PLANNING TO RESTART MT TANK

[Kakani]

Try to read up and you will understand more & better. Asking alot will not help because it just an shortcut and there will be alot of thing you don't know unless you read or happen to you. We got very powerful search machine like google or youtube video. The most basic thing in marine you also not sure how to go for advance stage. Why coralline grow and green algae less it because of PO4 and CA. If your CA is on correct level 420-450 it can promote coralline grow provided your PO4 is on low side. Really hope you read up more before asking.

[MarcoVan]

One of the reasons I want to restart is that I started my tank wrong. First is the substrate, I took the advice of a friend to try mixing coarse and fine substrate, and I now find that I hate it - I want to get rid of all my substrate now and replace it with fine substrate. I also didn't do my research properly and switched between a few different nutrient export systems without proper "fade-in/fade-out" resulting in nutrients going haywire.

I intend to restart because it seems easier to get a "fresh start" especially if I'm replacing the substrate. I intend to re-cycle the tank from scratch and to "get it right" from the start with a single chosen nutrient export system (Polyplab system) and to keep it going right from the start, as opposed to trying to get things back in order which may be a drawn out battle.

Would it still be a bad idea to restart in this case?

I dont think coarse substrate is bad. Im using grade 3 sand now and they are just as good as grade 1. Unless you want to dispute that coarse sand looks less aesthetic as fine ones, I will give it to you.

And with regards to your tinkering of your system I thinn its not a good reason to restart your tank. Come on, just think of the amount of life in your tank and you are wasting all the stuff you put in before by restarting.

Honestly I just dont think you got sufficient knowledge yet. What I will do is simply keep the tank going, run a lot of water changes, throw in a bigger skimmer, and coral and fish free for a few months.

Things will return if you do that. And guess what, my happiest tank came when I was doing 10% water change a week, rowa and carbon change a month and things really took off.

Oh well, its your tank anyway. Just watch out for your pocket though

[MarcoVan]

Anyway mindless pursue of carbon dosing methods will get you nowhere. Ive seen great tanks in the world who didnt do all that was mentioned but tanks are omg awesome..

[stevenchia]

3 basic things in reefing: clean water, good lighting and countless of time. Now you are ready to go..

[staromsa]

Have been reading up though... Did my water change yesterday.. Didnt regretted not listening to all the seniors advices. Cycling of tank already started.. Algae growth already slower down this 1 week.

[illumnae]

Thanks for the tips bro MarcoVan, I will just leave my system as is then. The substrate change is indeed for aesthetics purposes, as I don't really like the look of my fine sand mixed with rock chips grade gravel (it's not coarse sand, it's literally little pebbles). However, my wife reports that the pistol shrimp loves the rock chips to use as part of his daily cave building exercise.

I will just keep up with water changes and dosing of part A + part B (TLF) to keep up Alkalinity and Calcium. Perhaps sell off some of my LPS and keep it mostly FOWLR for now. My skimmer is already oversized. I'm using a BM Curve 7 (rated for 700 litres) on a 3x2x2 tank (~400+ litres including sump). Dosing Biodigest and Bioptim since I already bought 1 year supply of it. NItrates are going down now, but Calcium/Alkalinity are pretty low.

[Ahhyi]

Maybe you can try polylab one for calcium KH and mg

[illumnae]

Already bought 1L bottles of TLF Part A&B. Intend to switch to Polyplab One when the TLF liquids finish

[jxlex]

Tlf actually quite good... Just remember to dose a & b in equal amounts ...