Sorry it's so long but this is the backstory (if you don't want to read everything you can skip to my questions at the very end of this post)
Maybe a month or so ago my 30 gal with a HOB (fluval 70) running through phosban, purigen, carbon and sponge was into its 3rd month and actually started showing signs of coralline growth... One day I noticed a massive algal bloom and realized that one of my hermits had gotten pinched between the glass and rock and died. Tried to get most of him outta the tank but by then he was in pieces. Wanted to do a water change but I had no SW on hand (storms have made our shores pretty dirty; I didn't want to collect polluted water). School and work have left me extremely busy so I haven't been able to care for my tank until now (I know, I neglected it).
I knew it was crashing but didn't know to what extent because algae covered all sides of the glass. Last night I found that my livestock count was as follows:
Down from 6 to 4 hermits (2 halloween, 1 electric orange, 1 blue dwarf),
Four to 3 false percula
Two turbo snails are (surprisingly but thankfully) still alive
Vermetid snail increased GREATLY in size and now I have two of them
Baby featherdusters that came with my LR are now gone :-((
I think I saw a baby bristleworm (I expected with the blooms) and my small sponge and some coralline algae were still hanging on. I still haven't checked on my emerald crabs, pods, or any other small organisms that may be in my tank but overall I was surprised that I had so much livestock left (especially with a salinity of 1.0332) because I literally felt like I had been watching my tank die in the past weeks. The only upside to this was that it killed off all of my bubble algae and aiptasia (or so it seems).
Working on my tank last night I had no idea where to start because of the huge mess it's become. Buuut, here's what I did:
1) Scrubbed the glass of the algae
2) Since my tank was only a little over half of the way filled (never got to replenish the water; explains my high salinity), I filled it 3/4 of the way with SW, waited a while, siphoned out 1/4 of the water + sand (with algae), waited a while and repeated 2 more times (in the end it was similar to a 75% water change over the course of a few hours, I did it this way because my livestock were still in the tank and I didn't want to stress them out too much, even though, granted, they were pretty hardy suckers for surviving so long under my neglect)
3) Cleaned the filter (replaced the phosban, carbon and purigen, and squeezed sponge in new SW 5-6 times)
4) Added 10lbs of dry aragonite sand in one area of the tank
This morning everything looked well but I'm planning on another water change soon because I know the new sand is gonna cause a spike in my levels.
QUESTION(S)
I wanted to scrub my liverock down but didn't know if it was a good idea... Is it a good idea?
What constitutes a "crash"? And for those of you who worked your way through my entire post... was my tank "crashing"? How should I proceed from this (next steps)?
Thanks guys, have a wonderful day!
Maybe a month or so ago my 30 gal with a HOB (fluval 70) running through phosban, purigen, carbon and sponge was into its 3rd month and actually started showing signs of coralline growth... One day I noticed a massive algal bloom and realized that one of my hermits had gotten pinched between the glass and rock and died. Tried to get most of him outta the tank but by then he was in pieces. Wanted to do a water change but I had no SW on hand (storms have made our shores pretty dirty; I didn't want to collect polluted water). School and work have left me extremely busy so I haven't been able to care for my tank until now (I know, I neglected it).
I knew it was crashing but didn't know to what extent because algae covered all sides of the glass. Last night I found that my livestock count was as follows:
Down from 6 to 4 hermits (2 halloween, 1 electric orange, 1 blue dwarf),
Four to 3 false percula
Two turbo snails are (surprisingly but thankfully) still alive
Vermetid snail increased GREATLY in size and now I have two of them
Baby featherdusters that came with my LR are now gone :-((
I think I saw a baby bristleworm (I expected with the blooms) and my small sponge and some coralline algae were still hanging on. I still haven't checked on my emerald crabs, pods, or any other small organisms that may be in my tank but overall I was surprised that I had so much livestock left (especially with a salinity of 1.0332) because I literally felt like I had been watching my tank die in the past weeks. The only upside to this was that it killed off all of my bubble algae and aiptasia (or so it seems).
Working on my tank last night I had no idea where to start because of the huge mess it's become. Buuut, here's what I did:
1) Scrubbed the glass of the algae
2) Since my tank was only a little over half of the way filled (never got to replenish the water; explains my high salinity), I filled it 3/4 of the way with SW, waited a while, siphoned out 1/4 of the water + sand (with algae), waited a while and repeated 2 more times (in the end it was similar to a 75% water change over the course of a few hours, I did it this way because my livestock were still in the tank and I didn't want to stress them out too much, even though, granted, they were pretty hardy suckers for surviving so long under my neglect)
3) Cleaned the filter (replaced the phosban, carbon and purigen, and squeezed sponge in new SW 5-6 times)
4) Added 10lbs of dry aragonite sand in one area of the tank
This morning everything looked well but I'm planning on another water change soon because I know the new sand is gonna cause a spike in my levels.
QUESTION(S)
I wanted to scrub my liverock down but didn't know if it was a good idea... Is it a good idea?
What constitutes a "crash"? And for those of you who worked your way through my entire post... was my tank "crashing"? How should I proceed from this (next steps)?
Thanks guys, have a wonderful day!
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