disaster

[dnwolf]

Guys i need your advise on this .

So , just when i thought my tank was doing ok , with the parameters in tip top condition and rapid corraline growth , the crabs appeared .

Ok maybe its just one or two of them , i thought . So i took out one rock and gave it a good wash . Out came 10+ crabs , many of them look like gorrila crabs .

OK nevermind , maybe its just this rock , so i took out another rock and gave it a good wash . Out came the crabs and i decided to remove all my rocks and dry it under the sun .

Whats left in my tank is 2 rocks of mushroom , a clown , and some algae eating blenny . I did left a few pieces of live rock that were smaller in size and had bigger holes so i could monitor them at night easily .

My tank is a mess now , with detrititus flying everywhere . My question is , should I restart my tank ? Or allow my tank to go through a second cyling process with my sand bed being the main biological filtration as i do not have many rocks left . Also , how long would it take to completely dry out my live rock ? Can i add the dry rock directly to a running tank ?

[JoeyBabooey]

Hi bro! i went through the same thing when i first started my tank...

What I did was restart the tank. Took out the fishes and temporary leave them in a bucket, Take out all the rocks. do a big water change to suck up as much detritus as i can. then, i put the fishes back.

With the rock, i soaked them in freshwater, and then hypersalinity dip. Saw a lot of worms and crabs and a few mantis shrimp crawl out. Finally i dripped some Coral RX. even more pests dropped out. you dont have to do this but im quite kiasu after i lost a few fishes to the mantis shrimp. then i rinsed them in old tank water and put them back in the tank. 6 months down the road, no issues experienced. This should help to prevent a lot of bacteria deaths.

Alternatively, you can take out the rocks and brush them hard, bleach them and sun them. Make sure you rinse them very well. the rocks will turn white. I am not sure how long you should dry them out. But you can make them 'live' again when you put them back into your tank. Albeit a long process..

hope i've helped.

[dnwolf]

I took out all my rocks liao :3 . Guess i have to wait for it to dry out before i add it into the tank again .

Theres a small pieces of live rock in the tank as well as a sand bed. Earlier on , when i removed the rock works , there were lots of worms on the sand bed , some of them were really big , some of them were tiny . There was also a mini pistol shrimp . Anyways this means that my sand bed would help seed my future dried out rocks right ?

I just poured 500ml of vinegar evenly among the rocks and heard some sizzling sound , i know thats not enough so im getting the really large ones from NTUC and soak them overnight . I'll then take them out and dry them for a week before rinsing it and placing it back into my tank for it to come to "live" again .

Any thoughts?

[JoeyBabooey]

Hmm.. are you using live sand? if yes then i am very sure the live sand will help to seed the rocks when they go back in =) but do note that seeding the rocks will take a while so monitoring and preventing overfeeding is still important.

I know there are beneficial worms and pest worms. I really hope they are not pest worms.. just not sure if it is a good indicator of a good seeded sand bed.

do you have other forms of filtration for the moment? i think for the tank to rely on small pieces of live rock will be quite tough to maintain low ammonia levels.. but then again, if its just for another week, i wouldn't stress too much. especially with a good skimmer running.

in the meantime while treating your rocks, i do recommend to watch those levels by testing and watch the feedlng.

the biggest advice i can share is dont do anything rash immediately at the sight of a bad sign. chances are, we will freak out and cause more damage than actually fixing the situation.

[dnwolf]

Im using seachem purigen , seachem phosguard and Kent carbon as filtration for now . I really do hope they are beneficial worms , yesterday I found 2 huge bristle worms and a huge black bristle star .

I just soaked my some of my rocks in budget NTUC bleach ( Im not sure if its pure they never say , only state that 97.5% inert compounds )

Im going to let it soak for maybe 3 hours then I'll soak it in vinegar . But how much vinegar should i use to remove the organics ? 1 part vinegar 1 part tap water ?

[Firestarter]

Bro, like I said before, do a proper restart with full proper cycling and you will not have problems like these....