Reef Central Online Community - View Single Post - Need Advice, Thinking of Shutting it Down

dankoos · 03/13/2018, 05:06 PM

so I had wanted to keep saltwater for sometime. When i finished my basement, I built a 90 gallon "in the wall" and had a fish room on the other side. Everything was set up for success. The first 5 years or so, everything went great. Bought my first 8-10 fish and didn't lose any for 3+ years. Then, one by one they started to die off over the next 2 years or so. I bought almost all these fish online, most at the same time. My original plan was FOWLR, but like many I fell in love with corals, mostly soft but some LPS as well. As I started into those, they flourished. At some point at the peak of my tank, soft corals started to die (I think flame angel may have been responsible). Then came the algae issues...then the aptaisia and other pests like that. I let things go for a while then was reinvigorated, bought some more fish. Half the fish died in quarentine. Then, not too long after I put the new fish into the DT, I had a heater go rogue and my temp topped out near 100. I had several fish survive and some coral, but the algae and pests went nuts. The pic shows what my tank looks like now. My fish are fine, but just looking at this mess makes me want to sell off the fish and shut it down.

If I can muster the energy, I am looking for advice on how to clean up this mess. The tank is probably 10 years old now, should I buy a new tank instead of cleaning up this one? Should I bleach/acidize the rock? Pitch rock and buy some dry rock and seed it with a little live?

I should also mention when my tank was doing really well, I had T5 lighting...just some Chinese crap I found on Ebay but the light seemed to do great. I invested in a Reef Breeders LED and while I don't think it was the cause of the algae and pests, corals just didn't seem to do as well with it, especially zoas and palys.

Any pep talk would be appreciated.

03/13/2018, 05:06 PM	#1
dankoos Registered Member Join Date: Jan 2010 Location: Columbus, Ohio Posts: 271	Need Advice, Thinking of Shutting it Down so I had wanted to keep saltwater for sometime. When i finished my basement, I built a 90 gallon "in the wall" and had a fish room on the other side. Everything was set up for success. The first 5 years or so, everything went great. Bought my first 8-10 fish and didn't lose any for 3+ years. Then, one by one they started to die off over the next 2 years or so. I bought almost all these fish online, most at the same time. My original plan was FOWLR, but like many I fell in love with corals, mostly soft but some LPS as well. As I started into those, they flourished. At some point at the peak of my tank, soft corals started to die (I think flame angel may have been responsible). Then came the algae issues...then the aptaisia and other pests like that. I let things go for a while then was reinvigorated, bought some more fish. Half the fish died in quarentine. Then, not too long after I put the new fish into the DT, I had a heater go rogue and my temp topped out near 100. I had several fish survive and some coral, but the algae and pests went nuts. The pic shows what my tank looks like now. My fish are fine, but just looking at this mess makes me want to sell off the fish and shut it down. If I can muster the energy, I am looking for advice on how to clean up this mess. The tank is probably 10 years old now, should I buy a new tank instead of cleaning up this one? Should I bleach/acidize the rock? Pitch rock and buy some dry rock and seed it with a little live? I should also mention when my tank was doing really well, I had T5 lighting...just some Chinese crap I found on Ebay but the light seemed to do great. I invested in a Reef Breeders LED and while I don't think it was the cause of the algae and pests, corals just didn't seem to do as well with it, especially zoas and palys. Any pep talk would be appreciated.