HELP TO RENOVATE NEGLECTED TANK PLEASE

[Northmole]

Hi All! I Hope you can give me a hand here. Please understand before thinking I am a terrible neglectful person, that my life over the past year has been completely hectic (pregnancy, mom in nursing home,other ailing pets) And my tank has been neglected terribly, so please bear with me here... Now to it--- I have had a 65 Gall. Saltwater setup for 5 years now. I have about 3" depth live sand mix w/agrognite, appx 80-90lbs. of live rock. I currently run a Remora skimmer w/rio pump, Angstrom 8watt UV sterilizer, 96 watt X 2 powercompact Smartlite and an Eheim professional filter. Stock are (yes, I was overly zealous in the beginning and probably overstocked, but all have been with me the 5 years) : 4-5" Yellow Tang, 4-5" Niger Trigger, 4" tomato Clown, 3" Coral Beauty, royal Gramma, Serpent star, numerous snails and crabs, and a few polyp corals. Now the bad part- I haven't cleaned or changed anything in the Eheim filter for over a year- do I even need to use it?? I just unplugged that today. I do water changes every 3 months if I am lucky- shame,shame I know and now my gravel/sand has a nice sludge coating and the live rock is getting a bit dark and I feed lightly once/day. Anyway I finally have some more time now and want to tear down or start over with better equip if needed. I have an empty 29 gall acrylic I could use the old equipment on for one or two fish. I dont know if I need filtration, I've seen differing views, some say the wet drys are nitrate factories and that the UV is killing everything. I was considering the double helix UV and even when I was doing a better upkeep my sand was never nice and white on the bottom and any critters I bought for this purose disappeared and never "stirred". I just want an easy upkeep tank or two with nice bright sand and healthy fish of course. :wink: Any ideas for what I need to do to get this thing looking great would so appreciated! I need any ideas!!! Just tell me what you would do! THANKS SO MUCH!!! Oh, also, my Remora skimmer either is leaking or there is just a lot of quick salt build up which runs down the side of it- anyone else have this and What pump is best to run it??

 

[Anonymous]

I am going to move this over to the GRD forum.

As far as the salt creep on the skimmer, it is not unusual for HOB skimmer. Most people just take the skimmer out and clean it off, or use a wet cloth to wipe it clean in place.

 

[K9coral]

That doesnt sound TOOOOO bad, :lol: I would just start doing water changes every other or 3rd day for 2 weeks. Also, get one of those siphon vacs and suck out some of that crap on the bottom of the tank. MAKE SURE you use the RO/DI water and do this when the lights are off.
After that, do weekly water changes or bi-weekly at the latest. One last thing CLEAN OUT ALL OF YOUR FILTERS and skimmers and EVERYTHING.
If the sand looks black or goey, buy new stuff and replace it about 15lbs at a time. Maybe some more snails, but I would get zebra hermits, they dont get very big but they are non-stop in their fight against algae. Hope this helps :wink:
DAVE

 

[JohnD]

northmole - Welcome aboard!!

I agree with what Dave said, but would recommend a 10% water change per day for 10 days. You will not believe the difference that will make.

I have a wet/dry on one of my fish only tanks and it does a great job.

As far as the Remora is concerned, I recommend a maxijet 1200. The folks at Premium Aquatics sell a venturii adapter for the maxijet. The last I looked, it goes for about $5.00.

HTH,

JohnD

 

[Anonymous]

if you have sludge covering the sand i might consider vacuuming the bed little by little or better yet replace it as someone else advised.
if you are overstocked i bet you will find it difficult to reverse the buildup of detritus. i also doubt that your rock will regain it's former glory.
i would not attempt to add livestock to correct problem algae if it is an issue. i would take one of two appraoches... a real slow rehabilitation of the tank or a real radical breakdown.
if funding is not a real issue and you have some free time, i would tear it down and start over with some new rock mixed with the old and some new sand seeded with the old, along with a LS kit with lots of nassarius. i might consider using the 29g as a remote DSB just in case you are overstocked and need to vacuum fairly often.
i would at least set up a sump if you don't have one presently.

i would continue to use the remora as it is reported to be a good skimmer but i would revamp it to work inside the sump.

i would discontinue the canister filter use.

in light of recent discussions on UV filters, i would continue to use it for it's potential aid in organic waste breakdown.

make sure you have lots of flow. IMO, a sandbed with sludge on top shouldn't occur in properly run DSB system.
buy a little too much pump and throttle it back just enough that you don't have a sand storm going on. anything less will require more maintenance from you in order to eliminate standing detritus.
i am willing to bet that just pumping up will be a drastic improvement for your tank, but be warned.... the sand bed is a potential hazrd to your fish as is. i would not kick up the bed :|