Should we just restart the tank?

[Tiffany Lesh]

Hello everyone [emoji5] I'll just dive right in. Our tank crashed about 2 months ago, and we lost pretty much everything all in one sweep all at once, we had low nitrates for a while that we were trying to boost before the crash. We got the water tested, and we had a little ammonia (the tank was 9 months old) that spiked, but nothing too high, and then there was the "sludge" My fiance tried to clean the stuff the night before the crash, and now since then we have just been doing water changes and trying to keep it going, we do have a pistol shrimp, and a few hermits left. At this point though, I'm starting to think we may wanna restart. The tank is really murky, and the sludge is growing. I'll post pics, sorry it's hard to see! Any advice is appreciated, or if some one could ID this stuff growing. Thank you fellow reefers [emoji16][emoji4]

 

[Tiffany Lesh]

Hello everyone [emoji5] I'll just dive right in. Our tank crashed about 2 months ago, and we lost pretty much everything all in one sweep all at once, we had low nitrates for a while that we were trying to boost before the crash. We got the water tested, and we had a little ammonia (the tank was 9 months old) that spiked, but nothing too high, and then there was the "sludge" My fiance tried to clean the stuff the night before the crash, and now since then we have just been doing water changes and trying to keep it going, we do have a pistol shrimp, and a few hermits left. At this point though, I'm starting to think we may wanna restart. The tank is really murky, and the sludge is growing. I'll post pics, sorry it's hard to see! Any advice is appreciated, or if some one could ID this stuff growing. Thank you fellow reefers [emoji16][emoji4]

Heres the pictures

 

[5altkreep]

Hi. The bad news...You are going to get a whole bunch of questions before you get any answers.
The good news, there's a whole bunch of experienced reefers here who like to help.
Can you tell us more about your tank? Age, equipment, history. What's your maintanance schedule like? Do you use rodi water? A restart could potentially be the best option, but maybe you can get this figured out so its avoided the next time around.

 

[Tiffany Lesh]

Hi. The bad news...You are going to get a whole bunch of questions before you get any answers.
The good news, there's a whole bunch of experienced reefers here who like to help.
Can you tell us more about your tank? Age, equipment, history. What's your maintanance schedule like? Do you use rodi water? A restart could potentially be the best option, but maybe you can get this figured out so its avoided the next time around.

I was ready for the questions, lol. I just appreciate everyone trying to help. Even if we do restart, like you said, it would be nice to know what happened for next time.

Our tank is a 13.5 Fluval Evo, we have upgraded the lighting to one we bought on amazon (it's not the best, but it's better than what came with the tank) we cut the filter that came with the tank, and modified it to work better, we also removed the charcoal that came with the tank filter. We have 2 heaters in the tank (one set a little lower as a backup) we live in Colorado, so it never gets too hot. We test our water every 2 weeks, did a weekly partial water change with premixed salt water from our LFS, and top off with RODI water as needed when evaporation (we also test salinity when we get out water tested) the tank was 9 months old, so not too old yet, but it was pretty established, and we had several corals and fish. Let me know what other questions anyone has [emoji5]

 

[VSVP bet]

elaborate on the sludge... did it appear out of nowhere? was it gradual? How little was the ammonia spike? Why were you trying to bost nitrate, so corals had food? what type of corals? post pics of the modified filter. Was the algae bloom (green water) before or after the crash?

 

[Justfebreezeit]

I'm not sure what caused this originally but have you tried a few large water changes? like 100% ones?

 

[Stevorino]

I've had 2 crashes in my time as a reefer... eventually I did a full clean out both times and regretted not doing it earlier.

Transfer out the rocks/livestock/corals into buckets and dump the rest is my advice. Fresh sand/water and rescape - you can do it in an afternoon and it'll renew your spirits too.

 

[5altkreep]

13.5 gallons? My advice: 100% reboot. Pull your rock. Take the shrimp and crabs back to the lfs or another tank. Get an rodi system, refractometer and at least a basic test kit. It all starts with your water. Take control of that and let your tank cycle properly before adding any livestock.

 

[Tiffany Lesh]

Thank you so much for the advice everyone, I'll try to answer all the questions here.
The sludge did pretty much appear out of no where, and we tried cleaning it with a partial water change, and trying to vacuum that out. That was the night before the crash, so we aren't sure if disturbing that did lead the the crash. We cant remember the exact numbers on the ammonia spike, I just know that the people at the LFS said it shouldn't have crashed the whole tank. We were trying to boost nitrates because there were none in there when we got the water tested, and we did want food for the corals. We had xenia, 4 different frags of zoa's (that were finally starting to grow onto our rocks, bummer) and some GSP. We also had a Clown fish, a tail spot blenny, a tangaroa goby/pistol shrimp pair, and a yellow goby. The green water was after the crash. It all looked pretty clear prior to the crash. The only thing that seemed off was the 'sludge'. We have tried a few 50% changes, but no 100%, maybe we will try that a couple times before we break down completely and restart.

We will definitely wait longer next time before putting any livestock in, we were first timers, and got a little too impatient, but we did have a super stable, great tank for a solid 5 months, so it did give us hope for the next time. Thank you everybody so much for the advice.