Tank restart after 2 years

[Vigman]

Greetings... Long story ahead

After an extended downtime.. I'm restarting my reef tank.
That tank was running for 2 years, but I had a summertime crash...
I cleaned everything out that died.. left the pumps running, shut off the lighting & walked away, for about a year.
3 weeks ago my younger son " inspired me" to fire it back up..

The spec's
The tank is ~ 180 gal with a 45 gal sump.
Sand bed 2-3" fine sand & crushed coarl
About 60 lbs of rock
Berlin G3 protein skimmer ( with new pump last week )
1 recirc 1/8 hp pump
1 Rio 1100 power head
3 metal halides ( true 10K's at end coral life 8K in middle )
2 VHO 8K tubes ( 1 ballast is marginal but the new one goes in today! )
Sump drained into a sock which had carbon bags
and a small power head to keep the sump water moving
About 20 lbs of rock

The water didn't smell ( well it did smell like the ocean , but not rotten eggs )It was growing green & purple alge...
I had a big collection of live rock ( at the time )..
Still after all this time..there were still a fair amount of little snails crawling about at night ( about 20 ).
No Amonia, no nitrite, PH correct ( 8.0 ) Salt was 1.022 ( I did fresh water top offs and swept the old salt back in the tank.)
Nitrate 120+. So I assume the bio mass was self sustaining all this time.

So cleaning we went.... ( over the last week or so )
I just installed a new RO system in the house 100GPD
Pulled all the rock out ... filled up the sink with new salt water from the local aquarium shop..
Scrubbed in salt & rinsed the rock in fresh RO.. and put it in a 60 gallon cooler ( for short term storage with new saltwater )..
Some of the bottom rocks that had a mud goo on the bottom had a pungent smell... like drying kelp.

Blew the gravel bed with a power head and stirred things up..
Let it re settle, then an initial vac.( it's amazing how many suction cups, & brine shrimp tops were in there!)
The filtering has some bio balls in the back skimmer, with a chunk of filter media at the top ( Both cleaned & new ).
Replaced the protein skimmer pump ( that was UGLY )...

Did a 2nd vac of the sand bed.. after it settled ( a bunch of gray " Dust" settled on the bottom got most of that...

Rocks back in... 40% water change... a few fish ( 6 damsels ), snails ( 6 turbos & 8 of the Nassarius ), hermits & some kelp....
Re clean all the filter media..
Another 30% water change.. and in the beasties go....

We are now into our 3rd week...
We added 5 lbs of new " Live" rock and the tubes of bacteria to reseed the system.
All pumping systems are working.
The protein skimmer is picking up some green goo ( 1/8 cup a day ).


Testing ( AVG )
We got the salinity to 1.026
PH 7.9
Amonia zero
Nitrite zero
Nitrate 100! ( after all that! )
Our RO was .05
The aquarium " store bought" water was .35 Hmmmmm..


The tank gets a fair exposure to natural sunlight
I'm getting yellow & red alge blooms..
We have lost a couple of hermits...

My biggest problem is nitrates... I cannot seem to pull them down
I do have a 3 stage nitrate filter coming ( next week ).


So any insight, guidance & information would be great!

Thanks

Mike

 

[Anonymous]

:welcome:

Wow, what a lot of work. I'd say the nitrates will drop off once the bacterial colonies establish themselves, your tank appears to be going through a massive cycle. No wonder really, given all that you've had to do. I'd just go with not adding anymore critters, 30% water changes weekly and let it do it's thing until it settles down. Limiting light to 4 hours a day will help with the algae blooms, but they will in time burn themselves out.

Oh and as far as adding images here, just resize them to about 700 pixels on each side, that way you can see all of the image much easier, or use the "rimg" tag that will link to a full sized image

 

[Vigman]

Lawdawg,

Thanks for the welcome

I resisted the URGE to go the the local aquarium shop today....
Instead I installed / repaired the under cabinet lighting ( so I could see the SUMP! )
Waiting for the younger one to awake to do the VHO repair...
Will take your advise on lighting cycle times... & Pix size!


Thanks
Mike

 

[Anonymous]

Hey Vman - :welcome:

Keep us posted with pics and updates.

 

[Vigman]

Update......

Well no fish have died... my brittle star was devoured by my hermits... grrrrrrrrrrr

I now know I'm not that bright...
The feed from the sump to my main pump intake was all 1" ( except ) 1 reduce down to 3/4 for a coupling hose... ( that was thinwall clear and sucked down to 1/2"!)
That was a problem killing 20% of my water flow... fixed that today and added a bleed off so when I get my new pump it will be a QUICK change.
Iwaki MD-70RTL is rated for ~ 25.6 GMP or 1536 per hr ( 1" in & out )... which should be close for a 180 gallon tank... right?
But with all the PO's creative plumbing ( plus my own ).. I MIGHT be moving 1000 or less...
Changing the intake lines made a sonic difference, the pump feels like it's not working as hard...

The next problem is 3/4 line going back up into the tank.. it will be a real challenge to put in a line to feed that with 1" direct.
I bought a Coral life 1740-P so I can get a bit more flow as well.

Next... fixed the ballast's for the VHO actintic's ( sp? ) ...and replaced the 2 bulbs..
NOW positive starts and BLINDING LIGHT...

Installed a Nitrate filter last week.. and let it sit for 24 hr's
That's running now..

Got some more kelp and a few clams to help with pullin the Nitrate down..
Today were under 100ppm... SLOWLY moving down...

Now 2 questions... working with a live tank..
1 ) How bad is it for trace amounts of PVC primer and or glue to come in contact with the water?
Once completed today I flushed the lines with tank water.. but pumped outside to my drain out to the street.. about 2 gallons.
Is that enough?

2) Can someone explain to me what is the biological mechanics of turning nitrate into nitrogen gas in the aquarium??
Is it only bacteria, or a combo?

Thanks
Mike