Let's see, I'll give a little background on the tank and it's condition and describe what I'm planning.. so far. Just checking with you guys, first, to make sure it's okay before I actually do anything.
I bought a 12 gal Aquapod reef setup off Craigslist. This so-called "established" tank was a mess inside and the move didn't go very smoothly. I did what I could to get everything put back together and have left it alone for about 12 days now.... figuring it would either survive or crash on me. (I truly expected a lot of die off. But so far, so good... everything's still alive and there's obvious signs of growth.)
Tank contents
Live sand and live rock with nice coralline growth, zillions of copepods and amphipods, brittle stars, bristleworms, spaghetti worms, more unidentified worms (one I'd guess is a foot long), many fan tube worms open and new ones appearing all the time. There was one tiny brown mushroom polyp and a smaller new one appeared next to him a few days later. Some other kind of polyp I haven't identified yet which suffered a great deal in the move, but has grown steadily ever since. One light green yuma ricordea (judging from comparing pics online) that's about 2 inches across. One spiney oyster. One small light yellowish sponge (about the size of a garbanzo bean). At least 4 crabs hiding in the rocks. One is quite large (with hairy legs).. two small ones.. and one I've seen that's tiny with slender/delicate claws. I found one crab dead a few days ago on the bottom right under his little cave in the rocks. He'd been torn up and a new crab took over his cave. Poor guy. I left him there so the others could eat him -- 2 days later he was gone. Also found evidence of a new molt, so someone is growing. I did add one brown/white feather duster I bought at the LFS a week ago (couldn't resist) which seems to be doing great.
Conditions
1. The seller had neglected the tank completely for 6-8 months. He'd even left the lights off for several days which he said killed the corals he used to have. All he ever used was tap water and he said it's been at least 6 months since he'd done a water change. There's patches of red, brown, and green algae growing on the glass. He discarded about half the (very dirty) tank water, left some in the tank, and used the rest to keep the rocks he placed in a basin submerged for me to take home. The sand itself shifted forward during the move, so it's a little over an inch deep in the back and 4 or 5 inches deep in the front. (I haven't messed with that yet, but had to unbury the poor sponge when I got the tank home.) I know the sand bed hasn't been stirred at all and it looks deadly. When I tested the remaining tank water, the salt content was way too high... sg was off the scale. I didn't have saltwater prepared yet and no RO equipment, so I mixed fresh saltwater using tap water to correct the salinity, fill the tank, and get the pump running. (The algae on the glass just loves that.) The sg then was right between 1.023 and 1.024 on my hydrometer.
2. Everything is overrun with aiptasia and bubble (grape) algae. I'm working on the aiptasia, zapping them with lemon juice. Don't have a syringe, but a drop dosing thing seems to work okay to force a few drops into each creature. I'm a little worried about excess lemon juice getting into the tank water and what kind of harm I might cause the tank overall. I know I need to manually pluck out the bubble algae, rock by rock, without busting the bubbles and releasing spores.
3. The live rocks are scattered and jumbled up. The move was stressful enough for everything and I didn't want to disturb things even more trying to arrange it nicely. Making it look pretty could wait until later. Also didn't know what was in there or where everything needs to go yet (up high on the rocks or down closer to the sand). My main concern was to keep things as stable as possible. A bulk of the live rock he had was very dense rubble piled high with some nice looking, porous live rock on top. I plucked out a lot of the rubble and threw those into the sump area behind the wall. I have a large tub of very clean looking dead rock that came with another tank I bought. My plan is to submerge one large piece of this dead rock in a bucket of conditioned salt water for a day or two with lighting and a power head running to find out first if any yucky dead stuff comes out into the water. If it doesn't foul the bucket water, I'd like to use it in the new reef scape I make. (Just need to deal with that scary sand bed first and pull out the bubble algae off the small rocks.)
4. It's going on two weeks now and I know that water needs changing. I just got my API saltwater master kit delivered today so I tested samples to see how bad it was. Wasn't nearly as off balance as I expected -- ammonia zero, nitrites zero, nitrates are high at 40 ppm, ph is low at 7.8. Couldn't afford to get the reef master kit yet, so no readings on those parameters. I also got a bottle of Kent Marine PhytoPlex and haven given the tank 12 drops as a supplement to whatever the filter feeders have been eating.
5. There's a protein skimmer I haven't set up yet. The seller said he never used it because there was nothing in there to feed. I felt sorry for the crabs living off whatever they can pry loose from the rocks. Maybe they eat copepods or worms? I've used long tweezers to give them an occasional shrimp pellet when I can tell where the crabs are. Did that about 3 times in all. There's a light film at the top of the water, so I'll get the skimmer running.
Okay... so what to do now? (Here's where you come in.)
I need to sift through all the sand to get rid of any gas pockets that have formed and chase out anything hiding under there that should be removed. Or at least isolate weird critters I might find long enough to identify what they might be and whether or not they're reef safe before putting them back in. And the sand needs to be leveled. Also need to wipe off all those crusty white dots and algae off the back wall behind the rocks. Can't get to the wall at all with the rocks there as they are now. As I move the rocks around, I need to remove every bit of bubble algae I can.
Once I transfer the rocks to several large, wide bins I bought for this.. along with tank water to keep them wet... can I scoop and sift through all the sand at one time? If I disturb a gas pocket and it's released then, will this kill everything alive that's in the sand now?
Can I remove the sand to place base rocks directly on the bottom, then put the sand back in -- so nothing shifts on me later on when I assemble (reassemble) the reef?
How much of the crappy tap water can I safely discard now and refill with new (conditioned) salt water made from 12 gallons of RO water I've bought and have ready? I have all the time I need right now to monitor the parameters and do water changes (if necessary) if what I do triggers a mini cycle, there's a lot of die off from this, or something spikes on me.
I know to not let the sponge come in contact with air at all. I can also use small tubs to transfer each rock to a filled basin so everything stays submerged at all times, including any sand I take out. And I won't mess with the filter, rubble rocks, or media in the back.
There's a great LFS with a marine speciality here just a few blocks away. They'll do whatever water tests I need done for free (since I don't have the reef test kit). What other parameters do I need to check on that's not covered in the saltwater test kit? Please let me know what else I should check before and after doing all this.
If what I'm planning to do now is way too drastic, then how should I do this in stages?
The seller upgraded the lighting from the standard 27 watts to 32 watts (yeah, big deal). There's no heater and I haven't even checked the temp yet. I can add one if it's needed... what should the water temp be?
I'll post pictures of what I have, so far, following this post. Let me know what else I should tell you about this.
I bought a 12 gal Aquapod reef setup off Craigslist. This so-called "established" tank was a mess inside and the move didn't go very smoothly. I did what I could to get everything put back together and have left it alone for about 12 days now.... figuring it would either survive or crash on me. (I truly expected a lot of die off. But so far, so good... everything's still alive and there's obvious signs of growth.)
Tank contents
Live sand and live rock with nice coralline growth, zillions of copepods and amphipods, brittle stars, bristleworms, spaghetti worms, more unidentified worms (one I'd guess is a foot long), many fan tube worms open and new ones appearing all the time. There was one tiny brown mushroom polyp and a smaller new one appeared next to him a few days later. Some other kind of polyp I haven't identified yet which suffered a great deal in the move, but has grown steadily ever since. One light green yuma ricordea (judging from comparing pics online) that's about 2 inches across. One spiney oyster. One small light yellowish sponge (about the size of a garbanzo bean). At least 4 crabs hiding in the rocks. One is quite large (with hairy legs).. two small ones.. and one I've seen that's tiny with slender/delicate claws. I found one crab dead a few days ago on the bottom right under his little cave in the rocks. He'd been torn up and a new crab took over his cave. Poor guy. I left him there so the others could eat him -- 2 days later he was gone. Also found evidence of a new molt, so someone is growing. I did add one brown/white feather duster I bought at the LFS a week ago (couldn't resist) which seems to be doing great.
Conditions
1. The seller had neglected the tank completely for 6-8 months. He'd even left the lights off for several days which he said killed the corals he used to have. All he ever used was tap water and he said it's been at least 6 months since he'd done a water change. There's patches of red, brown, and green algae growing on the glass. He discarded about half the (very dirty) tank water, left some in the tank, and used the rest to keep the rocks he placed in a basin submerged for me to take home. The sand itself shifted forward during the move, so it's a little over an inch deep in the back and 4 or 5 inches deep in the front. (I haven't messed with that yet, but had to unbury the poor sponge when I got the tank home.) I know the sand bed hasn't been stirred at all and it looks deadly. When I tested the remaining tank water, the salt content was way too high... sg was off the scale. I didn't have saltwater prepared yet and no RO equipment, so I mixed fresh saltwater using tap water to correct the salinity, fill the tank, and get the pump running. (The algae on the glass just loves that.) The sg then was right between 1.023 and 1.024 on my hydrometer.
2. Everything is overrun with aiptasia and bubble (grape) algae. I'm working on the aiptasia, zapping them with lemon juice. Don't have a syringe, but a drop dosing thing seems to work okay to force a few drops into each creature. I'm a little worried about excess lemon juice getting into the tank water and what kind of harm I might cause the tank overall. I know I need to manually pluck out the bubble algae, rock by rock, without busting the bubbles and releasing spores.
3. The live rocks are scattered and jumbled up. The move was stressful enough for everything and I didn't want to disturb things even more trying to arrange it nicely. Making it look pretty could wait until later. Also didn't know what was in there or where everything needs to go yet (up high on the rocks or down closer to the sand). My main concern was to keep things as stable as possible. A bulk of the live rock he had was very dense rubble piled high with some nice looking, porous live rock on top. I plucked out a lot of the rubble and threw those into the sump area behind the wall. I have a large tub of very clean looking dead rock that came with another tank I bought. My plan is to submerge one large piece of this dead rock in a bucket of conditioned salt water for a day or two with lighting and a power head running to find out first if any yucky dead stuff comes out into the water. If it doesn't foul the bucket water, I'd like to use it in the new reef scape I make. (Just need to deal with that scary sand bed first and pull out the bubble algae off the small rocks.)
4. It's going on two weeks now and I know that water needs changing. I just got my API saltwater master kit delivered today so I tested samples to see how bad it was. Wasn't nearly as off balance as I expected -- ammonia zero, nitrites zero, nitrates are high at 40 ppm, ph is low at 7.8. Couldn't afford to get the reef master kit yet, so no readings on those parameters. I also got a bottle of Kent Marine PhytoPlex and haven given the tank 12 drops as a supplement to whatever the filter feeders have been eating.
5. There's a protein skimmer I haven't set up yet. The seller said he never used it because there was nothing in there to feed. I felt sorry for the crabs living off whatever they can pry loose from the rocks. Maybe they eat copepods or worms? I've used long tweezers to give them an occasional shrimp pellet when I can tell where the crabs are. Did that about 3 times in all. There's a light film at the top of the water, so I'll get the skimmer running.
Okay... so what to do now? (Here's where you come in.)
I need to sift through all the sand to get rid of any gas pockets that have formed and chase out anything hiding under there that should be removed. Or at least isolate weird critters I might find long enough to identify what they might be and whether or not they're reef safe before putting them back in. And the sand needs to be leveled. Also need to wipe off all those crusty white dots and algae off the back wall behind the rocks. Can't get to the wall at all with the rocks there as they are now. As I move the rocks around, I need to remove every bit of bubble algae I can.
Once I transfer the rocks to several large, wide bins I bought for this.. along with tank water to keep them wet... can I scoop and sift through all the sand at one time? If I disturb a gas pocket and it's released then, will this kill everything alive that's in the sand now?
Can I remove the sand to place base rocks directly on the bottom, then put the sand back in -- so nothing shifts on me later on when I assemble (reassemble) the reef?
How much of the crappy tap water can I safely discard now and refill with new (conditioned) salt water made from 12 gallons of RO water I've bought and have ready? I have all the time I need right now to monitor the parameters and do water changes (if necessary) if what I do triggers a mini cycle, there's a lot of die off from this, or something spikes on me.
I know to not let the sponge come in contact with air at all. I can also use small tubs to transfer each rock to a filled basin so everything stays submerged at all times, including any sand I take out. And I won't mess with the filter, rubble rocks, or media in the back.
There's a great LFS with a marine speciality here just a few blocks away. They'll do whatever water tests I need done for free (since I don't have the reef test kit). What other parameters do I need to check on that's not covered in the saltwater test kit? Please let me know what else I should check before and after doing all this.
If what I'm planning to do now is way too drastic, then how should I do this in stages?
The seller upgraded the lighting from the standard 27 watts to 32 watts (yeah, big deal). There's no heater and I haven't even checked the temp yet. I can add one if it's needed... what should the water temp be?
I'll post pictures of what I have, so far, following this post. Let me know what else I should tell you about this.
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, what fish you looking into?