Reef tank restart.

Hello all. I have decided to restart my fish tank, that is currently looking worse than ever. I have had it for about two and a half years. It is a 14g bio cube with stock lighting. It is now infested with hair algae and my water quality is constantly fluctuating. Two of my GSP corals have died and my hammer coral is tattered. My real question is can I reuse my live rock/sand? And if so how would I go about cleaning it? Should I empty the tank and just give it a thorough scrubbing?(the back wall is covered in hair algae). Will I have to cycle the tank again? Any responses are appreciated.
Thanks, Billy

 

Welcome to 3reef.

If you scrub the rocks, you'll most likely disturb the 2.5 year old sand bed which is probably a bad idea at this point. My suggestion is to buy some dry rock, get some pieces you really like, cycle those pieces in a tub or reef safe bucket for 3 weeks. Fourteen gallon tanks does not require much rock.

Another alternative is to clean the back, turn off the pumps let it settle for about 15 minutes and siphon out as much as you can and then let the mechanical filter (sponge/floss) remove the rest once you turn the pumps back on. Clean and scrub one rock at a time in SW return it to the tank. Repeat as many times as it takes to get a grip on the issue.

That old of a sand bed contains nasty stuff so if you're motivated remove all the rocks and scrub each one SW, remove all water and then scoop all the sand out, either wash it very well or better yet get a new bag of sand.

To kill GSP the tank must be bad off. You need to consider your water source and perhaps change out the bulbs to prevent another GHA issue.

 

Thanks for the advice! I have a maroon clown, firefish, clown goby, pom pom crab and about ten hermits. What do you suggest I do with these creatures during the process? If I were to remove all the water from my tank would I have to cycle it again?

 

If you keep the rock wet and in SW for the scrubbing you will not destroy the beneficial bacteria.
You're problem is the sand bed, it's got to be nasty and will release a lot of detritus. How deep is the sand bed? If it's shallow that works well in your favor.

Be prepared for a cycle. Have fresh SW made up. Test for ammonia after the over haul for a couple days. Add prime if needed for an ammonia spike and do the appropriate water change as indicated.

Feed sparingly after the cleaning. You can use some mechanical filtration from the back chambers to help reseed the tank and help pick up the slack.

Sorry no black or white answer, just be prepared to deal with a cycle. It will be worth it to have the tank cleaned up.

 

I'm glad you think it will be worth my while. During the cycle where should I keep my fish?

 

There going to have to stay in a bucket with some flow and heater if need be and then returned to the tank. You do not have a cycled system for them so unless you can rehouse them during the make over you're going to have to clean the tank and put the fish back in and deal with any cycle as it comes.

 

I like Cheryl's idea of getting all new rock and cycling it for a few weeks. With a 14 gallon tank, you could probably fit all the rock you need in a 5 gallon bucket.

I let my past tank go as well and recently upgraded while moving. I decided to scrap most of everything because hair algae took over the back of my rock work. If you do scrap the old rock, nuke it and save it for another day.