This is just a copy and paste of a something I posted here for someone else recently. Just disregard anything that doesn’t pertain to you as far as starting a new tank. But pay close attention to the gravel washing tube. If you have any further questions, I’d be more than happy to answer them and help you out. Good luck.
My tank is up now for about four years. It’s a 125. I was adding corals one or two at a time. I have hammers, torches, acans, gonis, and zoos, And a few fish including a pair of ocellaris, a chalk basslet, a copperband butterfly and a purple firefish. At about the two-year mark, my prize three-headed toxic green torch started to look limp. Then started to lose heads. Over about three months, I lost all three heads, one at a time. Then my two- headed gold torch started to show stress. It also started to look limp. Then one head just dissolved overnight. I had no idea what was going on. All my other corals looked OK. Not great, but not stressed. All my numbers looked perfect. Same as they had always been. I use a doser for my two-part and magnesium and I check my levels every Sunday religiously. Then, almost by accident, I happen to see a video by BRS that was instructing how to keep your gravel clean of algae. One of the methods they indicated was to use a gravel washing tube. So I figured, what the heck, I might as well. I spent 23 bucks on a 36 inch long gravel washing tube from Petco and went to work on my gravel after I put all my corals safely on the side of the tank I wasn’t working on. Best 23 bucks I ever spent. Well my corals, within the following week or so all started to look amazing. That one gold head remaining on my gold torch is still alive and splitting. So that’s my story. The detritus decaying in your gravel will never show up in your nitrate readings or any other test readings. But it’s there. And if you don’t do something about it, it’ll destroy your tank. Google “old tank syndrome“. Rotting detritus in the sand is the cause. Good luck with your new tank. PS. it’s important not to wash the gravel with anything other than tank water, because if you do that, you kill all of the beneficial bacteria. That’s why the gravel washing tube is the ideal accessory to keep your tank alive. Make sure the gravel churns inside the tube as you’re siphoning water and before you release the gravel/sand back into the tank. Guaranteed the water you remove from the tank will stink to high heaven. Again. Good luck.
