Why does my tank look like this ?

[iMi]

Yes I think so
Light : Maxspect jump (not sure how to spell it)
Heater: got it with the fish tank so I’m not sure
Filter: same situation as the heater (thinking I mag need a new one)
I can’t remember my latest parameters so I’m going to test again tomorrow or the day after if I don’t have time

These are all critical components. Do you have a sump or some other type of filtration? Protein skimmer? What does your maintenance schedule look like?

 

[elorablue]

This is not meant to be harsh but helpful and a bit of a reality check.
there is no magic pill to turn this around. It’s going to take a real commitment from you and you alone. For the next 3 weeks to a month you need to spend 1 hour every day working on the tank. Cleaning scraping vacuuming testing adjusting etc.
I know life happens and the best intentions in the world are not enough when the day to day world starts spinning around you.
this hobby just can’t be set it and forget it.
so you have to ask yourself, do I have the time to commit to turning this around ?
be honest with yourself.
Finally, trust me, it’s worth the effort.
best of luck!!!!

 

[Emma_fish]

This is not meant to be harsh but helpful and a bit of a reality check.
there is no magic pill to turn this around. It’s going to take a real commitment from you and you alone. For the next 3 weeks to a month you need to spend 1 hour every day working on the tank. Cleaning scraping vacuuming testing adjusting etc.
I know life happens and the best intentions in the world are not enough when the day to day world starts spinning around you.
this hobby just can’t be set it and forget it.
so you have to ask yourself, do I have the time to commit to turning this around ?
be honest with yourself.
Finally, trust me, it’s worth the effort.
best of luck!!!!

Thank you for the advice I appreciate it

 

[brandon429]

Emma your tank specifically needs a rip clean, anything shy of that is circulating mass waste into crevices and pores. check this one out:




changed into:



pics courtesy of Shadow_k, he completed his rip clean via chat two days ago his reef is totally fixed. nothing bought. cleaned into this condition. we have a thread of 300 of these works. this is the most recent.

takes about three hours to fix your tank right up, no delay. fixes the cause, the invasion, the clouding, all at once. lets rip clean your tank

take it apart a special way, wash it a special way we do, reassemble as a skip cycle setup, no bottle bac used here on any of them.

there are many ways for reefs to go eutrophic, that's what happened to yours. mass was allowed that we dont want, so the cleaning removed it and left only the masses we do want. no dosers can do this, they merely make a chemical soup more soupy.

 

[brandon429]

after fixing it up, verify your topoff and make water is perfect. if its not, expect to rip clean again in '22.

you hunt for causatives in the clean, not the invaded condition. always force the reef to comply if you can't coax it to comply, its better for the animals. we can feed this fixed tank above much better than in the prior condition, the fish's waste is begin filtered better than before due to cleaned pores

 

[Dbichler]

I agree with Brandon rip clean and be done with it. After that though you need to add more water movement. Add a power head or two.

 

[brandon429]

i like the one day turnaround. If she were to fix every cause and leave it that way anyway, in two weeks it’s still a chemical stew only now with fewer new mass additions but the old mass still decays.


what we do above is exactly 100% reef dentistry, that’s a tankmouth that just got back home from a visit to the reef dentist.

 

[Emma_fish]

i like the one day turnaround. If she were to fix every cause and leave it that way anyway, in two weeks it’s still a chemical stew only now with fewer new mass additions but the old mass still decays.


what we do above is exactly 100% reef dentistry, that’s a tankmouth that just got back home from a visit to the reef dentist.

Right ok rip clean I’m gonna search threads on that find out best way to do it then I will add a power head aswell

 

[LRT]

Agreed rip clean.
Also 100% agree with @elorablue and @brandon429 pretty much eluded to.
Rip clean will straighten this tank out in a fast hurry.. That will have to be followed up with weekly due diligence maintenance. Whether its water changes to keep nutrients in check and or scrubbing individual rocks if algae pops back up. It will be what you make it. Won't be easy to get there but when you do it is most def well worth it and not much work at all besides staying on top of things.

 

[Emma_fish]

Agreed rip clean.
Also 100% agree with @elorablue and @brandon429 pretty much eluded to.
Rip clean will straighten this tank out in a fast hurry.. That will have to be followed up with weekly due diligence maintenance. Whether its water changes to keep nutrients in check and or scrubbing individual rocks if algae pops back up. It will be what you make it. Won't be easy to get there but when you do it is most def well worth it and not much work at all besides staying on top of things.

Where do I put fish and coral when I rip clean ? I’m assuming a rip clean is like a super thorough clean is there anything I shouldn’t clean ?

 

[brandon429]

Read the works on these last two pages, it’ll show all the variables involved:

 

[LRT]

Where do I put fish and coral when I rip clean ? I’m assuming a rip clean is like a super thorough clean is there anything I shouldn’t clean ?

No I just got done thoroughly cleaning my entire 80 gallon tank.
In Rubbermaid container mix up enough fresh saltwater mix to replace 50-75% of your system water.
Siphon water out into bucket to put fish and coral in. May want to put heater in.
**Depending on corals you may want to put aggressive corals in ziplock baggies**
Siphon the rest of the water out into buckets or tub without disturbing bottom and kicking up nasties.
Take your sand out and thoroughly rinse with tap water. This is going to take as long as it takes to get it crystal clear. You want it clean. No exceptions.
Empty tank and thoroughly clean all surfaces, glass, pumps and everything in your water.
Put sand back in.
Put rocks back in.
Put new and old water back in.
Put corals and fish in.
Weekly water changes and staying up on things from there

 

[brandon429]

Agreed those are perfect steps


Read page 45 here to see how that job above was broken down

then read page one so you can rinse your sand the right way without missing any rinse steps. First post and last page will do, everything in between is the same job just repeated in different tanks

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

Ok, I move in one week. In preparation, I took the sand out of both tanks a while back (several months ago for the 20g and about a month ago for the 29g). Everyone is doing fine, I like how I can see detritus buildup in real time and remove when necessary. My next most pressing question is how...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[LRT]

Agreed those are perfect steps


Read page 45 here to see how that job above was broken down

then read page one so you can rinse your sand the right way without missing any rinse steps. First post and last page will do, everything in between is the same job just repeated in different tanks

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

Ok, I move in one week. In preparation, I took the sand out of both tanks a while back (several months ago for the 20g and about a month ago for the 29g). Everyone is doing fine, I like how I can see detritus buildup in real time and remove when necessary. My next most pressing question is how...

www.reef2reef.com

Should make an easy 10 step people can follow. When laid out in simple steps. With correct preparedness this can be done effortlessly and as little time. I think I did the 80 gallon in about 30-45 minutes.

 

[brandon429]

The strangest and most important part of the job is we can’t change up the sand rinse, its tap water not saltwater for a reason. It’ll take more than an hour to attain the sand clarity we do there. Final rinse on the clean sand is ro water, set aside for use in the put back tank. rip cleans take the tank apart, cleaning tank fully while empty, washing sand correctly, wash off your rocks in saltwater, hold fish in water buckets covered so they don’t jump, set the whole tank back up with new water 100% and zero cloud.



Everyone cringes at the tapwater part but that’s the single most important step, pure irony.

 

[LRT]

The strangest and most important part of the job is we can’t change up the sand rinse, its tap water not saltwater for a reason. It’ll take more than an hour to attain the sand clarity we do there. Final rinse on the clean sand is ro water, set aside for use in the put back tank. rip cleans take the tank apart, cleaning tank fully while empty, washing sand correctly, wash off your rocks in saltwater, hold fish in water buckets covered so they don’t jump, set the whole tank back up with new water 100% and zero cloud.



Everyone cringes at the tapwater part but that’s the single most important step, pure irony.

Good point. I didnt have sand in the 80. Takes forever to rinse crystal clean but can't have in any other way.
Still trying to wrap my head around why tap water seems to strip out what we want stripped out.
Also agree id use 100% new water if at all possible. Sometimes its not possible but in a small tank I wouldn't do it any other way.

 

[Emma_fish]

Thanks everyone I’m definitely going to do this this weekend and I’ll go to my lfs first to get more saltwater beforehand
I will make a thread on the journey

 

[brandon429]

u know what’s amazing: Shadow_k counted his # of sand rinsed in the bathtub in the bucket, no joke, nobody’s counted them before.

he rinsed 120 times lol in a home depot bucket, in the bathtub, to make the sand that clean / final rinse was in ro water, he put back the cleanest rip clean I’ve seen in six days. He spent the entire duration of a Netflix movie rinsing and dump, refill, rinse dump refill stir with hand over and over now the sand is snowglobe, at that point it cannot recycle.

washing away bacteria was the fear we were trained on but irony wins out this time: it was more important to get the detritus out 1000% the bac that went away with the rinse were merely incidentals. Updated cycling science knows sandbed bacteria are just bioloading like extra fish, they’re not an integral link in the filter. They’re in addition to, competing for oxygen against, the filter (which are the live rocks, no tap touches them)


the only way to fail a rip clean is to put back a cloudy tank, but with tap rinsing you can over do it so much that no clouding remains. Dont use bottle bac new cycling science does not practice retail dependency. Cycled rocks do not have to be redosed with bacteria the original cycling bacteria remain as long as the rocks stay wet.

 

[brandon429]

Prepare for bathtub drain slowly for 25 showers lol fair warning do the rinse outside. With a garden hose.

 

[brandon429]

Rip cleaning hours of operation will be suspended on Thursday this week as I expect to be all ketamined up from hand surgery due to constant inability to land jumps on a bicycle. But Friday though we are back in the game.