jediswimmer
New Member
Howdy All! Thanks for taking a glance, I'm in need of some advice or guidance.
TLDR; Tank crashed due to a dosing pump malfunction, currently broken down, and am trying to make sure I follow the proper "cleaning/prep" as I re-build it back after taking it down due to extent of the crash.
Little background. Long time Reefer, parents house growing up, in college, then after a long 16-year hiatus jumped back into the hobby, with the largest tank I've ever personally maintained. (150g display, 185g total water column) Leaned quite a bit on all the knowledge here on Reef2Reef, but also in Orlando, FL: Worldwide Corals, Top Shelf, Living Reef, and of course BRS. Built the tank out as a mixed reef (acro, goni, torches, zoas, mush etc..) etc. Read a bunch, picked up some great deals on used equipment (Extra Tank, Apex Controller, Skimmer, pumps, tubing etc...) and made selective purchases weighing price / value. My dosing unit was a Jaebo Doser 3.4 since it was so much cheaper than DOS/EcoTech/Kamoer.
Over the week of Christmas the Jaebo channel 1 malfunctioned and stayed on for 75min instead of the 2 as expected, which since it was dosing Vinegar sent the PH to 5.2...
Frantically re-reading my OneNote found the steps needed to pull it back up with Baking Soda. I start to do that, and it starts working but with 180G in the water column... that led me to a 35G water change... brought it up more, but still low 7.2 (triple checked PH in several spots, to ensure validity of numbers). At this point I'm thinking the 1 bag of baking soda helped get it up almost .75 so that would bring me in range for the corals to not hurt permanently, and rescue the fish that are going through the unfortunate last roller coasters of their lives. When mixing the bucket I grabbed a cup of salt instead of the Baking Soda. For some reason when that bucket went into the sump it instantly volumized the baking soda and reduced visibility in the tank to 1in... All the fish started reacting, inverts seized all at once, like a synchronized dance, then stopped moving. At this point I've pulled all the fish and corals I could find still and they went into my 40g cube as a life raft. Over the next couple days I broke the tank down due to amount of particulate and remains that needed to be disposed of. Ultimately, I lost about 70% of the livestock and it has taken a couple weeks for me to even want to think about putting it all together again.
So, this week is the time! When I broke the tank down, took the hood off, disconnected all the pumps, skimmer, Apex controller's and probes, removed the sand and rock they have been in a freshwater kiddie pool outside as it was the only place to put it all.
So from a basics what should I do first? Or does someone have a partial checklist of "make sure you do this with your PVC after a bad crash" etc... I'm also open to suggestions on "optimizing" or streamlining this as well.
As I'm not truly a beginner, I do quite a bit, just lost on cleaning procedures and steps that I might forget for this situation. Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to provide.
To aid, the following is my current equipment list:
150G Display Tank - 72"x18"x27"
35G Trigger Ruby Refugium/Sump - 4in Filter socks (haven't found a fleece roller I could drop in, or would make sense yet, and I'm planning on using MiracleMud I picked up during Black Friday in the refugium and planting mangroves once setup)
Aeraqua Duo AD600 Protein Skimmer
Apex Controller - Current Probes/Sensors: PH/Salinity/Temp/WaterLevel/Contact (saved my house a couple times already)
Apex Trident
Quanta Lights 72" (2x QuantaPro Meso Blue, 1x QuantaPro)
RODI ATO w/Apex controlled solenoid valve
Inkbird Controller - 2x300w heaters
AC Infinity Fans mounted for evaporative cooling support and temp triggered
Custom PVC drain pipes, and Returns
Jaebo Dosing Pump - NEED REPLACEMENT suggestions
Vetra M1 Return Pump
MP40 main top current
MP10 secondary wavemaker
AquaMaxx - GFO/Carbon Filter Media Reactor - Historically setup as an algae grow chamber / carbon reactor.
Thanks again!
TLDR; Tank crashed due to a dosing pump malfunction, currently broken down, and am trying to make sure I follow the proper "cleaning/prep" as I re-build it back after taking it down due to extent of the crash.
Little background. Long time Reefer, parents house growing up, in college, then after a long 16-year hiatus jumped back into the hobby, with the largest tank I've ever personally maintained. (150g display, 185g total water column) Leaned quite a bit on all the knowledge here on Reef2Reef, but also in Orlando, FL: Worldwide Corals, Top Shelf, Living Reef, and of course BRS. Built the tank out as a mixed reef (acro, goni, torches, zoas, mush etc..) etc. Read a bunch, picked up some great deals on used equipment (Extra Tank, Apex Controller, Skimmer, pumps, tubing etc...) and made selective purchases weighing price / value. My dosing unit was a Jaebo Doser 3.4 since it was so much cheaper than DOS/EcoTech/Kamoer.
Over the week of Christmas the Jaebo channel 1 malfunctioned and stayed on for 75min instead of the 2 as expected, which since it was dosing Vinegar sent the PH to 5.2...
Frantically re-reading my OneNote found the steps needed to pull it back up with Baking Soda. I start to do that, and it starts working but with 180G in the water column... that led me to a 35G water change... brought it up more, but still low 7.2 (triple checked PH in several spots, to ensure validity of numbers). At this point I'm thinking the 1 bag of baking soda helped get it up almost .75 so that would bring me in range for the corals to not hurt permanently, and rescue the fish that are going through the unfortunate last roller coasters of their lives. When mixing the bucket I grabbed a cup of salt instead of the Baking Soda. For some reason when that bucket went into the sump it instantly volumized the baking soda and reduced visibility in the tank to 1in... All the fish started reacting, inverts seized all at once, like a synchronized dance, then stopped moving. At this point I've pulled all the fish and corals I could find still and they went into my 40g cube as a life raft. Over the next couple days I broke the tank down due to amount of particulate and remains that needed to be disposed of. Ultimately, I lost about 70% of the livestock and it has taken a couple weeks for me to even want to think about putting it all together again.So, this week is the time! When I broke the tank down, took the hood off, disconnected all the pumps, skimmer, Apex controller's and probes, removed the sand and rock they have been in a freshwater kiddie pool outside as it was the only place to put it all.
So from a basics what should I do first? Or does someone have a partial checklist of "make sure you do this with your PVC after a bad crash" etc... I'm also open to suggestions on "optimizing" or streamlining this as well.
As I'm not truly a beginner, I do quite a bit, just lost on cleaning procedures and steps that I might forget for this situation. Thanks in advance for any help you may be able to provide.
To aid, the following is my current equipment list:
150G Display Tank - 72"x18"x27"
35G Trigger Ruby Refugium/Sump - 4in Filter socks (haven't found a fleece roller I could drop in, or would make sense yet, and I'm planning on using MiracleMud I picked up during Black Friday in the refugium and planting mangroves once setup)
Aeraqua Duo AD600 Protein Skimmer
Apex Controller - Current Probes/Sensors: PH/Salinity/Temp/WaterLevel/Contact (saved my house a couple times already)
Apex Trident
Quanta Lights 72" (2x QuantaPro Meso Blue, 1x QuantaPro)
RODI ATO w/Apex controlled solenoid valve
Inkbird Controller - 2x300w heaters
AC Infinity Fans mounted for evaporative cooling support and temp triggered
Custom PVC drain pipes, and Returns
Jaebo Dosing Pump - NEED REPLACEMENT suggestions
Vetra M1 Return Pump
MP40 main top current
MP10 secondary wavemaker
AquaMaxx - GFO/Carbon Filter Media Reactor - Historically setup as an algae grow chamber / carbon reactor.
Thanks again!
