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View Full Version : Tryna bring my tank back to life...


bigjoeybx
03/03/2011, 12:28 PM
Well i wouldnt say im new to the hobby. I had my tank up and running since 2008. In 2010 I basically stopped taking care of it. major case of neglect. but surprisingly the only effect I seen were the fish loss. had 7 fish at the prime of my hobby. Now only Nemo left. i recently decided to get back into it full steam. there wasnt any algea really. Havent skimmed in over 6 months. I keep my fluval FX5 running though. (kick *** canister IMO).
So heres what I did
I took out just about every piece of live rock i had out. Just a few pieces I left in to keep something alive. Took out around 20lbs of sand. Didnt want another DSB for some reason. killed all the rest of the rock. Ive soaked them for a good month let them air dry for atleast 1 week. Got my skimmer back up running Superskimmer 125. I must say its pulling out some nasty stuff. And after maybe 8 months finally turned the lights back on. Noticed one of the rocks still have life on it. little red things looks like feather dusters. So that made me ahappy man. So I restacked everything and now I get excited everytime I walk past it.
Im a patient man when it comes to this but how long before i can put some new livestock in it. I was thinking like maybe waiting atleast 2 weeks. Gonna get a couple of chromis. My water par seems good Nitrate. 20ppm amm is 0.5 im assuming they high because i was messing with the sand bed and whatnot. What do yall think. here is some pics also.

somewherre
03/03/2011, 07:51 PM
Your ammonia and nitrites should be 0 before you can put in livestock. Did you read any of the stickies on cycling? You may want to do some water changes to keep the ammonia down since you have a fish in there right now.

I'm just curious...why did you remove and dry out the rock if you weren't having any algae problems?

bigjoeybx
03/04/2011, 09:17 AM
My tanks been running for years now. same sand. Just didnt do a water change in about 6 months. only thing i did was remove stuff. 20lbs of the sand and all the rock.
I took the rock out maaybe 5 months ago cause they started getting algea on it. after i took em out no algea prob i was gonna go with fish only. So i basically nuked the rocks. then put them back in my tank.
My skimmer was off for a good 6-7 months also.
So my tank still needs to cycle? The rock that I added was all Base. im gonna take some more reading later today to see if anything changes.

bigjoeybx
03/31/2011, 12:24 PM
so i gotta problem ever since switching out the rocks. this what my tank looks like now

DoubleM 10
03/31/2011, 12:27 PM
yep ur tank will need to cycle again. you need to build the bacteria to accomodate fish.

also the red stuff i beleive is cynobacteria

part of a new tank steps.

you are basically starting over. another thing that the bacteria signifies is that you have to many nutrience in the tank. thats what its feeding off of

bigjoeybx
03/31/2011, 12:34 PM
damn so im basically starting over then. My clownfish still seem to be doing good skimmer is pumping nasty stuff out. what could help this go away. too many nutrients is a bad thing? thats what the cyno living off?