Reef Tank Tear Down

[ChitownRomeo]

Ok so for months I was fighting a losing battle. Never figured out why my corals were slowly dying after 6 years. Now my rock has this stringy thick algae which im thinking now is dinos or maybe some form of Cyano. It started growing on my corals except for my 27 head torch coral which I have moved to a QT tank for holding. So I'm taking the rock out and discarding it. Honestly I never liked real Reef rock. Just was too dense so I'm not tooo mad. I was wondering do you guys think I need to change the sand bed. I have ALOT of life in my sand and keep it rather clean with every water change. Should i just take the rock out and give the sand a good siphoning then water change or just get rid of everything. I really love this Tropic Eden Reef Flakes. Any Advice?

 

[rostervandross]

I wonder as well if it's good to keep some of your old water or sand. I have an emergency tank that has been running empty and i wonder if the water is "stale" and could just totally be drained and refilled..

I would think maybe with the strange trouble you've had that you may want to start over as much as you can. Maybe you can rinse the sand really well with fresh water and let it dry and reuse it though?

Glad to hear you're starting fresh though! Have fun setting things back up to your now more experienced liking.

 

[Jongalt26]

First off let me clarify the fact that I do not know much about anything so please take someone the advice of someone else before mine.

With that said, i spent a tremendous amount of time researching sand beds and if I were in your shoes I would absolutely do a sand change. Especially since you have been having issues. Do you run a DSB or just standard?

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

I'm not sure if you've already started discarding things and breaking the tank down, I would strongly recommend not doing this, unless you plan on getting out of the hobby. While starting over with new rock may solve your problem temporarily, it could come back at any time. Since you did not manage to determine the cause or the solution, you'll be forced to simply break down your tank and start over again later on down the road.

As frustrating as it is to maintain something like a reef tank that's slowly going down hill, I would stick with it until you can solve the problem. Corals don't simply start dying off (not that I know of), and without knowing the root cause, the problem could come back at any time. Without knowing the root cause and the fix, you'll be in this same situation again.

Good luck, and please let us know if we can try to help you figure this out.

EDIT: additionally, if you're just going to throw out that rock, PM me and let's discuss me buying it from you.

 

[Jongalt26]

Is there a good water testing service that will analyze for chemical & bio as well as the standard elements? I work for an arch firm and do a lot of restaurants, I know for some of our clients we have to take water samples at their future sites for analysis but unfortunately those testing services are not only expensive but are contracted with our clients.
e.g. Triton

 

[ChitownRomeo]

I already know I'm gonna get kicked out the reefing community for this but my problem was I was running the reef off of Chicago tap water for 6 years. I guess It was like playing with a loaded gun. My torch was growing HUGE and if it wasn't broke I didn't fix it. I got a ro/di unit 6 months ago but I guess it was too late....

 

[cracker]

Maybe the corals were just used to the water. when You changed it they couldn't adapt quickly enough.
Beginning last Year my tank was full of HA and bubble. Corals were doing fine, some were growing. I went on a mission to rid the tank of this ugly algae. Well the algae issue has improved greatly but my corals are all bleaching.

 

[Oxylebius]

I already know I'm gonna get kicked out the reefing community for this but my problem was I was running the reef off of Chicago tap water for 6 years. I guess It was like playing with a loaded gun. My torch was growing HUGE and if it wasn't broke I didn't fix it. I got a ro/di unit 6 months ago but I guess it was too late....

No you won't be kicked out of the reef community. But, you did take a chance using tap water. My advice if you do use tap or well water is to monitor what the city (or well) has in it and what the city is adding to the water for treatment.

If you were running the tank off of Chicago tap water for years and then suddenly the corals were going downhill - I'd point to the tap water as the major culprit. Did you go the the city water webpage and see if/how the water was treated? City water municipalities tend to treat the water if there are issues. And my guess is that the city treated the tap water for something and that something is what was affecting your corals (or what the city was treating for was the issue). Switching to RODI after the fact won't help already dieing corals. But, over time you can get the tank back and running well on RODI, it can take a good year to do so. Very little happens fast in a reef tank.

 

[chipmunkofdoom2]

I already know I'm gonna get kicked out the reefing community for this but my problem was I was running the reef off of Chicago tap water for 6 years. I guess It was like playing with a loaded gun. My torch was growing HUGE and if it wasn't broke I didn't fix it. I got a ro/di unit 6 months ago but I guess it was too late....

No, nobody's going to kick you out. Everyone in this hobby has made mistakes, some greater than others. I used tap water on my first tank for probably a year or so. But, it was FO with some very nice live rock, so it didn't matter a ton.

It sounds to me like this was probably the cause of your issues. It's hard to tell what's making it in your tank via your tap water, and RO/DI removes a lot of unknowns. If you'd like to tear down your tank and start over, it sounds like you've at least found your root cause. Personally, I'd leave things alone and just do regular water changes (maybe daily or every other day) until things get better. There's no reason that diligence can't solve this problem, but it's not a quick fix.

I don't think I'd blame you for wanting to start over either.. that's just what I'd do. Good luck.

 

[Pat24601]

I already know I'm gonna get kicked out the reefing community for this but my problem was I was running the reef off of Chicago tap water for 6 years. I guess It was like playing with a loaded gun. My torch was growing HUGE and if it wasn't broke I didn't fix it. I got a ro/di unit 6 months ago but I guess it was too late....

You know, maybe the problem was the tap water, but maybe it wasn't if you were doing it for 6 years.

It's 100% true that I'd only use rodi for all the obvious reasons, but that doesn't necessarily mean that's what went wrong.

I think often things go wrong in reef tanks no matter how careful we are and it can be really hard to figure out why.

So, don't be too hard on yourself. Sometimes things just happen in this hobby.