Restarting a Neglected Tank - help needed (Biocube 14g)

[Mr. Arbuckle]

Hello all,

 

I've been out of the saltwater game for a while, and I've forgotten most of what I knew back when I was into it. At this point I would consider myself a beginner at best.

 

I recently inherited a 14g bio cube that has been utterly neglected for the past year+...the previous owner lost interest and let everything go to pot. No water changes in over a year. The glass was covered in coralline algae, detritus everywhere...everything you might expect.

 

The tank is a bone stock Oceanic Biocube 14, complete with bio balls (that presumably have never been cleaned) in the second compartment and a dirty filter in the first compartment. A small water heater is in the third compartment along with the stock pump.

 

I'm attempting to reboot this poor tank and get things back up to a good working level, restock the tank with a few hearty fish and corals. I'm sure this will be a long, arduous process but I'm committed to making it happen!

 

Amazingly, some of the livestock is still alive: a yellow watchman goby, a galaxies coral (that appears to be utterly thriving) and a giant blue legged hermit crab. I'd like to keep these guys alive while rebuilding the tank, if possible.

 

When I got the tank the first thing I did when I received this last week was clean the glass, replace the stock Biocube filter in the first compartment (which was filthy), matched the salinity of the existing water (specific gravity was 1.023) and did a 4 gallon water change while disturbing all of the sand and rock to get some of the junk out of there.

 

This seems to have triggered a massive brown algae bloom (see picture), which I somewhat expected.

 

I ordered a media basket for the second compartment, and want to remove the bio balls. I've also ordered some Seachem activated carbon, and Rowaphos to help with what I would imagine are high phosphate levels currently present, as well as some filter floss for use in the media basket.

 

I plan on doing another 4 gallon water change tomorrow (exactly one week since the last one) and I will also pickup a water test kit to check calcium, phosphate, nitrate and nitrite levels pre and post-water change.

 

I have a few questions:

 

1. Can I replace all of the bio balls at once or should I do it overtime?

2. Should I scrub off the brown algae that has formed?

3. Should I keep up with 4 gallon water changes weekly until things stabilize?

4. Anything else I should do in the meantime?

5. Any other pertinent upgrades I should attend to?

 

I'm looking for some guidance - I know enough to be dangerous but I don't have much clue of how to handle this project. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you!

 

Edit: sorry, I guess I didn't know how to upload pictures correctly...here's what it looked like when I originally posted.

[ezcompany]

1. you can remove all the balls, replace with seachem matrix or siporax. (works as extra live rock)

2. it depends on your aesthetic preference. I would because it looks ugly.

3. one more 4 gallon change should pretty much put things back to normal. nothing toxic is going on in your tank otherwise everything would be dead. in the end that decision must be made by you depending on how the tank looks.

4. make sure water flow is adequate, add some mechanical filtration to get rid of some detritus. may need to add a powerhead in there.

if water doesn't clear you can add some carbon to remove organics in the water. if using gfo use in small quantity and sparingly.

[Clown79]

I would ditch the bioballs.

 

Use filter floss and replace often as you are cleaning out the mess. Once its back to normal 2x a week replacing is good.

 

Clean the chambers really well, add a snail back there to help keep it clean.

 

I'm sure you cleaned the pump and all the hoses, which will help as both trap a lot of crap.

 

If the sand is old and full of detritus, the overhaul most likely disturbed a lot of it causing the algae bloom.

 

You could remove the sand and replace with new. This will help a lot! The nutrient buildup in sandbeds is often the culprit for algae outbreaks. New sand would also prevent future issues. Imo.

 

Look up a thread "hammerstones tank", Seabass provided a step by step procedure to not only overhaul the tank but on how to deal with the sandbed.

[Bcb577]

I would definitely consider what clown79 said and replace the sand bed.it's not as bad as it sounds and could save you lots of headaches down the road

[Mr. Arbuckle]

Thank you for all of the help! The tank looks immensely better already.

 

I've removed half of the bio balls, and managed to clear out the back chambers decently well. I also lucked out and found that I had an Italian made maxi jet 900 that I was using for water changes, so I went ahead and swapped that one for the stock pump. Seems like a huge improvement in water movement.

 

I also did a peroxide dip of all of the live rock pieces I have in there - that seems to have helped a LOT.

 

Other than that I also added a little baggie of activated carbon and a little baggie of Rowaphos to the second chamber, and my phosphate levels dropped to 0.25ppm already!

 

I've actually been changing the filter floss frequently - three times over the last two days cause it's pulling up all sorts of nasty stuff. I use a turkey baster to blow all of the junk off of the rocks every few hours to filter out more of it. It's amazing how dirty this thing is.

 

I took ezcompany's advice and orders some siporax for the media basket. Can't wait to get that installed!

 

I'm cheap and I think that cleaning the sand that I have with distilled water might be my best option for dealing with the sand bed...thank you for directing me towards that thread, clown79! Very helpful.

 

Thanks again everybody! Things seems to be going pretty well - I will install the media basket later on this week. More pictures and water parameters will come soon.

[Clown79]

Glad to hear all is going well

 

It will take time but you'll have it in good shape soon.

 

Keep us posted.

[Sharbuckle]

What a fantastic last name.

[cruiZe]

i'm sure your sand is horribly dirty. I would not disturb it into the tank water, that will be bad. Siphon small sections out- rinse the hell out of it with warm tap water until it runs perfectly clear. Then rinse it with RO (or distilled) water and put it back. (You will need hundreds of gallons so using tap water first is fine)

 

I did a section of my sump this weekend that was infested with GHA.

 

Also a little peroxide while rinsing the sand never hurts too - glad you did that on the rocks- it will take a while for those positive effects to show

[Mr. Arbuckle]

Alright! Well I got my siporax and media basket today, so I removed the bio balls and installed the new system.

 

In the top chamber I have filter floss and a bag of activated charcoal. I filled up most of the bottom chamber with siporax. Nothing in the middle chamber yet...any suggestions?

 

I also tested my water parameters following the new setup, and they are as follows:

 

Calcium = 360mg/L

Carbonate Hardness = 161.1 ppm KH / 9 dKH

Phosphate = 0-0.25 ppm

Nitrate = 0-5 ppm

 

The calcium seems a bit low but everything else is right where it oughta be. I did a 4 gallon water change two days ago so maybe that explains why everything is looking so good...? I'll check parameters again this weekend. Any concerns over the calcium being too low at this point?

 

I changed up the rock configuration as well - stirring up a bunch of the sand in the process :/ Been too lazy to get to the sand bed...one step at a time. Should be able to get after it this weekend.

 

The blue legged hermit crab also molted - I found that this morning. I'm going to take that as a good sign?

 

Thanks everyone!

[Clown79]

The calcium isn't dreadfully low. I had low ca in the beginning. If your tank isn't full of corals like sps and lps, I'd worry more about getting the sand taken care of and lowering the phos then work on ca.

 

You will want to test your new water for ca and alk. That will give you an idea if water changes will aid in correcting the levels. If your mixing at 360 - it won't change your levels. If its mixing at 400 but the display tank results are 360 - you know how much your tank is using.

 

Test the newly mixed water

Then test the tank after water change

Then test it the next day.

 

I would do the above if you have a lot of corals - if not work on the cleaning then worry about ca.

 

Don't stir the sandbed, its chuck full of crap that will pollute the water. Vacuum small sections at each water change until u can either clean it all or replace it.

Change your floss regularly as well

[Bcb577]

I highly recommend removing and cleaning the sand bed or totally replacing it with new live sand if it's in the budget,I just did that to mine and it cured a cyno outbreak,your done great so far but remain patient I've learned that taking the easy rout and cutting corners leads to trouble down the road,not at all saying your done that but I'm guilty of it,lol keep it up!!

[Mr. Arbuckle]

Alright! Tonight I removed and cleaned the entire sand bed - I only put about 2/3 of it back since the sand bed seemed to be pretty deep (around 3 inches). I did just as cruiZe recommended and rinsed it with tap water until it ran clear, then a final rinse with distilled water and dumped it back in the tank. Afterwards I added some of the old water, adjusted for temperature and salinity and the added all of my live rock and the few critters back in. I didn't use any peroxide though - should I think about dosing my tank with some? If so, how much?

 

I'm very happy that I did so, because it was so utterly filthy I doubt that it would've ever gotten clean just with water and filter floss changes. I'm hoping my few inhabitants take the changes well; so far they seem to be acting a little shy but that's as to be expected.

 

I plan on checking water parameters tomorrow, and I'll post what those are. I posted another picture - I didn't bother scaping the rocks all that well - I'm actually moving this weekend so it seemed a bit of a waste.

 

I realize that this may still be a long ways off, but when can I begin thinking about buying some livestock? I want to get a good cleanup crew to begin with, and hopefully help with some of the algae that remains in this tank.

 

Thanks again for all of the help everybody!

[Bcb577]

Great job!you'll be happy you took this rout,I did it to my 14 gallon,I was in the same boat as you were,my sand was way too deep,I replaced it with new sand only because I like what I got better than what was in it!

[Mr. Arbuckle]

Well it has been a hectic week - I moved to a new place and finally got some time tonight to do some work on the tank. The water parameters are as follows:

 

Specific gravity: 1.024

Calcium: 400 mg/L

Alkalinity: 7.0-8.0 dKH (test was somewhere between these two)

Phosphate: 0 ppm

Nitrate: 0-5 ppm (test was somewhere between these two)

pH: 8.2/8.4 (test was somewhere between these two)

 

So it looks like I've had a slight drop in alkalinity, but the pH reads spot on. Not sure if this is something I should be worried about yet...?

 

I'm running Purigen in the media basket now, along with the activated carbon, siporax, and filter floss (which I'm replacing either everyday or every other day). I also bought a calcium buffer and just add a TINY bit every 3-4 days. It seems to be slowly increasing the calcium content just as I had hoped for.

 

Other than that I've just been stirring the sand bed and blowing detritus off of the rocks with a turkey baster. I've also cleaned out the sand bed of dead coral bits and little pieces of live rock - it was starting to look like the tank was occupied by hoarders.

 

During the move a good chunk of the galaxea coral was damaged, which may be for the best...I'm not sure I really want to hang onto the galaxea coral after doing some research on it; it seems like a real bully :/ The goby and the blue legged hermit crab are still going strong.

 

I'm going to start stepping down to 2 gallon weekly water changes instead of 4 gallon water changes; it seems a bit excessive at this point with my water parameters consistently showing low phosphates and nitrates.

 

That's about all for now - I added a new picture. I'm getting excited at the prospect of being able to add a cleanup crew soon. Am I ready for that or should I be waiting a while longer?

[Christopher Marks]

It sounds like it's starting to settle in and stabilize after the changes you've made, but with the big disruption of the sand bed it might be best to wait just one final week before introducing any new life. Maybe this weekend?

[Clown79]

Sounds good.

 

If you are dosing ca, your alk will start to drop. Its best using 2 part dosers as alk and ca work together. Are you testing magnesium?

 

If you have no ammonia or nitrite present, a cuc can be added.

[Mr. Arbuckle]

Ok great, I'll plan on picking up some snails this weekend!

 

Good to know about calcium and alkalinity interactions while dosing. Should I get an alkalinity buffer as well? Any suggestions for an alkalinity buffer? I'm using the Seachem calcium buffer currently.

 

My test kit doesn't have the ability to check for nitrites, ammonia of magnesium. Are these critical to check, or is it more of a "good to know" sort of thing? I'm iust wondering if I need to spend the money on this or not...

 

I just bought a Steve's LED lighting upgrade for the tank. The PC's are long past overdue to be changed (probably were new about two years ago) and I figured that I'll be adding some corals with more intense lighting requirements. Looking forward to it!

[Clown79]

Ammonia needs to be tested during cycling.

 

There is no way for you to know if a new tank has cycled without testing ammonia.

 

If the tank is already established the only need for an ammonia test is if you suddenly had an issue and were concerned there is ammonia present.

 

Its important to test the following with corals

 

Alk

Ca

Mag

Nitrates

Phos (salifert test which is low range)

 

I personally use Esv Bionic 2 part dosers. Its an alk and ca doser.

 

If you dose ca and don't dose alk - the alk will drop and the ca will rise. When alk drops it not only effects the corals but the ph as well.

 

Magnesium plays an important role with alk and ca as well. If its low, its often difficult to maintain alk and ca even with dosing.

[Mr. Arbuckle]

Thank you so much for all of your guidance on this clown79!

 

I went ahead and got ESV two part alkalinity/calcium buffer, along with their magnesium buffer, and magnesium and ammonia test kits. This way I'll be able to test all of important parameters and be able to dose accordingly.

 

And it's good to know about the ammonia with regards to tank cycling - I'm going to go forward with getting a clean up crew (mostly snails) and monitor the ammonia levels before adding anything else. Hoping to add some stuff here in the next 2-3 weeks after the water parameters are consistent.

 

I'll chalk up my decision to purchase the calcium buffer to a learning experience :/ that'll teach me to research before I really understood water parameters and interactions.

 

I'm also going to get rid of the galaxea coral and the hermit crab one way or another; I don't think they're going to be compatible with the other livestock I'm planning to have based on what I've been reading.