Tank got kicked back into cycle

[ReeferMadness710]

I recently purchased a 60 gallon from someone and they barley cleaned the tank. It had been running for two years. It had a ton of detritus build up in the sand. When I got it to my house and put it back together I think the sand got so knocked around it put the deities in the air and started breaking it down again. I’m noting what I believe is a severe bacteria bloom. I added Aqua Vitro Seed and Stability to the tank. Should I do a water change and remove the sand or just let it do it’s thing because of the beneficial bacteria that would be in the sand? Thanks for the help. Just wanna make sure the fish in the tank don’t die.

 

[Azedenkae]

I recently purchased a 60 gallon from someone and they barley cleaned the tank. It had been running for two years. It had a ton of detritus build up in the sand. When I got it to my house and put it back together I think the sand got so knocked around it put the deities in the air and started breaking it down again. I’m noting what I believe is a severe bacteria bloom. I added Aqua Vitro Seed and Stability to the tank. Should I do a water change and remove the sand or just let it do it’s thing because of the beneficial bacteria that would be in the sand? Thanks for the help. Just wanna make sure the fish in the tank don’t die.

I doubt there's an issue with the beneficial microbes, given they would also be living in rocks and so on, and even with the sand kicking up that does not dislodge all of them or render them useless. Have you tested your nitrogen-based parameters? I'd think ammonia and nitrite would still be 0 (well, ammonia might read 0.25 or something on the API test kit).

Only thing that may need to be worried about is the bacterial bloom, but that should settle down, hopefully rather than having you have to do anything. If you oxygenate the water well enough though, it's fine.

Your fish would only die if they are suffocated by the bacterial bloom depleting oxygen, not the lack of nitrification.

 

[brandon429]

you need to take the tank apart and clean it the right way as we do here:

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

nothing else will fix it, no dosers or adjustments. a redo, and the new assembly will skip cycle the right way.

 

[brandon429]

The ideal is using all new water


however, if you cant make sixty new gallons then draw off what you can to be reused, run the rip clean we show for fifty pages/select a link and read/ and put the cloudy water back over clean surfaces and it'll clear before long. ideal though is all new water, as you can see above.

 

[Miami Reef]

I agree with Brandon. Let’s start this tank the right way.

 

[ReeferMadness710]

I doubt there's an issue with the beneficial microbes, given they would also be living in rocks and so on, and even with the sand kicking up that does not dislodge all of them or render them useless. Have you tested your nitrogen-based parameters? I'd think ammonia and nitrite would still be 0 (well, ammonia might read 0.25 or something on the API test kit).

Only thing that may need to be worried about is the bacterial bloom, but that should settle down, hopefully rather than having you have to do anything. If you oxygenate the water well enough though, it's fine.

Your fish would only die if they are suffocated by the bacterial bloom depleting oxygen, not the lack of nitrification.

Yeah, all my parameters are all off the charts. Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate. Like I said, I just got this tank. I noticed the skimmer started pulling stuff out of the water more too.

 

[brandon429]

the filter bacteria are still ok, thankfully and cannot be killed by any upwelling event. once cycled, they stick and dont starve or die off in these events.


they're being out-upwelled by the exact material we specialize in removing above. its awesome when reef job requests come with pages of inspectable work outcomes~ saves $ by guessing. once you remove the material, the filter bac that remain work just fine.


also, your ammonia event resolved in fifteen minutes but not per the tester you are using (other compounds tbd in the column set them off as a perpetual free ammonia concern, but its used rapidly in all reefs)

if you had seneye then it would show resolved. our cleaning is for your upcoming algae nightmare, not in response to a misreading test kit.

this post isn't to be eternally jaded about api

its a result of studying all the collective seneye posts on this forum vs all search returns for stuck cycles, which are 100% not seneye posts. they're api and red sea, hence the constant doubt- I never accept initially any stated ammonia params, from any post. they're all dealing in kits that take a long time to show a rise or a downfall in nh3.

a rip clean is good for any reef, its why we dont even need pics of your setup to offer one. done logged em.

 

[brandon429]

this is a prime example of times we're trained by bottle bac sellers to dose a bottled bac product in response, but that is 100% not the case when inspected.

a 2 year old reef tank literally has every surface full of bac, adding some to the water that have no place to attach on surfaces is a useless venture, they'll be overcame as well if the ammonia was that bad. dosed bottle bac use more oxygen (they're aerobes en masse) so the direct move for a cycled tank with an upwelling event is to take the tank apart and make that not ever happen again. rip cleaning is an oxygenating event by nature of flushing action.

a secondary best move if you had sensitive fish acting as if they're ammonia burnt would be to dose amquel or prime if the exporting water change wasn't feasible.

 

[brandon429]

post full tank pics we gotta compare all predictions, before pics to the outcomes logged here as well/false ammonia reading thread:
is there anything really new under the sun when it comes to ammonia spikes in a reef tank?

Sustained Ammonia spikes are misreads

The reason you think your reef tank can’t control its ammonia is due to false training from old cycling science. That and you don’t own a seneye on the tank in question: if you did, you wouldn’t ever think your ammonia was out of control...

www.reef2reef.com

folks have dosed too much food before and got cloudy water...not a tank wrecker for example, using cloudy water as the basis.

 

[Azedenkae]

Yeah, all my parameters are all off the charts. Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate. Like I said, I just got this tank. I noticed the skimmer started pulling stuff out of the water more too.

Sorry, I might have misunderstood - was the tank still set up when you got it, or was it torn down already?