2 months in and may be starting over. Advice?

[Grimreaperz]

Okay so I was very new and eager when i started this hobby. I went faster then I should have. Tended to do now research later....welp....eff me! The live rock I bought contains the following and I am tempted to just pull it out and fresh water it for a couple of weeks.

Colonial hydroids.
Bryopsis
Vertimid Snails
GHA

Good things it came with I will try and save.
Couple corals.
Bristleworms
Brittle Stars
Feather Dusters (how do I remove these? Just take off the piece of rock?)
Amphipods got some really big ones.
And some turbo snails

My questions is. Any advice on how to get the good things extracted should dipping in fresh water make them come out of the rock and allow me to grab them and put them in a safe place?

Second questions. I have a skunk cleaner and some trochus. Should I just out my old water in a QT and Leave them in there?

Third question.. Do I scrap the substrate it is 40lbs of crushed coral and the 10lbs of live sand. I want to save as much good critters as I can but also know a lot are going to die

Really any advice on this situation and how others have handled is would be greatly appreciated....


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[Capsle]

I don't know a whole lot yet but I do know if you freshwater your rocks everything on them will die (so I read). Even the good things.

Why not just try to pull out / off the bad things you don't want? Would be a lot easier than starting over.

As for you skunk cleaner in the QT tank, it will need rock and they proper environment to survive (Qt tank needs to cycle as well).

I personally would strive to keep the tank up and work at picking the bad stuff out. It gives you experience.

You can also try to use hydrogen peroxide on isolated parts of your rock them dip them in fresh saltwater to rinse them off.


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[Grimreaperz]

I don't know a whole lot yet but I do know if you freshwater your rocks everything on them will die (so I read). Even the good things.

Why not just try to pull out / off the bad things you don't want? Would be a lot easier than starting over.

As for you skunk cleaner in the QT tank, it will need rock and they proper environment to survive (Qt tank needs to cycle as well).

I personally would strive to keep the tank up and work at picking the bad stuff out. It gives you experience.

You can also try to use hydrogen peroxide on isolated parts of your rock them dip them in fresh saltwater to rinse them off.


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Yeah I might grab some superglue gel and try my best. As for the cleaner. I would just take rock and water out of my current tank and fill the QT. That way it would be cycled already.

The hydroids are only on 2 rocks it's the vermitid snails I am most concerned about they seem to be spreading like wild fire

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[Sk8r]

Nothing wrong with the rock---oceanic rock frequently has small patches of pests. If your water and lighting are in good shape, unlikely that they'll become epic, as they don't dominate in the ocean. Hydrogen peroxide following a toothbrush scrubbing of the problem area (ONLY that area) followed by a rinse is a real good method for disposing of a small patch. The one thing I would say should go is the sandbed. Start over with medium size aragonite (CaribSea is a good brand) and if you get it dry, wash it---in the back yard, with buckets and a garden hose, and be prepared to use a swimming pool worth of water in the process. Huge amount of dust in that stuff, which makes for problems. We all used to use crushed coral, and it's inclined to form rocks in your sandbed...or to turn to rock AS your sandbed. Back in the day, we prevented this by kicking up the whole sandbed and using a high-powered diatom filter to suck all the horrid detritus up---but this practice strip-mines the tank of vital microscopic life, and nowadays we don't do that. We try to prevent detritus accumulating by hiring subsand cleaners to do the job---nassarius snails, fighting conch, or a sand-sifting goby.

 

[mcgyvr]

Dang.. only 2 months in.. a few minor/common problems and you want to scrap and start all over again... maybe reefing ain't for you..

Take it as your punishment for not starting properly.. Now learn how to correct the issues without starting all over again..

As stated a simple peroxide dip (I do 50% tank water and 50% peroxide from the grocery store) will take can of any algae.. give it a 15 minute soak and toothbrush it off.. (but algae is also a normal part of a new tank.. If a new tank didn't have algae I'd be worried)

hydroids/vertimid.. no big deal.. I've had them on rock for years without any problems..


Remember... Reefing should be relaxing... If you've gotten to the point of frustration you need to learn to take a step back and just relax.. Just because someone says its "bad" around here doesn't mean you need to immediately go crazy trying to solve it.. It could just be that its not a good thing but the world isn't going to end either..
Heck.. aiptasia.. all say its "bad" but I've had tanks/corals doing just fine and have left the aiptasia to grow 4+ inches or more.. Life didn't end.. Well theirs did when my peppermint shrimp eventually got around to snacking on it a few weeks later..

 

[Grimreaperz]

Nothing wrong with the rock---oceanic rock frequently has small patches of pests. If your water and lighting are in good shape, unlikely that they'll become epic, as they don't dominate in the ocean. Hydrogen peroxide following a toothbrush scrubbing of the problem area (ONLY that area) followed by a rinse is a real good method for disposing of a small patch. The one thing I would say should go is the sandbed. Start over with medium size aragonite (CaribSea is a good brand) and if you get it dry, wash it---in the back yard, with buckets and a garden hose, and be prepared to use a swimming pool worth of water in the process. Huge amount of dust in that stuff, which makes for problems. We all used to use crushed coral, and it's inclined to form rocks in your sandbed...or to turn to rock AS your sandbed. Back in the day, we prevented this by kicking up the whole sandbed and using a high-powered diatom filter to suck all the horrid detritus up---but this practice strip-mines the tank of vital microscopic life, and nowadays we don't do that. We try to prevent detritus accumulating by hiring subsand cleaners to do the job---nassarius snails, fighting conch, or a sand-sifting goby.

I ended up taking the rock out yesterday. Sitting it n fresh water for about 4 hours. Then chizleing away the vertimid snails got about 10 of them off the one rock 4 of which were twoonie size or bigger.
Others were very small. And I also chizled away yhe colonial hydroids. That rock is much better. Now there is 2-3 more to take care of with the vertimid snails. (Super easy to just chizle them off.)

I have found a fairly decent size patch or digitate hydroids as well (long white stringy ones) they seem to all be roughly in one area minus a few stragglers. I'm not sure how to get rid of those.

As for as ditching the sand bed. Should I drain my current water and a rock into a QT to put my inverts in while I drain and remove the sand bed? Do I fill with old water or use freshly mixed? Could you just give me an example of a brand that is medium? I may go half dry half live. Just to speed up the process a bit.

I have several hair worms inhabiting my sand bed atm will be sad to lose them but would rather do this before I have fish.

Thanks for the advice yet again .

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[Sk8r]

Dry sand is a lot of work rinsing it. And a lot of water. A bathtub of water to rinse 5 pounds of sand.
CaribSea is the brand I use for either.

 

[Sk8r]

Also, you've already killed the surface of your rock, but the core is still alive. Get it out of the fresh water and into an aerated tank of salt water asap, and keep it aerated, plus do water changes.

 

[Grimreaperz]

Also, you've already killed the surface of your rock, but the core is still alive. Get it out of the fresh water and into an aerated tank of salt water asap, and keep it aerated, plus do water changes.

Yeah I only did the fresh water for 4 hours then chizled and it's been back in my tank all night. So it's doing fine. Okidoke I may fork over yhe extra cash for live sand in that case. Looks like I got a bit of work ahead of me...thanks for the advice. I will be pulling my inverts out into a QT and get started on it all

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[Grimreaperz]

Dry sand is a lot of work rinsing it. And a lot of water. A bathtub of water to rinse 5 pounds of sand.
CaribSea is the brand I use for either.

So I called my not so LFS. 1.5 HR drive for me. And priced out 45 lbs of new live sand and it's going to be about $60 and time and effort. To me that's nothing compared to having a tank crash from the crushed coral. The LFS that is only 30 min away was the one who told me to use crushed coral...never going there again.

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[joshbrookkate]

I think you've got the right attitude! We learn as we go.
Research, research, research. And still we make mistakes.
I have learned not to panic (any more) when things aren't right. I come here and check to see what others have done in similar situations. And do what it takes to fix it.
I found a couple of local reefing buddies, too. That helps a lot!
Good luck....

 

[Grimreaperz]

I think you've got the right attitude! We learn as we go.
Research, research, research. And still we make mistakes.
I have learned not to panic (any more) when things aren't right. I come here and check to see what others have done in similar situations. And do what it takes to fix it.
I found a couple of local reefing buddies, too. That helps a lot!
Good luck....

Yeah I'm not too concerned. During the process of redoing my sand bed I will clean the stuff off the rocks I don't want. Kind of a blessing in disguise. And it does give me good experience dealing with pests on rocks.

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[Sk8r]

You can safely deal with the lfs for things and brands you are sure about; go to the notsolfs when needing advice, I'd say; but save yourself an hour and a half and seek advice on RC before making a trip. Familiarize yourself with what's in either store, ask here; you've been here long enough to sift advice given for usefulness.
Prioritize, right now, getting good rock into good water, getting your chemistry right: sticky above. Don't rush it. And use a qt for your fishes. That way your critters when they come will survive.

It is usually only a couple of hours to get advice on RC. Also get photos of situations where a photo will tell the story: set up a free Photobucket account, which automatically sizes them and gives them a url that will pop neatly into that mountain-sun icon's blank at need. In some instances a photo can say a lot.

 

[Grimreaperz]

Update:

Sand bed has been swapped out with 40lbs of live sand. Caribsea medium grain.
I am happy I did this. I may have lost a lot of life...which does make me sad. It will come back though it did allow me to re-level the tank stand. Put in plastic risers in the sand bed for the rock, completely re aqua scaped and cleaned my rocks and I am overall Happier with my tank now. Definitely like the look better. My shrimp Pepé is alive and well and I only lost 1 trochus. I was also able to remove a bunch of polyps and glue them to 1 plug creating a colony. Also relocated my mushroom corals to plugs as well. Here is a before and after shot. I'm on mobile so size my be off. Sorry.

Before:

After:

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[farfromsea]

Looks good! Fingers crossed for no surprise colonial hydroids

 

[Sk8r]

Hey, I've got two patches of the pests. They're just a local nuisance. I do wonder (I'm slowly approaching an sps tank) whether hydnophora as a neighbor would discourage the things. Hydnophora eats anything in reach, sort of extruding its guts to digest its neighbors. And, being a stony coral, it doesn't spread without permission. But until they get somewhere they can't be ignored, I consider them just another filter feeder, part of the CUC.

 

[ReefsandGeeks]

Good job working your way through the pests! I know these sort of things can be discouraging, especially to someone new to the hobby, but we've all spent lots of time/money/and effort working through problems in not such an efficient way until we found a good solution. The key is knowing what's an emergency, and what isn't.

There are lots of stickies in the new to hobby section to help differentiate before the situations happen, and of course lots of willing/experienced people on here to help when you're unsure.

BTW, I would have done the same thing as you in your situation. Good call on getting new sand, and also taking care of your rock early. One mistake I made early on was seeing a couple of vermentid snails and thinking "Biodiversity is good, so a few of these might be a good thing". Well, they're called pests for a reason. Although they never seemed to hurt any of my coral, they are very invasive, and before I knew it they had covered all of my rocks, and now I may never get rid of them. Just too many, on every nook and cranny of every rock. I did take the opertunity when upgrading my tank to scrap off as many as I could, and they aren't as bad now. Ohh how I wish I would have gotten rid of those first couple while I had the chance.

Also, a pest of a piece of live rock doesn't make the live rock bad. Most live rock will have a pest of some sort on it. they just need to be found and taken care of before they do any harm IMO.

 

[lifeoffaith]

Your tank looks really cool now. Gave you an opportunity to rework the aquascape which can be really fun to do. And of course you got to get rid of the pests. Always better to take a step back, check with your RC friends and then proceed. Glad you didn't start over completely!

 

[Grimreaperz]

Thank everyone for the extra votes of confidence. I haven't seen colonials pop up yet. And I am pretty sure I got all the snails *fingers crossed* I started with 4 and thought they were cool then 4 turned into 15 and was like eff no! So hopefully I got them all. I do see a couple digitate hydroids (the long stringy ones) any ideas on how to target treat these?

I have some of my rock leaning on back glass. I never clean the back anyways hoping coraline algae will cover it eventually. They are snug and secure won't be going anywhere even if bumped by a snail. I am definitely happier my corals are bouncing back from being cut and glued too all is well!

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