Tank restart tips

[Llorgon]

Ok. My 25g has taken a big hit recently and I think it's time for a restart. Since this was originally going to be a temporary tank that has now been running 3 years, I want to do a complete restart.

I'm going to throw out the sand and rock, move the corals to my 75g.

But what do I do with the fish? I have 2 clowns and 2 clowns in the 75, so I can't put them in there.

I do have a 10g I use for QT they could stay in for awhile I suppose.

I picked up a bottle of biospira and I have a bag of live sand. Is that enough to make a same day switch of the rocks and sand?

 

[brandon429]

what if this plan is a bad idea though, and we could show you links of you fixing your current reef working much better, and that links of doing it this way planned are a series of new invasions for the next two years

still hold course?

we could easily get your stuff to skip cycle into an all new setup using bottle bac, but before you do that, post a link here where that worked well for someone/starting clean due to an invasion

it comes back, with a force, having never beaten it in the current setup and because all prior habits of care are in place/unchanged and because all stocking sources are the same for a given home. something needs to change in your current reef, that is what prevents the future ones from crashing. moving to a new reef won't prevent that. you'll lose core practice if you ditch these rocks.


*you can ditch your sand though for new

just not the rocks, they should be rehabbed, and set back as the skip cycle component of a new tank. keep rocks, ditch everything else if you'd like.

you get dinos on the new round, from starting with rock with 0% biota in place/ I don't recommend a dry rock start.

 

[Llorgon]

what if this plan is a bad idea though, and we could show you links of you fixing your current reef working much better, and that links of doing it this way planned are a series of new invasions for the next two years

still hold course?

we could easily get your stuff to skip cycle into an all new setup using bottle bac, but before you do that, post a link here where that worked well for someone/starting clean due to an invasion

it comes back, with a force, having never beaten it in the current setup and because all prior habits of care are in place/unchanged and because all stocking sources are the same for a given home. something needs to change in your current reef, that is what prevents the future ones from crashing. moving to a new reef won't prevent that. you'll lose core practice if you ditch these rocks.


*you can ditch your sand though for new

just not the rocks, they should be rehabbed, and set back as the skip cycle component of a new tank. keep rocks, ditch everything else if you'd like.

you get dinos on the new round, from starting with rock with 0% biota in place/ I don't recommend a dry rock start.

It may be a bad idea, but I'm not sure what else to do at this point.

I'm open to other suggestions, but I'm not just dealing with an algae issue here.

So, here is what I am dealing with.

In the summer, something hit both my tanks. SPS started to rtn/stn and corals looking generally unhappy. I focused on trying to save my big tank over this one and now here we are. I lost all SPS, really anything encrusting, a few acans and 3/5 euphyllia.

Issues:
Since day 1 of this tank snails don't survive more than a week or two. I've checked voltage, done ICP tests.

Bubble algae has massively taken over

Aiptasia has massively taken over.

I have lots of cyano, but that can be solved by removing the sand.

I'm going to put off posting pictures for as long as possible.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Ok. My 25g has taken a big hit recently and I think it's time for a restart. Since this was originally going to be a temporary tank that has now been running 3 years, I want to do a complete restart.

I'm going to throw out the sand and rock, move the corals to my 75g.

But what do I do with the fish? I have 2 clowns and 2 clowns in the 75, so I can't put them in there.

I do have a 10g I use for QT they could stay in for awhile I suppose.

I picked up a bottle of biospira and I have a bag of live sand. Is that enough to make a same day switch of the rocks and sand?

I would not do same day but mix your sea water and add sand and water and allow pumps to run and water to clear. Assure your salinity is holding next day at proper level as well as PH and then make your move. I just switched a few weeks ago and doing as mentioned made everything go very smooth. No diatoms, cyano - Nothing.

 

[Llorgon]

I would not do same day but mix your sea water and add sand and water and allow pumps to run and water to clear. Assure your salinity is holding next day at proper level as well as PH and then make your move. I just switched a few weeks ago and doing as mentioned made everything go very smooth. No diatoms, cyano - Nothing.

Ok. That's good to know. I figured same day wasn't ideal. I can easily put things in the little qt tank for a couple days.