Tank reset

Sooo My tank needed a reset. I was starting to have major problems with red slime algae, hair algae and my tank was in general poor health despite 10% weekly water changes and what I like to think was decent husbandry. So I stripped down the tank and bleached all my live rock and got new sand. So basically my tank is sterile at the moment. Now lies my question.

How should I seed my new tank? Should I use a little water from the water column and use a piece of rubble from my filter( Yes I use a canister)? My fear is there could be spores,cyno, or just more junk I don't want back in the tank just floating around that could re infest the new clean tank.

I also have some coral being held with my fish in a quarantine system. How should I reintroduce all this to the clean tank?

 

Don't seed with anything from the old tank IMO, start fresh. Place a media bag of raw shrimp in the tank and test until you see a decent amount of Ammonia. Then remove the bag and test until Ammonia/Nitrite/Nitrate are all 0. You may need to run GFO to get the nitrate to 0 unless you want to wait a LONG time for it to naturally breakdown. Usually takes a good 4 weeks for this to produce a healthy bacteria colony in the water column. After the cycle is complete dip the coral before adding.

 

I've learned from many on here that adding the water will not do anything to assist with cycling the new tank. As tgood said, after you've done all that cleaning, I wouldn't add anything from the old (rubble in your canister) - I would suggest along with adding a source of ammonia, you could use something like microbacter7 (there are other brands of accelerator) to add some beneficial bacteria to help move your cycle along. After your cycle, I would add back in your livestock slowly just like you would with a brand new tank. HTH

 

yea thats what I was thinking too. Thanks for the help fellas