29 gallon: R.E.E.F Tank

[ECLS Reefer]

1 hour ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

Ok so I’m getting a uv filter. I have also finally found my maroon clown and bar goby. The maroon clown was just hanging with my carpet nem and the bar goby was just hanging towards the back of the tank. The only thing I haven’t been able to find yet was the Haitian nem. I’m trying to find him. I’m probably gonna have to drain my water like your said to find it. I’d hate to do that, but if I have to then I will

Ethan seriously- just drain the tank and do what needs to be done to fix it and find the source of the bacterial bloom. Quit saying how much you hate to do this or that if it’s required to save your tank. These tanks take careful maintenance and you’re acting like it’s too much work suddenly. If that’s the case maybe it’s not the hobby for you.

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

Listen, I’m sorry if I seem like I’m being lazy or not putting in the effort. It’s not that. I swear I’m doing the best I can with the resources I have. I lost my job a while back due to them having to make some cuts. So I’m out of a job and have little to none extra money. I don’t want you guys to think that I’m not trying. I worked my butt off today just trying to make enough money to get a uv filter. I worked with my grandpa on his farm just to make enough money for that. I barely have enough money to buy gallons of distilled water for water changes and top offs. So I’m sorry if I can’t perform large water changes. I’m working with what I can here. I’m sorry 

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

I know I said that I would get a picture for everyone but I was not able too. This is the best I could find. This is what my water looks like, but the color of the green is a darker green. It’s not as bright. This is really embarrassing just to show you guys a picture that’s not even mine🤦‍♂️

[SliceGolfer]

@EthanPhillyCheesesteak - This is what you should do. How you go about this is in your power, not ours.

 

1. Gather enough 5 gallon buckets to place all your alive livestock in, including live rock. Or a large Rubbermaid bin.

2. Make enough fresh saltwater (from RODI water, not tap) to fill the buckets once full of livestock and rock.

3. Make enough fresh saltwater (from RODI water, not tap) to fill your aquarium.

4. Fill one or two empty buckets about 25% full.

5. Item by item, move your corals, rock, and fish into the buckets.

6. Be sure to cover the livestock with fresh saltwater so nothing is exposed to air.

7. Once all livestock and rocks have been moved to fresh saltwater, move to next steps.

8. Remove you filter, skimmer, heater, etc, etc.

9. If you have ceramic media in your filter, place it in the buckets with your livestock.

10. Drain all the water from your tank. Toss it down the toilet.

11. Take all your sand and toss it in the trash.

12 Thoroughly (and I mean thoroughly) clean your tank with vinegar and water. Put it in the bath tub and clean it. Scrub it. Make it look new.

13. Clean every bit of equipment you use with vinegar and water. Scrub it. Make it look new.

14. Put the tank back on the stand and add the hardware.

15. Skip sand, go bare bottom.

16. Fill the tank 25% with fresh saltwater.

17. Put all your live rock back in the tank and scape it.

18. Fill the tank 75% full of water.

19. Put all corals and livestock back in the tank.

20. Fill the tank to the proper level with fresh saltwater.

21. Put the ceramic media back in the filter, if used.

22. Put in new filter pads.

23. Fill the filter with water.

24. Plug everything in and turn each item on, one by one.

25. Make any adjustments as needed while you bring equipment online. Water level, temp, salinity, flow, etc.

26. Be prepared to top off the tank with fresh saltwater as equipment comes online and lowers water level.

27. Monitor the tank for anything, leaks, filter, skimmer, power head, heater. Make fine tune adjustments.

28. Leave lights off for one day.

29. Monitor the tank every hour when you are home, be ready to adjust any gear, or top off with fresh RODI water.

30. Run a full set of water tests and establish a baseline. Turn lights back on to normal schedule. 

 

Again, this is the what you need to do. The how is up to you. Anything else and you will be demonstrating how you are not prepared to own and maintain a reef tank. We've all made sacrifices, and we've all done what it takes to make sure these living organisms thrive. Time to man up, not make excuses.

 

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

51 minutes ago, SliceGolfer said:

@EthanPhillyCheesesteak - This is what you should do. How you go about this is in your power, not ours.

 

1. Gather enough 5 gallon buckets to place all your alive livestock in, including live rock. Or a large Rubbermaid bin.

2. Make enough fresh saltwater (from RODI water, not tap) to fill the buckets once full of livestock and rock.

3. Make enough fresh saltwater (from RODI water, not tap) to fill your aquarium.

4. Fill one or two empty buckets about 25% full.

5. Item by item, move your corals, rock, and fish into the buckets.

6. Be sure to cover the livestock with fresh saltwater so nothing is exposed to air.

7. Once all livestock and rocks have been moved to fresh saltwater, move to next steps.

8. Remove you filter, skimmer, heater, etc, etc.

9. If you have ceramic media in your filter, place it in the buckets with your livestock.

10. Drain all the water from your tank. Toss it down the toilet.

11. Take all your sand and toss it in the trash.

12 Thoroughly (and I mean thoroughly) clean your tank with vinegar and water. Put it in the bath tub and clean it. Scrub it. Make it look new.

13. Clean every bit of equipment you use with vinegar and water. Scrub it. Make it look new.

14. Put the tank back on the stand and add the hardware.

15. Skip sand, go bare bottom.

16. Fill the tank 25% with fresh saltwater.

17. Put all your live rock back in the tank and scape it.

18. Fill the tank 75% full of water.

19. Put all corals and livestock back in the tank.

20. Fill the tank to the proper level with fresh saltwater.

21. Put the ceramic media back in the filter, if used.

22. Put in new filter pads.

23. Fill the filter with water.

24. Plug everything in and turn each item on, one by one.

25. Make any adjustments as needed while you bring equipment online. Water level, temp, salinity, flow, etc.

26. Be prepared to top off the tank with fresh saltwater as equipment comes online and lowers water level.

27. Monitor the tank for anything, leaks, filter, skimmer, power head, heater. Make fine tune adjustments.

28. Leave lights off for one day.

29. Monitor the tank every hour when you are home, be ready to adjust any gear, or top off with fresh RODI water.

30. Run a full set of water tests and establish a baseline. Turn lights back on to normal schedule. 

 

Again, this is the what you need to do. The how is up to you. Anything else and you will be demonstrating how you are not prepared to own and maintain a reef tank. We've all made sacrifices, and we've all done what it takes to make sure these living organisms thrive. Time to man up, not make excuses.

 

Will the tank have to cycle again once I completely change the water? And I also have a small problem with some of my corals are glued to my liverock. How would I get them off? And another issue I’m having is money. I don’t own a rodi unit, so I would have to spend at least 29 dollars on distilled water gallons. And then I have to pay for a lot of salt mix. I have literally 5 dollars right now and I won’t get paid from my grandpa till next week. I’m just not prepared to do this. I could probably do it next week, but that’s waiting a whole week? And are you sure it would be a good idea to get rid of my sand bed? I have a conch and a yellow watchman goby? As well as a lot of other inverts? I’ve had this tank set up for nearly 3 years now. Most of my livestock has been with me for at least 2 years. 

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

I’m prepared to take care of my tank, I just can’t take this route yet bc of money?

[SliceGolfer]

1 hour ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

Will the tank have to cycle again once I completely change the water? And I also have a small problem with some of my corals are glued to my liverock. And are you sure it would be a good idea to get rid of my sand bed? I have a conch and a yellow watchman goby? As well as a lot of other inverts?

I'm leaving those how questions (money, time, etc) in your court. Nothing we can do to help you there.

 

Unlikely your tank will cycle again. Your live rock is your filter, along with any ceramic media in your HOB filter. Corals glued to your rock are fine. Be sure to place them in an appropriately sized container. A bucket, a large plastic bin, whatever container you have access to that will hold the rock and coral and will stay submerged when you fill it with water. I am a fan of bare bottom. I appreciate the benefits of bare bottom (higher flow, ease of cleaning, vacuuming, water clarity, no ticking time bomb) vs sand. If you have fish or inverts that require sand, get a small plastic bowl or clear food container and put fresh rinsed sand in there. This would give your Goby a place to dig, or your inverts to live. Personally, I wouldn't have anemones in my reef tank, nor sand spitting gobies that spit junk everywhere. Especially on my corals.

 

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

On 3/9/2020 at 3:41 PM, SliceGolfer said:

I'm leaving those how questions (money, time, etc) in your court. Nothing we can do to help you there.

 

Unlikely your tank will cycle again. Your live rock is your filter, along with any ceramic media in your HOB filter. Corals glued to your rock are fine. Be sure to place them in an appropriately sized container. A bucket, a large plastic bin, whatever container you have access to that will hold the rock and coral and will stay submerged when you fill it with water. I am a fan of bare bottom. I appreciate the benefits of bare bottom (higher flow, ease of cleaning, vacuuming, water clarity, no ticking time bomb) vs sand. If you have fish or inverts that require sand, get a small plastic bowl or clear food container and put fresh rinsed sand in there. This would give your Goby a place to dig, or your inverts to live. Personally, I wouldn't have anemones in my reef tank, nor sand spitting gobies that spit junk everywhere. Especially on my corals.

 

I have a yellow watchman, he doesn’t spit sand very often, but he does it on occasion. I also really appreciate my conch. They are amazing sand sifters. I’m afraid if I just put a little bucket of sand in there for the conch it wouldn’t be enough for him. Food wise at least. 

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

So I listened to you guys and bought as much water as I could. I did as big of a water change as I possibly could. I did a 16 gallon water change last night and I woke up this morning and wow did my water change drastically literally overnight. There’s almost no cloudiness. There’s very little, and I’m gonna let my UV filter clear up the rest. I can also finally see my corals. My corals are all looking good too. My monti cap actually looks like its grown? I think I did lose my bar goby tho. I think that may have caused the cloudy water. Everything else is alive and well tho. I did what I could at least.

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

So far the only things that died in my tank and didn’t make it through this bloom was my bar goby and monti setosa. All other sps are alive and look great. None of my sps are even bleached or losing flesh at all. Other than the setosa at least. And I think the main reason the setosa didn’t make it was bc it was getting enough light probably. I had it on the sand bed, so that probably didn’t help. My monti cap tho is definitely already showing growth. Not much but it is. You can tell, bc the pattern of the monti changes a bit when it starts to get to the cups. Like idk how to explain it, but there’s a certain point where there’s like this like line near the edges of the cups and the middle of the monti is flat and rough looking, and when it gets towards the cup, the montis pattern changes from rough and flat to kinda like a lime pattern. Like there’s line heading out. It’s hard to explain, sorry. I think what causes it probably has to do with flow. Correct me if I’m wrong.

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

Here I found a picture. It looks like this. It didn’t look like this when I first put it in the tank. You can see how the pattern changes.

It’s been in my tank for nearly a month now

[Tamberav]

Did you find all your nems?

[xiaoxiy]

We had a pretty nasty green water bloom a couple years ago in my spouse’s Nuvo. After  we got it cleared up, and we could finally see the inhabitants again, I  was also amazed at how much the corals has had grown during the green water bloom. 

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

24 minutes ago, Tamberav said:

Did you find all your nems?

Yes I found all of them. The Haitian was hiding under a rock, and he is scrunched up and looks kinda bad. I’m hoping once I get him to get in the light more he’ll get better. But he does look pretty bad. Hopefully he’ll pull through. My carpet and lta are both alive. Lta is attached to a rock and is nice and open. Both clowns are enjoying him. The carpet is still kinda scrunched up and small like it was a few weeks ago. It looks kinda bleached, but it’s in a spot where it near the bottom of the tank. It’s getting the same amount of light as my other nems. He hasn’t wanted to move at all, so I’m guessing he likes the spot tho? I’ve been spot feeding the carpet every time I feed the tank. I feed now every other day. I know you guys told me nems don’t need a lot of spot feeding, they mainly just require light, but I’m hoping if i feed him he’ll get better sooner? 

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

15 minutes ago, xiaoxiy said:

We had a pretty nasty green water bloom a couple years ago in my spouse’s Nuvo. After  we got it cleared up, and we could finally see the inhabitants again, I  was also amazed at how much the corals has had grown during the green water bloom. 

Same here, everything seems to of grown at least a bit. My zoas and mushrooms have grown more. Zoas popped out new polyps. Mushrooms have gotten bigger. My Duncan has grown 2 new heads in that time. My trachy looks bigger. I think my red acan also grew a few new heads. Monti cap definitely grew and my small frag of birdsnest also grew a few cm. I’m at least glad that my tank got something good from the bloom😂

My bigger birdsnest frag I can’t tell if it’s grown. It has so many branches that it’s hard to notice small growth or changes 

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

I have some good news as well as some really weird news. So I went to feed my tank yesterday and I started dropping food into the tank and I see a silver missile come flying out of my rock work to grab food. It was my bar goby, he’s still alive!!! I haven’t seen him in a week? That means everything is alive? Nothing died? What could’ve caused this algae bloom then? Im so confused? My Haitian nem is also good now too? He’s all nice and puffy and looks good? All my nems are alive and all my fish are alive as well?

[Ratvan]

10 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

I have some good news as well as some really weird news. So I went to feed my tank yesterday and I started dropping food into the tank and I see a silver missile come flying out of my rock work to grab food. It was my bar goby, he’s still alive!!! I haven’t seen him in a week? That means everything is alive? Nothing died? What could’ve caused this algae bloom then? Im so confused? My Haitian nem is also good now too? He’s all nice and puffy and looks good? All my nems are alive and all my fish are alive as well?

Bacterial Bloom. overfeeding ,dead fish or dead plant matter will cause a rise in the reproduction of the heterotrophs in order to break down the organic waste, they re-produce too quickly to be able to attach themselves to a surface and this causes a bacterial bloom

 

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

31 minutes ago, Ratvan said:

Bacterial Bloom. overfeeding ,dead fish or dead plant matter will cause a rise in the reproduction of the heterotrophs in order to break down the organic waste, they re-produce too quickly to be able to attach themselves to a surface and this causes a bacterial bloom

 

Yea, but I don’t have any dead fish or dead plant matter. I did feed a bit more than usual before the bloom started, so maybe that could’ve started that.

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

Also what they say about birdsnest growing fast, they are so right. My smaller frag of birdsnest has grown a good quarter of an inch in the last 2 weeks. 

[Ratvan]

3 minutes ago, EthanPhillyCheesesteak said:

Yea, but I don’t have any dead fish or dead plant matter. I did feed a bit more than usual before the bloom started, so maybe that could’ve started that.

Thats the "typical" or most common causes, but not limited to those. You'll always have some dead plant matter in the tank somewhere

[Tamberav]

Do you siphon your sand bed? Dirty sand beds can be a problem for just about anything. Also did you ever use reef-flux or such? Can't remember. Large amount of dying bryopsis could do it too. 

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

2 hours ago, Tamberav said:

Do you siphon your sand bed? Dirty sand beds can be a problem for just about anything. Also did you ever use reef-flux or such? Can't remember. Large amount of dying bryopsis could do it too. 

I did use reef flux, but I do have to confess that I haven’t been siphoning as much as I should be. So that could’ve been a cause. 

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

Hey everyone, sorry for not being on nano reef for a while to make updates, but I’ve been doing my best to take care of the tank even tho I’m limited to water changes. (I don’t have a Rodi unit, so I have to go to the store to get distilled, but lately they’ve been out of distilled). But I made sure to stockpile as much distilled as I can. So I’ve just been making small 4 gallon water changes once a week, that’s all I really can do. By the way, the algae bloom is completely gone. My tank looks amazing right now. The water is exceptionally clear bc of the UV filter, I’ve tested all my params yesterday and everything is where it should be. I’ll get you a list of params in a sec. All my sps are thriving and doing well. Surprisingly, I never lost any sps besides the monti setosa during the bloom. I lost two of my corals, I lost my setosa, and my scoly. I was really upset from the scoly bc I’ve never seen one quite like it. It was a vietenis scoly and it looked like a war paint type. I paid 100 for it too. I don’t really know how it died, when I found it, it was loosing flesh from the mouth outwards? Like the mouths were gone, but the flesh around the mouths were untouched. It was weird. I tried to save it, but without any mouths, I don’t think there was any hope. 

All my nems are alive and well, and all my fish are doing good too. 

Here’s some pictures-

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

[EthanPhillyCheesesteak]

Here’s some more pictures