Trying to Revive a Dormant Reef Tank

[Diane]

I have a 70 gal reef tank that was set up about 2.5 yrs ago with protein skimmer and live rock. a few corals, invertebrates and a couple fish.

It went along swimmingly for over a year, then over time things died off and i didn't have time to take care of it, so i did not replace anything.

It has sat "dead" and dried up for a year. (Before this tank i had only kept freshwater tanks.)

 

I would like to get it cleaned up and going again. Can i keep the sand and rock, old shells, that are in there? Will i need new "live rock"?

any suggestion will be helpful? i'm also wondering if i'm likely to have an easier time if i keep it as a 'fish only' tank?

 

thanks for your thoughts.

[BrendanG]

Glad to hear your ready to pick up the hobby again...

Its fun and rewarding, but the revival of an old tank may cause even more patience on your end, than an initial set up.

 

Normally you can keep all your Live Rock, Live Sand, but my primary concern would be your initial cycle and the length of time you'll have to wait for levels to become safe. You kept your Rock and Sand in a tank full of die off /neglected tank water, later drained, and dried it. Leaving all the decaying matter, die off, toxins, nitrates ammonia, ect, embedded deep in your rock and sand.

 

Upon initial revival, keeping old sand and rock, I'd expect an EXTRA long cycle, and algal blooms for months to come. By all means your welcome to keep you Live Rock and Sand, I'd simply advise against it. Pull it all and start from scratch.

 

If you do decide to keep it, I'd think definitely seeding it, maybe even heavily will be a requirement for initial success and ease of cycling. I would expect a prolonged cycle, and intense spikes and blooms. Prepare for tons of heavy water changes, especially with a tank of 70gallons.

 

My initial thought would be to toss it and Start from scratch. I'd think picking up where you left off will cause more headache.

 

Review your equipment carefully, Skimmer, Use of a Sump, and Plan and research purchases. Do you have an Idea as to what direction to take this new tank of yours? The requirements for a Reef Tank, vs A FOWLER are different, and the husbandry equipment has evolved drastically over the past 2 years.

 

Ha welcome back,

get ready for the adventure

Edited March 4, 2010 by BrendanG

[Coral Hind]

Welcome back to hobby!

 

Just rinse the sand good and you will be fine using it with your dried rock. You should add a couple of new pieces of live rock or cups of live sand from a fellow reefers tank to help seed your tank.

 

You should update your profile with your location so members that are close to you can offer any help you may need.

[ctenophore]

Just rinse the sand good and you will be fine using it with your dried rock. You should add a couple of new pieces of live rock or cups of live sand from a fellow reefers tank to help seed your tank.

Agreed. Try to blast off any dried algae, etc from the rocks with a hose (it's supposed to be warm(er) this weekend!)

[gmubeach]

Go to walmart or grocery store and get a clean potato/pot plastic scrub brush and get all the soft stuff off should be fine rock after that as for sand thats a whole other story!

[lanman]

You will get as many opinions as there are members.

 

MY suggestion is to take everything out. Throw the sand away, or clean it, and save it to use mixed with cement to make frag plugs. Soak the rocks - in freshwater, or saltwater - for at least several days or a week. Then blast/scrub everything you can off of the rocks. After that, keep them in a bucket of saltwater with a powerhead.

 

Meanwhile - scrub down the tank, put in all new sand, fill it with saltwater, and check all of your hardware/plumbing. Make sure it is just the way you want it, and then introduce your rock. Get a few pieces of live rock from an LFS, or someone that is selling it 'live' here on WAMAS. Add those to the tank, and do your aquascaping. Start running your lights - but only a few hours a day; no use fueling the algae that's likely to grow. Start checking your ammonia, nitrites, and nitrates. If you never get an ammonia or nitrite spike (i.e. you did TOO good a job of cleaning your rock) - add a piece of dead fish or shrimp to the tank. You need to feed/train/grow your nitrifying bacteria in your old rocks. You should see a spike in ammonia, then nitrite. After a while both of those should drop off, and you will see some nitrates. Once all three have dropped to acceptable levels, your tank is cycled, and you have a sufficient populaton of 'good bacteria' to handle at least some load. Add a cleanup crew - snails and hermits, or just snails as you prefer. Then start slowly adding fish. Least aggressive/smallest first. Once everything seems to be running well, and you have good chemistry readings, you can start to add corals (type dependent on what kind and how much lighting you have).

 

Best of luck to you - and be sure to let us know where you live. You can find a lot of help, and a lot of support, and even a lot of 'freebies' here in WAMAS.

 

Oh - and be sure to join the club as a paying member. You will find a lot of inexpensive stuff for sale in the 'hidden' for sale section.

 

bob

[zygote2k]

the 'magic wand' at the car wash works great for cleaning tanks and old rock. skip the soap.

[Diane]

Thanks for all the ideas. Cleaning and soaking has begun. I'll let you all know how it goes. Diane

[gmubeach]

Diane I hope its going well... The very first 20dollars you should spend is joining the club officially... this will open up a for sale forum and lots of other bonuses... I've done reefing both with wamas and without wamas and the price curve is unbelivable... Just the fact that people are constely leaving the hobby and selling out will mean that you can get stuff extra cheep... anyway welcome and keep up the good work.

[Diane]

Should my old API Saltwater, Reef Test kits still be good?

[Coral Hind]

According to emails with API, the last four digits of API lot number are the month and year it was made.

 

Ammonia, High Range pH, Nitrate, Phosohate, Copper, Calcium and GH all last for three years.

Nitrite and KH will last for four years.

Freshwater pH(low range) and Pond Care Salt Level will last for five years.

I would not trust these kits after they have expired.

Edited March 7, 2010 by Coral Hind

[Coral Hind]

Make sure to really shake the bottles up good since they have been sitting for along time. API recommends beating the heck out of bottle #2 for nitrates as that bottle settles out fast and normally causes people to think they have zero nitrates when actually they could have much higher values.

[Diane]

Very good info. Thank you. These all end in "06". sounds like i better get new stuff to be safe.

[paul b]

I would soak everything in the tank and use one cup of Regular Clorox to fifty gallons of water. After a week throw out the water and rinse a few times with fresh water. let it dry for a week, set it up and you will be fine. My reef was started with dead bleached rock and gravel, all tanks used to be set up with bleached rock, but you must use "Regular" Clorox.

Have fun

[Jan]

Diane,

If you can make it out to Fairfax Boret has free live sand. You can use it in place of the dead sand. You can put the LS in your tank with mix to keep it alive. You can then put the dead rock in as is and let it cycle or you can bleach it, rinse it well, let it dry and place it in the tank so it can cure. Either way LS will significantly shorten your cycle. Make sure you've got a couple of good power heads in there.

Edited March 7, 2010 by Jan

[Diane]

Well , so far, so good. I added 20+ lbs of live rock 2 days ago, it already has some tiny featherdusters popping out. ph 8.2, Ammo 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 5.

 

i guess i need to start looking for a clean up crew, suggestions for what kind and where to get them? staying in MD for now would be preferable.

[Jan]

So what did you end up doing? Is is just LR and LS or did you add the old rock and sand? How many days has it been? Full and soft cycles don't always happen right away. I'd give it at least 2 weeks to see if you get any spikes.

 

 

Well , so far, so good. I added 20+ lbs of live rock 2 days ago, it already has some tiny featherdusters popping out. ph 8.2, Ammo 0, Nitrite 0, Nitrate 5.

 

i guess i need to start looking for a clean up crew, suggestions for what kind and where to get them? staying in MD for now would be preferable.

[Diane]

i kept all the old -- thoroughly cleaned -- rock and sand and added the live rock. i've had water flowing over the old clean stuff about 5 days. and the new stuff since sunday.

[Diane]

btw -- i tried to "join wamas" using the paypal option and it isn't working.

 

it keeps saying "

Funding Options

We were unable to verify your credit or debit card. To proceed with your purchase, please select a different payment method or add a different credit or debit card, then click Continue."

 

i've used that paypal account plenty of times before... any ideas?

 

 

[Jan]

Give it another 7-10 days before adding cleaners. Check nitrites and ammonia for a cycle every 2 or so days. My concern is that you may end up with a soft cycle that may kill some, if not all of your cleaners. Then you'll have to wait longer.

 

i kept all the old -- thoroughly cleaned -- rock and sand and added the live rock. i've had water flowing over the old clean stuff about 5 days. and the new stuff since sunday.

[Origami]

btw -- i tried to "join wamas" using the paypal option and it isn't working.

 

it keeps saying "

Funding Options

We were unable to verify your credit or debit card. To proceed with your purchase, please select a different payment method or add a different credit or debit card, then click Continue."

 

i've used that paypal account plenty of times before... any ideas?

 

Diane, I've received many other registrations through paypal recently using that link. Are you sure that everything is fine with the account? I can try processing the transaction manually if you'd like. Just PM your phone number and I'll call you.

 

Is the credit card that Paypal has on file still active and unexpired? You may want to check that.

[Origami]

Diane, you're all set. Thanks for working with me on that. I had never used PayPal's "virtual terminal" service to process a credit card transaction directly. I'm happy to see that it works and that we're getting our money's worth from PayPal!

 

Let me be the very first to welcome you to WAMAS! You should now be able to see a number of forums that were unavailable to you earlier.

[Happyfeet]

Welcome Diane

[Diane]

Thanks for the Welcome. If anyone's curious.... stage 1 of Diane's 70g. and yes it looks like i'm going to have to replace at least one of the bulbs.

[Origami]

Small pic Diane, but it looks like a nice start.

 

Some people use Photobucket to to host their photos and paste the image link here in the forum. As for myself, I set up a private gallery here in WAMAS that I use to store images that I post in the forum in similar fashion.