So I bought a neglected saltwater tank

[Kirino]

Last weekend I bought and moved an 'established' tank. It was pretty neglected, tons of algae but the fish looked fat and healthy and the price was pretty cheap so I can't really complain, as it came with a decent amount of equipment. I know, probably pretty stupid of me to start off like this.

I moved all the live rock in water, with a ton of the original water. Prepared about 1/3 of new water and put it all in place. Including the fish, as obviously I have no where else to put them. Now a week later, I got a test kit and the NO2 is fine but the NO3 is through the roof. Honestly I should have known because of the algae and the water clearly being more yellow then the water I prepared, when comparing them in white buckets. The 1/3 new water didn't help as much as I hoped.

Yesterday I did a 10% water change and I'm preparing more water to do another. At this point I should probably replace even more. How much am I allowed to replace at once? Who knows how long those fish have been living in that water quality.

- there are 5 fish (3 large, angelfish size and 2 small clown fish size)
- 250 Liter tank (that's like 66 gallon?)
- there is a protein skimmer in place in a small sump and it's producing dirty foam
- I'm careful not to feed the fish too much, I should probably feed them more but at this point I'm a little afraid to overfeed
- Just ordered some cheato and caulerpa to setup a refugium, but yea that's a little late
- there is a hang in filter with some filtration media, the white cotton wool like media get's real dirty in like a day so I'm cleaning that whenever I can while leaving the rest.

Again I realize I should probably have started with an empty tank instead of buying a stocked tank second hand. Any advise is more then welcome. At this point my priority is to get the NO3 down and not kill the fish.

 

[griss]

First, it’s not a stupid way to start. If you got a good deal and can turn the tank around I’d say you made a smart move

NO3 won’t kill the fish. It’s more a detriment to corals. I would say 10% water changes once or twice a week combined with the fuge you’re planning to set up should do the trick.

What are your other water parameters? Care to share pictures?

 

[BeanAnimal]

You don't need to feed the fish, really at all for a week. They will be fine. I suspect the algae is due to years of overfeeding.

As long as you salinity match, there really is no water change that is too big but 10% every other day or 20%...Burt you don't need to. things should settle down quickly.

Ammonia is what to worry about - the fish don't care about the Nitrates - so. good ammonia test kit and maybe an alert badge.

ChemiPure elite would be something to consider as well.

Is there a sump? If so, I would ditch the hang-on. It can easily become a nitrate factory. Rock is far better and you can run a filter is sock as needed.

 

[BeanAnimal]

Also - algae: Once things stabilize you can take the rocks out one by one and scrub the algae off with a toothbrush and tweezers with some tank water in a bucket. There are other measures, but we can talk about those of you can't get things cleaned up otherwise.

 

[Timfish]

I'd say it was a good decision myself. Just getting healthy, established fish is worth a premium. There's likely a ton of benefical cryptic sponges on the rock as well. As mentioned above you can do pretty large water changes but it's also not necessary (I'd do 10% - 20% weekly). Fixing an ecosystem for the most part takes time no matter how much labor and water you through at it. Besides scrubbing off the rock as mentioned above (careful not to remove any spongfe) with the water changes I would be scraping and siphoning off as much algae as is convenient with whatever size water change you decide to do. I would not siphon water into a sock as some do to save water and collect algae, the detrimental DOC algae produces is flushed off and returned to the system this way. I would also be adding easy corals to compete with the algae.

Here's some links you may find informative.



"Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas" This video compliments Rohwer's book of the same title (Paper back is ~$20, Kindle is ~$10), both deal with the conflicting roles of the different types of DOC in reef ecosystems. While there is overlap bewteen his book and the video both have information not covered by the other and together give a broader view of the complex relationships found in reef ecosystems

Changing Seas - Mysterious Microbes

Microbial view of Coral Decline

Nitrogen cycling in hte coral holobiont

BActeria and Sponges

Maintenance of Coral Reef Health (refferences at the end)
Maintenance of Coral Reef Health

Optical Feedback Loop in Colorful Coral Bleaching
Optical Feedback Loop in Colorful Coral Bleaching / Curr. Biol., May 21, 2020 (Vol. 30, Issue 13)

 

[JohnL]

Welcome to Reef Central. It sounds like you know what you're doing. Good luck.

 

[Kirino]

Thank you for the replies. I'm a little less stressed now at least about the NO3. The test kit I have isn't super accurate. pH is between 8 and 9. GH and KH for some reason indicate they are way high, like the max the test shows. NO2 is minimal and that's all I have at the moment.
I did a light scrub and rinse of the rocks with a toothbrush before putting them back in the tank during install, in a separate bin containing the water they came in. Tossed that bin of water. The guy removed most of the long green algae before that.

The salinity was like 30, the 1/3 water I added was about 31 as I didn't want to make it 35 all of a sudden. The 10% batch I'm making now is around 31-32.

Yes there is a sump, but it's fairly small with only two parts, it just has the return pump in one and the protein skimmer in the other at the moment. For now the hang on is the only real filter media, hence why I've kept it in. Going to look into either converting a part of the sump in the refugium, or should I rather add filter media there?

With the move and all I focused on flow, heating, the protein skimmer and basic filtration first. There is also a calcium reactor, do I need that right now? Also another reactor or something with CO2 that I don't understand yet.

edit: thank you for the reply Timfish, I'll go over the video's you linked.

 

[kharmaguru]

Fish look healthy and nice rock too. Definitely a score. If you're adding tests, it's a good idea to know your phosphates especially if you are going to add corals. NO need for calcium reactor unless you have something (stony corals) using calcium up.

 

[Vinny Kreyling]

Good call on Salinity.
You can drop it fast but raising has to be done slowly.
Generally most fuges are too small so I would hold off for now & read up on things first.
An urchin will roam the tank & take care of algae. I like Tuxedos because they stay small.
Salifert & Red Sea have good test kits, many like the Hanna checkers with their digital readout.
Nice score!

 

[wvned]

GH and KH are freshwater tests and dont tell you anything meaningful for a saltwater tank.
You have a tank full of life. Even the algae. Go slow and learn. It is a lot easier to get rid of stuff than it is to get it to live.
Water color doesn't mean anything. There are ways to remove the color but it doesnt mean anything is wrong.
If you have kept freshwater tanks you have a lot to forget.

My only "filtration" is my skimmer. All the rest of the equipment modifies and maintains the water chemistry and it's balance.

 

[Kirino]

Thx guys for all the replies. There is only one 'survivor' coral that came with the tank.

The closest thing I can match this to is like a brown Isis hippuris? Anyone know what this coral needs? I mean, it's the last survivor of the algae onslaught, would be a shame for it to die.

 

[griss]

Thx guys for all the replies. There is only one 'survivor' coral that came with the tank.

View attachment 32380294

The closest thing I can match this to is like a brown Isis hippuris? Anyone know what this coral needs? I mean, it's the last survivor of the algae onslaught, would be a shame for it to die.

Looks like a photosynthetic gorgonian to me. If so, just good water quality and good lighting.

Thanks for the pics. Tank looks 10x better than I expected to see based on your initial description.

Yes, bring the salinity up slowly and it looks like you’ve got a great start.

 

[Reefing102]

Looks like a good score. I agree with the above, nothing good happens quick in this hobby generally. I agree looks to be a photosynthetic gorgonian.

The only thing I’d add is if you transferred the sand, Id watch your numbers unless you rinsed it well before adding back to the tank. I would also definitely look at getting better test kits as those ranges seem too wide for accuracy

 

[BeanAnimal]

No need for reactor or Co2 now. We can talk about that all later.

 

[Kirino]

The sand was full with sediment and stuff, so I rinsed it in a bucket until the water became clear. Was considering leaving it out, but didn't want to put the rocks directly on the base plate. I'll go get some test kits for salt water.

 

[griss]

Good thing on rinsing the sand.

For test kits, I like Salifert and Red Sea. Both pretty accurate and relatively inexpensive.

 

[Reefing102]

The sand was full with sediment and stuff, so I rinsed it in a bucket until the water became clear. Was considering leaving it out, but didn't want to put the rocks directly on the base plate. I'll go get some test kits for salt water.

You should be good with the sand then. I also recommend Salifert test kits, or if you can swing the cost, Hannah test kits. I do not reccomend API test kits as their accuracy can be iffy and their chart ranges are generally too wide for saltwater

 

[Kirino]

Found out the lighting is a Vertex illumina. It has white light, blue and royal. Royal being some kind of blue. The white is set to 65% while the blues are set to 100%. They ramp up over a period of 3 hours in the morning and back down in the evening. Where the white light goes out first and each light goes out an hour after the other. I don't know if this is any good at all, it's just something I configured, now that I figured out what lighting it is and managed to download the software. Before I was just turning it on manually and leaving it off to avoid algae. Maybe I should still do that?

I did notice the tiny coral branch I linked earlier is like twice as 'fat' as before. It's obviously liking the extra light. Also seen this little 'mushroom' like guy becoming a total fatso:

Any idea what it could be? It's tilted towards the window at the moment so you can't see, but it really looks like a little mushroom.

​

 

[Kirino]

You should be good with the sand then. I also recommend Salifert test kits, or if you can swing the cost, Hannah test kits. I do not reccomend API test kits as their accuracy can be iffy and their chart ranges are generally too wide for saltwater

I found a salifert test kit set for 40 euro,

• Salifert Calcium Profi Test (Ca)
• Salifert Profi-test KH
• Salifert Profi-test Magnesium (Mg)
• Salifert Profi-test Nitraat (No3)
• Salifert Profi-test Fosfaat (Po4)

Also found the Hannah meters. Looks like some instrument you can refill? Do they work well long term? Might be worth grabbing them then, but there is one for everything, that's going to get expensive quick

 

[Timfish]

Your coral lookslike a Sarcophyton sp Toadstool. If that's a correct guess it can get huge.