Saturday morning I woke up and found my fish tank so cloudy I couldn't even see the rock. My three cardinal fish were dead by the glass in the front. I noticed the entire bottle of fish food had been dumped into the tank. After investigating, my 4 year old confess' and told me that he did it even though we've talked time and time and time again about the fish food and somehow he miraculously grew and shrunk 3 feet overnight to reach the food. Who knows.
Info about the tank;
-75 gallon main display
-20 gallon refugium
-(3) 50 gallon barrels to be used as sump (connected but just holding water at the moment)
-130 pounds live rock in display
-4 inch sand bed (not sure of weight)
-(prior to accident) +-14 fish, 2 stars, 20+ frags, 2 dusters, 30+ hermits, 3 shrimps, surely I'm missing something else)
-(after accident) 1 fish, 1 star, 15 or so frags hanging in there, 2 sickly dusters, 30+ hermits
Parameters before accident; I couldn't tell you honestly but I know they were in check 3-5 days prior. Temp somewhere between 74-76.
After accident, cleanup, total water change; KH 13.5 (not sure if that's a good reading, or what to do about it); PH 7.5, Nitrite .5, Nitrate 20.
Here's what I need help with;
- Bringing nitrates/nitrites down
- Correcting KH and PH
- How do I clean all this live rock?
- Can I still use the same sand bed?
The first thing I did was drain the water Saturday morning, tried cleaning the food out but realized it was all down in the rocks. Took all the rocks out, rinsed the food particles out as best as I could with the dirty tank water. Got two 50 gallon barrels of fresh well water and mixed in salt. Boiled big pots of water to bring the water temp from 40 degrees to 70. I let water filter through all the rocks for 6 plus hours and moved all my coral and the one remaining fish to my 29 gallon biocube. I've got all the rock in a barrel filtering through the barrel from the biocube and back into the tank. Have a canister filter attached and the biocube filter running. I've got to piece everything back together and get my rock back in my main tank, but will I be able to use the same sand bed? Will my rock be okay, or will it cause nitrates and nitrites for an extended period of time? Is there anything I can do to aggressively handle the nitrites/nitrates until the tank is settled back down?
I'm not even sure I'm asking the right questions or if I'm going about this the right way. Never thought I'd be in this situation or imagined something this disastrous could happen. The tank is newer, in the last 3-4 months. Some of the fish and corals came from my biocube but most were recently purchased.
One of the pictures you can see I had a brown algae bloom, it was corrected long before all of this happened. Couldn't find any better pictures :crap:
Info about the tank;
-75 gallon main display
-20 gallon refugium
-(3) 50 gallon barrels to be used as sump (connected but just holding water at the moment)
-130 pounds live rock in display
-4 inch sand bed (not sure of weight)
-(prior to accident) +-14 fish, 2 stars, 20+ frags, 2 dusters, 30+ hermits, 3 shrimps, surely I'm missing something else)
-(after accident) 1 fish, 1 star, 15 or so frags hanging in there, 2 sickly dusters, 30+ hermits
Parameters before accident; I couldn't tell you honestly but I know they were in check 3-5 days prior. Temp somewhere between 74-76.
After accident, cleanup, total water change; KH 13.5 (not sure if that's a good reading, or what to do about it); PH 7.5, Nitrite .5, Nitrate 20.
Here's what I need help with;
- Bringing nitrates/nitrites down
- Correcting KH and PH
- How do I clean all this live rock?
- Can I still use the same sand bed?
The first thing I did was drain the water Saturday morning, tried cleaning the food out but realized it was all down in the rocks. Took all the rocks out, rinsed the food particles out as best as I could with the dirty tank water. Got two 50 gallon barrels of fresh well water and mixed in salt. Boiled big pots of water to bring the water temp from 40 degrees to 70. I let water filter through all the rocks for 6 plus hours and moved all my coral and the one remaining fish to my 29 gallon biocube. I've got all the rock in a barrel filtering through the barrel from the biocube and back into the tank. Have a canister filter attached and the biocube filter running. I've got to piece everything back together and get my rock back in my main tank, but will I be able to use the same sand bed? Will my rock be okay, or will it cause nitrates and nitrites for an extended period of time? Is there anything I can do to aggressively handle the nitrites/nitrates until the tank is settled back down?
I'm not even sure I'm asking the right questions or if I'm going about this the right way. Never thought I'd be in this situation or imagined something this disastrous could happen. The tank is newer, in the last 3-4 months. Some of the fish and corals came from my biocube but most were recently purchased.
One of the pictures you can see I had a brown algae bloom, it was corrected long before all of this happened. Couldn't find any better pictures :crap:
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