Bear with me. I’m a bit of a newbie/idiot when it comes to this hobby, and I’ve been doing the “trial by crisis” for a few years now. I am also long-winded, so I apologize.
I have a RedSea Max 260, which has a 56-gallon display, 13-gallon rear-sump area, and a 30-gallon under tank sump, for a grand total of 99 gallons, give or take. About 40 lbs of live rock. In-sump, I have a protein skimmer and some bio-beads, and two bags of activated charcoal. 2 Hydra LED 26 lights. It has been minimally stocked for a year and a half, as I am overly cautious. I tend to do a 10-gallon water change every 1-2 weeks. Reef crystals with RO/DI (have a filter installed under my kitchen sink). Stocked with 2 clown fish, a tail spot blenny, a fire shrimp, and various snails and hermit crabs. Lots of the little tiny brittle sea stars, some asterinia, and lots of bristleworms and micro feather dusters. Things were pretty good and relatively stable since September of 2016.
About 5 months ago, my life got very chaotic. My father died, a kid broke his leg, and an elderly relative that I care for was diagnosed with cancer. In all the chaos, my tank was severely neglected. Between the end of December and about 4 weeks ago, I only changed the water twice, but did remember to feed. Water flow slowed to a crawl. I only had 3 small coral frags (feeding RedSea Reef Energy); one of them disappeared completely, and the other two shrank by about 50%. Most of the feather dusters died and broke off and were replaced with aiptasia. Amazingly, the fish, snails, and crabs seemed to be doing fine. When I tested the water, everything looked good, but I figured with the coral loss, something had to be wrong.
Starting 4 weeks ago, I did a 10% water change every day for three days, and then another one 3 days after that. Siphoning the sand, scraping the algae off the sides and back, and really trying to remove a large quantity of detritus and algae manually. Cleaned the filter socks 3x a day because they were getting blocked that quickly with all the stuff coming out. Took all the pumps apart and cleaned them. Changed the charcoal (had not done since December). It started to look a lot better. Rocks were still a mess, but feather dusters started to come back, and my coral frags seem to have perked up just a little.
After another week, everything seemed stable, so I bought a bigger cleanup crew to help. Lots of snails, peppermint shrimp, an emerald crab, fighting conch, sea cucumber, and I think unfortunately, a sea hare, which was supposed to be a lettuce nudibranch according to the package I bought. I say unfortunately because with all the problems my tank had, GHA was not on the list. So, I ran out and bought some nori at the grocery store based on something I read here, and the hare was all over it, along with a lot of other critters. Oh, and a diamond watchman goby to help sift the sand. My new favorite resident. He’s awesome. I have some chaeto on order that should be arriving this week to start a refugium in the sump. Peppermint shrimp have already virtually eliminated the visible aiptasia.
As of this morning:
Specific Gravity-1.026
Temperature-78°F
pH-8.0
Alkalinity-9 dKH
NH3-0
NO2-0
NO3-0
Phosphate- 0.25 ppm
Calcium -420 ppm
Magnesium- 1200
The only thing that I think I should be really concerned about is the phosphate, and I’m hoping the chaeto will help with that and the pH when it gets here. So my list of questions:
1. My tail spot blenny appears to have split his lower lip. Looks like an upside-down window curtain. No visible white stuff, so I don’t think it’s infected but I’m not sure. I don’t know if he did it or if the emerald crab snapped at him or what. He’s eating, and otherwise acting normally, but I’m worried. I do not have a QT. Do I just monitor him and see what happens, or do I try and pull him out and build a QT and try and treat him anyway? If I just monitor, what should I watch for?
2. The new cleanup crew has been in place for about a week and a half. How long should I wait for them to finish acclimating before I change the water again?
3. Sea cucumber disappeared under the sand pretty much immediately, and I haven’t seen it since. Do I just assume it’s doing fine, or should I go looking for it, and if so, how?
4. Can the sea hare be kept alive by feeding it seaweed, and if so, how much? How will I know if it’s starving?
5. Any recommendations for tweaking the lighting for best results? I have pretty much left it with the standard pre-sets that came with the lights, except I also run the infrared from the time the lights go out until we go to bed, about 4 hours.
6. Should I start trying to figure out dosing for the corals? I’ve read that unless you have lots of them, you can usually meet all their needs with regular water changes, but they seem to be hurting. I am not planning on adding any new frags until the tank looks good again and the two I have start growing again. The frags I have are both less than an inch across now- one small colony of green star polyps and one hammer coral. I probably should not have gotten them in the first place, but I didn’t know any better at the time.
7. Any other general recommendations for tweaking the Kh, Ca, and Mg a bit better for the corals? Everything I've read so far says that they are within normal limits, but I also read that the exact balance between the three can be difficult to get right. How do I know what "right" is?
Any other tips for reviving a tank would be appreciated, and thanks for being here! I’ve only posted once before, but I come here all the time while working through my trial and error process.
I have a RedSea Max 260, which has a 56-gallon display, 13-gallon rear-sump area, and a 30-gallon under tank sump, for a grand total of 99 gallons, give or take. About 40 lbs of live rock. In-sump, I have a protein skimmer and some bio-beads, and two bags of activated charcoal. 2 Hydra LED 26 lights. It has been minimally stocked for a year and a half, as I am overly cautious. I tend to do a 10-gallon water change every 1-2 weeks. Reef crystals with RO/DI (have a filter installed under my kitchen sink). Stocked with 2 clown fish, a tail spot blenny, a fire shrimp, and various snails and hermit crabs. Lots of the little tiny brittle sea stars, some asterinia, and lots of bristleworms and micro feather dusters. Things were pretty good and relatively stable since September of 2016.
About 5 months ago, my life got very chaotic. My father died, a kid broke his leg, and an elderly relative that I care for was diagnosed with cancer. In all the chaos, my tank was severely neglected. Between the end of December and about 4 weeks ago, I only changed the water twice, but did remember to feed. Water flow slowed to a crawl. I only had 3 small coral frags (feeding RedSea Reef Energy); one of them disappeared completely, and the other two shrank by about 50%. Most of the feather dusters died and broke off and were replaced with aiptasia. Amazingly, the fish, snails, and crabs seemed to be doing fine. When I tested the water, everything looked good, but I figured with the coral loss, something had to be wrong.
Starting 4 weeks ago, I did a 10% water change every day for three days, and then another one 3 days after that. Siphoning the sand, scraping the algae off the sides and back, and really trying to remove a large quantity of detritus and algae manually. Cleaned the filter socks 3x a day because they were getting blocked that quickly with all the stuff coming out. Took all the pumps apart and cleaned them. Changed the charcoal (had not done since December). It started to look a lot better. Rocks were still a mess, but feather dusters started to come back, and my coral frags seem to have perked up just a little.
After another week, everything seemed stable, so I bought a bigger cleanup crew to help. Lots of snails, peppermint shrimp, an emerald crab, fighting conch, sea cucumber, and I think unfortunately, a sea hare, which was supposed to be a lettuce nudibranch according to the package I bought. I say unfortunately because with all the problems my tank had, GHA was not on the list. So, I ran out and bought some nori at the grocery store based on something I read here, and the hare was all over it, along with a lot of other critters. Oh, and a diamond watchman goby to help sift the sand. My new favorite resident. He’s awesome. I have some chaeto on order that should be arriving this week to start a refugium in the sump. Peppermint shrimp have already virtually eliminated the visible aiptasia.
As of this morning:
Specific Gravity-1.026
Temperature-78°F
pH-8.0
Alkalinity-9 dKH
NH3-0
NO2-0
NO3-0
Phosphate- 0.25 ppm
Calcium -420 ppm
Magnesium- 1200
The only thing that I think I should be really concerned about is the phosphate, and I’m hoping the chaeto will help with that and the pH when it gets here. So my list of questions:
1. My tail spot blenny appears to have split his lower lip. Looks like an upside-down window curtain. No visible white stuff, so I don’t think it’s infected but I’m not sure. I don’t know if he did it or if the emerald crab snapped at him or what. He’s eating, and otherwise acting normally, but I’m worried. I do not have a QT. Do I just monitor him and see what happens, or do I try and pull him out and build a QT and try and treat him anyway? If I just monitor, what should I watch for?
2. The new cleanup crew has been in place for about a week and a half. How long should I wait for them to finish acclimating before I change the water again?
3. Sea cucumber disappeared under the sand pretty much immediately, and I haven’t seen it since. Do I just assume it’s doing fine, or should I go looking for it, and if so, how?
4. Can the sea hare be kept alive by feeding it seaweed, and if so, how much? How will I know if it’s starving?
5. Any recommendations for tweaking the lighting for best results? I have pretty much left it with the standard pre-sets that came with the lights, except I also run the infrared from the time the lights go out until we go to bed, about 4 hours.
6. Should I start trying to figure out dosing for the corals? I’ve read that unless you have lots of them, you can usually meet all their needs with regular water changes, but they seem to be hurting. I am not planning on adding any new frags until the tank looks good again and the two I have start growing again. The frags I have are both less than an inch across now- one small colony of green star polyps and one hammer coral. I probably should not have gotten them in the first place, but I didn’t know any better at the time.
7. Any other general recommendations for tweaking the Kh, Ca, and Mg a bit better for the corals? Everything I've read so far says that they are within normal limits, but I also read that the exact balance between the three can be difficult to get right. How do I know what "right" is?
Any other tips for reviving a tank would be appreciated, and thanks for being here! I’ve only posted once before, but I come here all the time while working through my trial and error process.
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