What to do after tank crash?

[santeeeyyy]

My 15 gallon crashed after 5ish days of what I can assume the pump dying.There was pretty much no flow and I noticed midway through of cleaning out my tank. What do I do? I did maybe about a 50 percent water change. I took out the corals that were alive but struggling out, put them in my other tank. took out all the dead coral or dead coral matter. (softies btw) and i tried grabbing as much dead matter as i could. I am waiting to get more water to do another 50 percent water change As for as clean up crew, I took out two of my bigger hermit crabs and left everything else. I think these zoas I left can still live? I kept all my zoas inside as I dont know if i should put them in my newer tank but they havent rotted away. just drooped down and became flacid.

 

[brandon429]

Reef Tank CPR - power outage biology, crash arrest, and recovery

Team Don‘t add bottled bacteria to the display during crash arrest as the cycle bacteria aren’t killed in still water. There are times where bottled bacteria can lower ammonia in fish holding containers especially if travel or transport is occurring, but by rinsing these displays out vs dosing...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[santeeeyyy]

Reef Tank CPR - power outage biology, crash arrest, and recovery

Team Don‘t add bottled bacteria to the display during crash arrest as the cycle bacteria aren’t killed in still water. There are times where bottled bacteria can lower ammonia in fish holding containers especially if travel or transport is occurring, but by rinsing these displays out vs dosing...

www.reef2reef.com

thank you, I am a bit confused on the lighting aspect, for all the coral that I kept in my tank should i still lower the intensity as lower the time as well? and did I mess up with the water change? I am aware to wash out the sand and I will do it tmmrw with the hose until its no longer cloudy, and then I will rinse with RO water as well.

 

[brandon429]

be sure and take an hour or so to read through the jobs they all repeat the same steps

full tank takedown and isolation of animals

complete cleaning of sand by the method shown, rocks detailed with rasping tools and saltwater rinses to remove all attached dying/dead waste and accumulations

-setting back up everything in the new tank without using bacteria help, the rinse preps didn't remove the needed bacteria from the rocks. deep cleaning the tank is what fixes it, it doesn't remove bad things, which is why we don't add things to fix crashed reefs we subtract mass from them (remove all clouding)

-reducing light levels in every job as if they're new/ ramp up lights to prevent burning. slowly raise back to 80% of your current level over a week's time. raise from there slowly and you're done.

 

[santeeeyyy]

be sure and take an hour or so to read through the jobs they all repeat the same steps

full tank takedown and isolation of animals

complete cleaning of sand by the method shown, rocks detailed with rasping tools and saltwater rinses to remove all attached dying/dead waste and accumulations

-setting back up everything in the new tank without using bacteria help, the rinse preps didn't remove the needed bacteria from the rocks. deep cleaning the tank is what fixes it, it doesn't remove bad things, which is why we don't add things to fix crashed reefs we subtract mass from them (remove all clouding)

-reducing light levels in every job as if they're new/ ramp up lights to prevent burning. slowly raise back to 80% of your current level over a week's time. raise from there slowly and you're done.

ok sounds good, I was reading a majority of it except the isolation of animals, that I think i skipped over because I dont think I saw it.

 

[brandon429]

it's not that you messed up, it's that you can't recover correctly using partial cleaning, without taking down the tank as shown. for sure a partially-clean tank will work, but they get disease and invasion outbreaks faster for sure vs the clean ones we worked there

 

[santeeeyyy]

it's not that you messed up, it's that you can't recover correctly using partial cleaning, without taking down the tank as shown. for sure a partially-clean tank will work, but they get disease and invasion outbreaks faster for sure vs the clean ones we worked there

Oh yea no it’s just for now to hold off of. Tmmrw I’m planning on taking out the rock and cleaning the sand and the rock. And then I’m gonna do another water change after I clean the sand and rock. I also have the lighting down to 20-30 percent

 

[santeeeyyy]

it's not that you messed up, it's that you can't recover correctly using partial cleaning, without taking down the tank as shown. for sure a partially-clean tank will work, but they get disease and invasion outbreaks faster for sure vs the clean ones we worked there

ok so no scrubbing rock right? just swirl it around some clean salt water? and as for cleaning sand its a 15 gallon so should i just take it all out and rinse it all at once

 

[santeeeyyy]

Update: I did a clean rip. Cleaned and rinsed the sand bed until it was clear. Did a RO rinse. Dumped the rocks and swished them in a bucket of the tank water. Reset everything. Lights are down to 20 percent and a ramp up acclimation to 80 for the next two weeks.