Tank Nuked... Starting over. Sigh..

deputydog95

New member
Had no idea there was a local forum on here. Very cool.

Here's my story. Moved a pile of SPS from my 3 year old 60g tank to a new 100g setup for more room. Had to ditch most of the rock due to aptasia and grey paly overrun...

Started from scratch with new rock, sand, water, etc... Updated to 3 Kessil LED fixtures while I was at it. Thought we'd be fine as we kept parameters comparable to the old tank.

Two months in, everything looked amazing. Shortly thereafter, disaster. RTN. Started on a few pieces at first, and then it went haywire. Lost almost everything. Lots of old stuff (large acro colonies) as as well as new stuff I had put in the tank. All gone. Uggghh.

Anyway, starting over and need to repopulate the tank. Looking for mostly SPS with some LPS.

Need to start somewhere. I put a green slimer in about a week ago. So far so good. Whatever badness was taking place, I think has passed. LFS helps me manage the tank and has no exploanatin. Just one of those things I guess... Parameters are stable and things are looking decent again.

Do you guys often sell frags to each other?
 
Bobby is great. Depending on your drive I am not sure of distance for you. Hp Corals may be closer? Emmett is one of my best friends and for sure has pest free corals. You should of course still dip. Emmett is likely the most economical bet for frags in my opinion.
I have a few frags coming about now and live near Emmett. Could be a 2fer swing for you.
Are you part of Reef Visions and did we meet at the A Tropical meeting?
 
You have great timing. November 12th is the annual mega frag auction at Brian Green's place in Nokomis. Hundreds of frags are auctioned at this gathering that draws attendance from numerous reef clubs. Info here: http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2605035

All TBRC meetings are posted in this forum; anyone is welcome to attend meetings if you haven't gone to any yet! A great way to meet fellow reefers in the area. We hold regular frag auctions, raffles, and host speakers from the industry as well as local marine scientists.
 
Wow, great info guys. Appreciate it. Didn't realize there were so many local reefers on here.

I live in Sarasota but spend a lot of time in St. Pete/Tampa due to my business. So basically I'm up there all the time. No issues as far as that drive. I have already been up there once this week and am coming up again tomorrow.

Tank is still not behaving though... I have leveled alk at 8 dkh and 420ppm for CA. Mg is around 1400. When I went below 8dkh, I started seeing some real pH dips at night.

Right now everything is pretty conistent.

Temp 78.5 (only varies .3 degrees)
pH Night 8, Day 8.2 (average swing)
Alk 8 dkh
Ca 420ppm
Mg 1400ppm
Phos .08 (probably slightly less as it's between colors)
Nitrate detectable
Light Cycle 10 hours per day with half hour ramp up and ramp down
Flow remains constant with circle pumps running 24 hours per day
Skimmer runs 24 hours per day

Two things I've noticed. ORP is noticeably lower than the 3 year old seasoned tank everything came out of. Both tanks were very close to each other in the office. Generally ran around 400 in the old tank and only low 330's in the new tank. Not sure if it's a probe issue or is the ORP that much lower... Then again not sure it even really matters.

pH on the weekends spikes up a bit. I'm assuming that's because there's no one in the office on the weekends, so a lot less CO2 to supress it. Goes up at least .10 than normal. Nothing crazy, but not sure how to normalize that.

Anyway, the tank still looks like crap despite. All the corals that were part of this transition are still angry as hell. Nothing looks right and things continue to bleach and recede except for a hammer coral. This includes the corals that were transferred into the tank, as well as all the new frags I added before it all went sideways.

My LFS added a green slimer two weeks ago and it seems happy, full of color. Good PE.

What do you guys make of this? Do I need to rip everything out and just start over again?
 
I personally wouldn't worry about the orp since you are in a suspected good zone.
The weather is nice now so you can open your window some to flush out co2. I do this a couple times a week all year no matter the cost of the electric bill.
Tanks need maturity. No way would I start over again.
 
I personally wouldn't worry about the orp since you are in a suspected good zone.
The weather is nice now so you can open your window some to flush out co2. I do this a couple times a week all year no matter the cost of the electric bill.
Tanks need maturity. No way would I start over again.

With regards to opening the window, do you mean during the week when we are all there working?

I didn't mean tearing the tank down... I was thinking about ripping out all the remaining corals that are barely hanging on and starting over with all new stuff. I already lost some big $ and what's left is negligible at this point.

I don't know why, but they don't seem to be bouncing back. They're merely existing at this point, all faded out.
 
I would let them be indicators. If they start to look better at all you know you are safe to add new stuff.
Green slimmer is normally very hardy and keeps its color pretty easily so I am not sure I would go by that one although it sounds like things have leveled out.
What kind of business is this tank in?
I forgot it was a commercial building so you should have fresh air make up coming into the ac system. Hopefully that is working properly. That should keep co2 down if it is.
 
Back
Top