Shutting down tank and downgrading

[Cjnadler]

I used to have a 55 gallon, but I am going to college next year and it was becoming too hard to keep doing big water changes to keep my ammonia down. I had a bleached Zoanthid (don't know what kind it was my first zoa and I just bought a cheap one) in there and didn't want to transfer that into my new tank in case it did something to my 13.5. luckily I didn't move it because I believe it is releasing palytoxin, I had heard of it a few times before. When I put my hand in the tank to move some snail I felt a very uncomfortable sting in my hand. I have yet to put my hand in the tank again after worrying about washing my hands. I have a lot of Copepods in the tank I would like to try and get into my 13.5 so that I don't have to buy anymore. Does anyone have suggestions on how I can catch the copepods and what I should do about the bleached zoa? Do I take it out, do I drain the tank completely? I'm trying to keep the tank running as long as possible for someone to buy bc it has a live sand and Coraline algae. At least i would think everything would still be alive I have snails in there eating all the algae. I'm decently new to reefing, been doing it about a year. Any advice would help.

 

[NeedMoreReef]

I don't have enough experience with palytoxin to tell you its 100 safe but, I think grabbing some live rock and live sand to seed your new tank would be fine. You may consider a big water change and running some carbon just to be safe.