Post Cycling Tank Help

[lutra101]

So I'm relatively new to reef keeping we used to have a really big saltwater tank in our house but my dad got rid of it and I was like well hey I'd like to start reefing so I got myself a little ten gallon all in one unit and a decent light (not strong enough for hard corals rip) and setup my rockwork and sand bed and all that stuff. but then I was talking to my dad and he said I could put a hardy fish in there and maybe some coral while it cycles, so I did. now fast forward 2 months and I'll admit I let the tank slip a bit but I thought I'm switching most of the stuff in the tank anyways when its done cycling and now my ammonia and nitrites are at 0 so I think I'm ready to switch everything out. a 3 issues first though (this is why I'm making the post my b on the long backstory lol) 1) I have this really nice blue Duncan in there that I kinda want to take out while I clean the tank cause I'm a little nervous I'll do something to hurt it so what's the best way to take it out and keep it happy and 2) what's the best way to clean algae off the glass the rockwork and the back wall lastly 3) what should I do with the damsel cause I wanna put other fish in there and I know they can be territorial especially in smaller tanks. thank yall in advance

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

To address your questions as best as I can:

1 ) Assuming you're going to do the cleaning all at once, I'd probably just put it in a separate container of tank water and call it good, then add it back to the tank when you're done. (Unless you're planning on taking a very long time to finish cleaning, I'd guess this should be totally fine).

2 ) Most people use a scraper or old credit cards to clean the glass. For the rock, people use a few different methods- if you're just doing a light cleaning, you can probably scrub them with a brush; if you're doing a heavy cleaning, then I'd look at Brandon429's rip clean methods here on R2R. Cleaning the back wall depends a lot of the setup of the individual tank, but the scraping and scrubbing should work - if it's awkward to clean for some reason, the I'd suggest posting a pic of it, explaining why it's awkward to clean, and asking for advice on that specifically.

3 ) What kind of damsel is it, and what fish do you want to put in? How many fish do you want to have in the tank? Regardless, your options are basically to either give the damsel away or get fish that can coexist with it.