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Clean slate or hold on?


Superdave

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Greetings to all--

 

I have a 5.5 gallon that was set up in 2004 while I was in graduate school. It was a FOWLR with a feather duster or two, along with some snails and hermit crabs. I've moved the tank several times since then and couldn't bring myself to break it down. All of the livestock was removed several years ago and it's been simply a box of rocks and sand with sporadic lighting. It's had a SubCurrent in tank pump, so there has been plenty of water movement. The back of the tank faces a northern window, so it has received some ambient light, but not much direct, powerful lighting until a few days ago.

 

I caught the "bug" again and have put together a new hood and upgraded the lighting. My goal is to have a FOWLR tank again, plus a feather duster and probably some zoanthids and perhaps a goby.

 

My question is do you think the live rock and sand has enough "life" left in it to act as biological filtration to support livestock or should I start over with new rock and sand? As the tank is small, it wouldn't cost too much to do all new rock and sand. The rocks in the tank now do have some coraline algae, which makes me think the tank isn't totally devoid of life. I've attached a pic of the tank. Thanks in advance for everyone's thoughts and advice

 

post-9028-0-72683100-1375892784_thumb.jpg.

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If you haven't been ghost feeding the tank, you'll need to do so and get the bacterial count back up some. Maybe even toss in a bottle of Dr. Tim's or whatever "flavor" of bottled bacteria you favor to give it a "bump".

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  • 11 months later...

Here to post an update and I believe I was correct in holding on. Am going to post a new thread with more details as well.

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