75 gallon crash rescue

[mfisher2112]

I'll be starting a 75 gallon crashed tank rescue soon. So I thought I would document the progress here.

The back story is the tank USED to be mine, was given to a friend of mine, and subsequently experienced a severe crash. All fish and coral were wiped out. We aren't exactly sure what happened, but believe something foreign may have been introduced into the tank water that caused an issue.

Presently the tank is devoid of life except for a couple of very resilient hermit crabs, and one ginormous serpeant star.

We will be moving the tank to my basement hopefully next week while her house undergoes some major rennovation. My task will be to revitalize the eco-system and then return the tank in a few months hopefully thriving.

The tank is a 75 gallon reef ready with a 40 gallon long sump. It USED to have LED tube lighting, but something occurred at her place knocking the light rack into the tank and shorting all but 2 of the tubes out. I will be replacing the lighting with some 175 watt retros I have here.

It has a shallow sand bed (about 1 1/2 ") and about 100 lbs of live rock which has since lost all coralline growth and may not actually be so "alive" anymore. Looking at the tank at night under "red light" shows some brittle star activity as well as the occassional skittering pod darting around the underside of the rock work, so we shall see.

The skimmer is a coralife superskimmer 125, which I will have to tear down and try to bring back to life. It hasn't been running in a while.

Return pump is a mag 9.5 which apparently is functioning "intermitantly". I will look into that. It probably just needs to be stripped and cleaned. Mag pumps RARELY go bad.

The sump will get an addition of a refugium where I'll try to bring back some of the fauna the tank used to contain.

First steps will be to strip the tank and get everything "sterilized" and ready to go.

Since the crabs and the star fish seem to be doing just fine, I'm beginning to think that whatever may have caused the crash is long since worked itself out of the system. I'm not even completely convinced that it wasn't the light meets water incident that may have caused the initial downward spiral of the tank. Noone knows for sure.

I have 2 rubber maid tubs ready to hold the rock while we clean the tank and equipment. I am also preparing about 50 gallons of new water that will supplement the water she brings with the tank. Her water will be used primarily for cleaning the rock and rinsing the sand, very little of it will go back into the tank.

This will be the first time I've tried to do this this way, so we shall see what happens. WIthin a few months, I hope to return a thriving reef system to her newly rennovated house!

Pictures and more details will follow.

 

[TanksNStuff]

Sounds like you got your work cut out for you Matt. You seem to have a pretty good plan though and with your experience I'm sure it will recover.

While reading your post, I was thinking that the wet lights incident might have been the problem too. But, you never know so it's best to be cautious and start from scratch.

Since you only have a few crabs and starfish left, I'd say try to isolate them while you strip everything down (brittle stars will be hard to remove) and give it a good cleaning as you were planning. It will be a great time to clean and inspect all the equipment to make sure nothing needs to be replaced.

I would definitely try to rinse the sand and scrub the rocks. Rinsing the sand isn't easy, but if you use RO water and keep mixing it up really good (use gloves if you use your hands) you can get it clean after a couple hours.

If you have another tank currently running, you can always transfer some LR and sand to the rehab tank when you re-do it... maybe even starting it with water-change water from the other tank. That should help you get cycling quicker.

Good luck with it.

 

[mfisher2112]

Hey George, thanks for the reply.

The more we talk about the move and the rehab, the more we are seriously considering scrapping the sand. Sand is cheap enough. I can get 40 lbs shipped for like $15 if I go that way. I think it may be more prudent to just ditch the sand rather than wasting the labor hours of trying to rinse it.

What will most likely happen is the rock will go in tubs after being scrubbed for a couple of days and tested for anything that may be leaching out. If it tests out ok, it will go into a newly cleaned tank and be allowed to cycle there.

The hermies will probably go in my 12 gallon nano cube. The serpeant star is pretty big, so I may hold him temporarily in my 30 gallon. Only thing that concerns me there is with my rock work in that tank, he may never come back out! LOL!

All the equipment will be stripped and given a good once over before being placed back in service. I have backups here of all necessary equipment (return pumps, circulation pumps, heaters, skimmer, etc) so in the event something is not up to my standards of service, it will not go back online.

Actually kind of looking forward to it. Never completely rehabbed a tank like this that will then need to be successfully moved! Should be an intersting ride!

 

[MadReefer]

I was going to say to scrap the sand. When I converted from a 55g to 75g I kept most of the sand. The 75 went through many mini cycles the 1st year and I believe its because of the sand. If I ever upgrade I will toss the old sand and buy new. Just my opinion. Good luck.

 

[NikkiT]

I tnk it is a good idea to scrap the sand. You will waste time trying to clean it, if you clean with RO you will lose the bacteria anyway. With the rock, making sure it isn't leaching anything is a good idea. Do you know what kinds of corals were in the tak before? I ask becuase some palys, and corals like GSP, can release toxins into the water that are then absorbed by rocks when the corals die, and can leach back into the water from the rock over time. I found his out when my tank crashed in 2008. Putting the hermits and the star in different tanks is a good plan too.
Good luck with the rehab, looking forward to following along!

 

[mfisher2112]

I was going to say to scrap the sand. When I converted from a 55g to 75g I kept most of the sand. The 75 went through many mini cycles the 1st year and I believe its because of the sand. If I ever upgrade I will toss the old sand and buy new. Just my opinion. Good luck.

I've upgraded tanks before and not had issue with re-using the sand. I can see where one might though. I think my biggest concern here is because there was such a catastrophic crash, I don't want to reuse it without thoroughly cleaning it, and thoroughly cleaning it will just be a huge pain.

I tnk it is a good idea to scrap the sand. You will waste time trying to clean it, if you clean with RO you will lose the bacteria anyway. With the rock, making sure it isn't leaching anything is a good idea. Do you know what kinds of corals were in the tak before? I ask becuase some palys, and corals like GSP, can release toxins into the water that are then absorbed by rocks when the corals die, and can leach back into the water from the rock over time. I found his out when my tank crashed in 2008. Putting the hermits and the star in different tanks is a good plan too.
Good luck with the rehab, looking forward to following along!

Good point Nikki. I know she had a pretty good sized rock full of anthelia, several rocks of different zoas, some mushrooms, and I want to say a frogspawn. When it all went, it all went pretty fast.

At any rate, the rocks will be throughly scrubbed, rinsed, and then monitored in tubs prior to going back into the tank. Rock is just too darned expensive to not try to reuse.

 

[NikkiT]

Sounds like a good plan.
My concern with the sand wasn't it's re-use, but its re-use given the fact that a crash had occurred.
My sand went anaerobic after one crash. After another, it was totally disgusting- slimy and smelly. I found it better to discard than attempt to clean, but hat is just me.
With the rock, I know it is not established cycling procedure, but if it turns out the rock is leeching nasty stuff into the water, I've had some luck with carbon and, (again I know not standard procedure) water changes.

 

[mfisher2112]

Sounds like a good plan.
My concern with the sand wasn't it's re-use, but its re-use given the fact that a crash had occurred.
My sand went anaerobic after one crash. After another, it was totally disgusting- slimy and smelly. I found it better to discard than attempt to clean, but hat is just me.
With the rock, I know it is not established cycling procedure, but if it turns out the rock is leeching nasty stuff into the water, I've had some luck with carbon and, (again I know not standard procedure) water changes.

I usually do pretty regular water changes once the ammonia and nitrites bottom out and the nitrates kick in. Most of the bacteria that helps our systems lives in the rock and sand anyway, very little in the water column itself.

Carbon is also a good plan once everything gets up and running. Got lots of that.

 

[TanksNStuff]

I was originally going to suggest scrapping the sand for new sand also. You sounded intent on using it though, so thought it would be good to suggest using gloves when rinsing it (for your protection). New sand is a much better idea as cleaning sand can be a huge pain.

 

[mfisher2112]

I was originally going to suggest scrapping the sand for new sand also. You sounded intent on using it though, so thought it would be good to suggest using gloves when rinsing it (for your protection). New sand is a much better idea as cleaning sand can be a huge pain.

Oh yeah, I have gloves for just about everything I do in the tank. I react to the smallest of things (like spider bites and bee stings) so I take NO chances with my hands in the tank because I KNOW there are things in there that will do nasty stuff to me. I've scratched myself on rock in the tank before and ended up with red swollen painful fingers for days. So I don't go in without gloves at all anymore. But the more I think about it the more I think I am going to scrap the sand and go with fresh new sand and maybe a cup of sand from my 30 gallon to jump start it.

 

[NikkiT]

A cup of sand from your 30g is a good idea. A couple of small pieces of rubble are not a bad idea either.

 

[mfisher2112]

A cup of sand from your 30g is a good idea. A couple of small pieces of rubble are not a bad idea either.

Yup! I keep rubble in the sump for just such requests and occassions. Never know when someone will want a small piece of seed rock.

 

[NikkiT]

I think you've got this covered.
Looking forward to following along

 

[mfisher2112]

Well, I have 30 gallons of 1.026 water at 80 degrees in one drum, and am running RO/DI into a second 30 gallon drum now for a second 30 gallons.

She will be breaking the tank down in the morning into a bunch of buckets and plastic tubs and relocating the tank here tomorrow afternoon.

First order of business is to strip, clean, and once over all the equipment to be sure everything is in good working order. Plenty of vinegar on hand! LOL!

 

[mfisher2112]

Well, the tank has arrived and is in the basement....

Decided to take a different route. It is so.... let's call it "not clean" that I just put the rock right in the 30 gallon brute of saltwater upstairs with the powerhead and heater and am letting that sit there.

Just getting the tank, stand and sump clean and ready to go is going to be a multi-day undertaking. I was under the impression that the original 2x4 stand I built for it had been "skinned". It has not. So at least cleaning the stand won't be too much of an issue. I'm seriously just taking a power sander to it. It's kinda gross. Salt creep and dog/cat hair apparently does not mix well over time... Ugg...


That being said, I am definitely scraping the sand. That stuff is just GROSS and completely not worth my time to clean. I'll be ordering up some new sand shortly.

Additionally, they cut the plumbing to bring it to me, so I'm going to have to get creative to replum everything.

The equipment all seems fine. All the powerheads are relatively clean and functioning well. The return pump was gunked up, that's why it appeared to be operating intermitantly. It was, in fact, surging. I've got that soaking in some vinegar/water. The skimmer is in ok shape as well, just needs a good cleaning as well as the skimmer pump. The heaters are old, and are going to get replaced. I have a habit of replacing heaters once a year anyway, whether they are dead or not just because of past experience with heaters-gone-wild incidents.


I did take pictures, but haven't gotten them off the camera yet. I will try to do that later.

So, the rock is safe in a 30 gallon brute of 1.025-1.026 fresh water with a power head and a heater keeping it at 80 degrees. The rest is essentially getting stripped and set up from scratch.

I'll be stripping the sump and tank, as well as sanding down the 2x4 stand and water sealing it and hopefully skinning the stand in pine along with a couple of home made doors (kinda like my 30 gallon build, which I think dissappeared in the crash) as well as building a canopy to house the dual 175 watt metal hallide lights I have for it.

Should be interesting! I have my work cut out for me the next few days!

 

[TanksNStuff]

Sounds like things didn't turn out quite as expected, but you are handling the suprises very well. It might be for the better though. When you're forced to redo things, you tend to make them better then they were before.

Keep up the good work!