Starting again

[John Carroll]

I am looking for advice on my 125. It used to me a very healthy SPS dominated forest of sticks. Then one day while I was out bass fishing my wife texted me to tell me that my ATI Sunpower fell in the tank. The lights crushed several colonies and literally made hundreds of frags out of some of the other colonies. It also killed a few fish. That started the crash. The tank slowly crashed over the span of a few weeks, one thing after another. Eventually things stopped dying but I lost almost all of it. The only things that survived were a small (less than 1/4 inch) Pink Smoothie Digi, Sunset Monti, Bonsai Acro, and a Red Monti Cap.

Now I'm looking at an ugly tank and since almost all of the sticks are dead now I can re-scape. I still have Zoas and LPS in there so I cant completely gut it and start all over but I can gut most of it. I think this is a good time to clean my rocks of any bubble algae or whatever too. So here lies the question. Would you pull all the rock, put it in a tub, clean it, and put it back in the tank? or, would you just do 1 rock at a time so you don't recycle the tank again? Thank you and happy reefing.

 

[MamaLovesHerReefTank]

I am looking for advice on my 125. It used to me a very healthy SPS dominated forest of sticks. Then one day while I was out bass fishing my wife texted me to tell me that my ATI Sunpower fell in the tank. The lights crushed several colonies and literally made hundreds of frags out of some of the other colonies. It also killed a few fish. That started the crash. The tank slowly crashed over the span of a few weeks, one thing after another. Eventually things stopped dying but I lost almost all of it. The only things that survived were a small (less than 1/4 inch) Pink Smoothie Digi, Sunset Monti, Bonsai Acro, and a Red Monti Cap.

Now I'm looking at an ugly tank and since almost all of the sticks are dead now I can re-scape. I still have Zoas and LPS in there so I cant completely gut it and start all over but I can gut most of it. I think this is a good time to clean my rocks of any bubble algae or whatever too. So here lies the question. Would you pull all the rock, put it in a tub, clean it, and put it back in the tank? or, would you just do 1 rock at a time so you don't recycle the tank again? Thank you and happy reefing.

Unless you are planning on starting with a completely clean slate which will include a new cycle, I would clean 1 rock at a time.

 

[Waters]

I personally would probably throw a piece or two of the rock into another smaller tank or Brute with the heater and powerhead and all of your remaining livestock and completely restart the tank. Trying to remove algae and other undesirable growths one rock at a time is going to be tough....as you reintroduce the cleaned rocks, there is a good change they will be "reinfected" from the algae still in the tank before you get a chance to clean all of the rock.