20 long rebuild

[petere1989]

so as you may know I had a 20 gallon set up. I was, and still am, new to saltwater and just kinda set it up based on what I new(which wasn't much) and thought I knew. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2217457 theres the link to the old thread if you care to look at it. I had a lot of problems, some were caused my my error of not thinking. anyway, i had a major hair and fuzzy algae problem. It ended up killing some coral, sea urchin, and a lot of crabs and snails. Long story short, I tore it almost completely down and redid it. I worked on it all day today and here is where I am right now. enjoy! as always, comments, questions, concerns, tips, are always welcome:rollface:

I filled the tank with 100% ro/di water. before I used water from 3 different water sources, all of which were baaaaaaaad.

here is what the tank looked like:

Here is all my corals in my temp. holding tank for them.

and here is the tank. I added all new water and took some of the sand out and cleaned up the algae as best as i could, and then layed fresh layer of sand on top of the old and mixed the two together.

also I don't know if you can see well in this picture, but I noticed my crabs that are left over, they seem to have some kind of shell rot?? this one in particular had holes in his shell and they are turning brown in color. ideas as to why it is doing this?

My plan is to let the sand settle and then place my live rock back into the tank. Then I will let it cycle, because I know it will. Then the corals will go in. i hope that this time it works out ok. I do know i am getting some phosphate things and some filtration things for christmas so i can't wait to see what that will be. hopefully some things that will really make a difference.

as always tips and comments welcome!! will post more when i have more to post.

 

[culligan_man]

im going to be following this as i have a 20l and would like to see how you redo it. im wondering if your shell rot would be caused by a drop in ph causing a slight acidic ting to the water? maybe try offering your crabs some new shells to go into

 

[petere1989]

im going to be following this as i have a 20l and would like to see how you redo it. im wondering if your shell rot would be caused by a drop in ph causing a slight acidic ting to the water? maybe try offering your crabs some new shells to go into

I could agree with that. I've had my ph go up and down a lot in the past month or so due to not keeping up with dosing. Thats why i'm going to be sure to keep up on dosing daily and when i can't find a way to get it done. i have some shells from some crabs that died from the algae, i'll put them in the tank and see if they take them. good idea!

 

[culligan_man]

its worth a shot then i would dispose of the shells that they come out of.

 

[petere1989]

Last night I added a few more cup-fulls of sand and let it settle overnight. Its nice actually being able to see the bottom of the tank. I then tested my water. nitrates and nitrites were 0, ammonia was 0, ph was 1.025, and then i checked phosphates. My test kit must be bad because it registered it being 0.25 and theres no way. I get the same reading every time, so to check I got a cup of water out of the sink and tested that and it read 0.25. so i'll have to find a new phosphate test kit. anyway, i then moved my corals into the main tank because the lighting on my 10 gallon is what killed a lot of coral in the beginning. they are now under the proper lighting and i dosed the water today with the nano buffer 2part system and an alkalinity buffer because my alk is low.

Here you can really see the shell rot. When i take the picture and then post it here it always looks way different. Shutterfly must mess with the pictures because the real picture I took was better quality then this.

And this little guy I thought was dead months ago. He was hiding in my live rock. Luckly I saw him before I took it all out. I'm going to leave him in my 10 gallon until I get live rock back into this tank because my puffer fish would try to eat him. Anything new that comes in the puffer is all over it for a few hours trying to get a bite. This shrimps one of my favorite things I have purchased in this hobby so far.

 

[JasonBJones]

I would pull out all of the old sand and start fresh. It is likely soaked full of phosphates and detritus. Just start completely fresh if you are going to start over.

 

[petere1989]

I posted a thread on this at the DIY part but it goes with this tank so ill post an abbreviated thing here. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?p=20986745#post20986745 theres the link if you care to look at the thread. Anyway I built a kinda top off/water change thing so my sand and corals won't be bothered when doing water changes.

Sorry for the blurriness....iphone picture.

 

[tommer725]

The reason your shells are "rotting" is because calcium is too low. Go to AO and tell the guy to test your water. Bring in some water and he will test it and help you find what you need to get your system back. It costs to get it tested, but he has the stuff to test and he will tell ya what's wrong.

 

[petere1989]

so just a little update. I went and got calcium to dose, made my Kent Marine, from my LFS. I also got a liquid phosphate remover. I have used both for 2 days now and already the algae that was covering my corals, what was left over, has for the most part died off. I did water testings tonight and found my calcium was still a little low but i'm assuming it takes time for it to reach the proper level.

I also rinsed and scrubbed my live rock.

I got all the algae off. The rock is still green but the opposite side is not so i'll just flip the rock around and it'll be all good. I cleaned it in tap water with bleach and then rinsed it 4 times with hot water. Then right now as I type its sitting in RO/DI water. Then tomorrow morning I will set it out and let it dry completely, then place it back into my tank. I don't know if i'm going to use all of it or not but we'll see. Other then that, so far, the tanks been doing pretty good. My skimmer took out a lot of dust from the sand and i've been picking left over dead algae off the bottom here and there when i get some free time.

 

[culligan_man]

so are there any new updates as of late, is the 20l back up and running

 

[Brycen97]

Did you bleach your rock? if not it prob would have had been a good idea to get rid of all the algae

 

[smy168]

Bleaching would probably be best. The problem with algae is that you never get rid of it all. A slight kink in water parameters, light settings, temp fluctuations, detritus and they bloom again. I worry about keeping any of the sand as well and if your calcium levels are low then you corals are probly still suffering a bit.

After all the hard work you put in, I would hate to see your tank pop again.

 

[petere1989]

sorry for the lack of updates. The tanks not doing that great unfortunately. My test kits (and i've bought multiples to double check) say my water is ok. I've been dosing calcium, doing the 2 part nano dosing, and then putting in some phosphate remover once a week, and then a little bit of algafix once a week. My corals are pretty much on the way out. The ones that were doing good haven't opened up in a long time. There are a few that are still looking great but most of them are not. I have not been home, which i'm sure has not helped. i've had somebody else, who also has a saltwater tank, look after it. She did not know what to do either. I'm going to test the water again tomorrow and see what I can do.

On another note, the fish are doing really well. I am considering tomorrow buying a 55 gallon and having a FOWLER tank. My LFS has a 55 tank, with stand, and filtration all for $250. Didn't sound like a bad deal so i'm thinking about it. I would then move the fish out of this tank into the new one, and just focus on the coral in this one and hopefully make a turn-around. We'll see what happens. Talk about frustrating!!!

And I did bleach my rocks. They look great too! No algae problems. The tank did cycle like a new tank with diatoms but those have pretty much faded at this point. Everything is looking good besides the coral. I've been franticly trying to find the problem and get it fixed.