Restart my neglected tank...

[dburt520]

I am getting ready to drain / restart my IM50 lagoon that I neglected over the past year and am curious what I can use after I drain the tank to clean the back AIO chambers out well?  

 

I ran a fuge in one of the back compartments that started to grow green hair algae better than it did chaeto, some of the GHA broke off during maintenance and went into the tank, under a rock and it was game over from there...  I want to ensure I get it all off / out before I restart the tank.

 

I will of course drain, and then refill with fresh water and run pumps with vinager and then drain, but wasn't sure if that would be enough to get rid of the GHA.

 

Will be using new sand and new live rock.

[ajkochev]

Your plan sounds good.  In addition I'd also keep the tank dry for a week or two just to make sure none of the GHA survives.

[Tired]

I don't think it's possible to never get GHA in your tank. If it doesn't come in on your live rock in trace amounts, it'll come in on coral frags. If I were you, I'd focus on keeping conditions so the algae doesn't get a chance to overrun, rather than trying to keep it out. 

 

Live rock is a great start. One of the best ways to keep any one species of algae from going wild is to have many species of algae, competing with each other for space like they do in the wild. It makes it harder for any of them to get a leg up. Live rock is an important part of that, and another important part is having enough nutrients to let those various less rambunctious algaes stay in decent shape. Sometimes, algae problems come from nutrients being too low, where only the pest algaes can do well and the rest wind up starving. You don't want to let your phosphates get super high, because that encourages algae growth over coral growth, but you need some phosphates and some nitrates. For your corals, as well as for your helpful algae population.

 

The other important part is to have something to eat the algae down. A decently large, varied cleanup crew will do that, as will general biodiversity- different types of pods and other grazers. Chitons are very effective against hair algae, if you happen to find one for sale. At least, the kind I got accidentally on my live rock are. They keep their little territory free of just about everything, except coraline and the barest traces of other algae.

[mcarroll]

On 8/4/2020 at 7:36 PM, dburt520 said:

I am getting ready to drain / restart my IM50 lagoon that I neglected over the past year

Pics?

 

Sometimes neglected tanks turn out not to be as bad as they look and within a few weeks can be looking good.  Sometimes neglected tanks actually turn out to be really healthy just growing a lot of algae.

 

Restarting is a guaranteed to take you back to square one.  Guaranteed to make you (and your tank) go through The Uglies again.  Et al.

 

Sometimes our idea of "looks good" conflicts with "healthy".  Speaking generally.  It can be mostly a matter of expectations on our part.  🙂