!

Sure, that where the dinos are. That's where the bulk of the water is, where the lights are. I don't here if many people saying the dinos are in the sump.

 

[lmfbs]

Sure, that where the dinos are. That's where the bulk of the water is, where the lights are. I don't here if many people saying the dinos are in the sump.

Oh its that simple? They're just in relatively small quantities in the sump, so no point in focusing there? Makes sense! Thanks

 

[Dburr1014]

Oh its that simple? They're just in relatively small quantities in the sump, so no point in focusing there? Makes sense! Thanks

Yes, they're all going to suffer in the masses.

 

[Charles Zinn]

I've decided to restart my tank. It's a 300 gallon and I've had nothing but problems ever since using chemiclean about a year ago. I lost a bunch of corals, but many survived and all my fish are healthy and doing fine. I also want to redo a lot of the plumbing.

Therefore, my plan is to move some rock to a big rubbermaid tub and fill it with the tank water. Move all inhabitants to the tub and maintain the tub while I perform my changes and reset the main tank. However, what can I do with the existing rock? I'm not opposed to starting with new rock, but is there a safe way to re-use this rock?

I'd put in rubbermaid with live rock enhance and goof steady flow and some pods