When to pull the plug/restart?

[christyf5]

So I started a nano tank in my office in April of last year as I was bored with the hobby and didn't want to deal with 2 tanks at home. Figured at least at work I could waste some spare time I have there, tinkering with the tank. It was fun for awhile, I started it with rock from my big tank, new sand and some ricordea and zoas.

By november the tank started to take a downturn. I had cyano starting so I treated with chemiclean which was successful, but I also had green hair algae and some slimy brown long stranded stuff. I did lots of 95% waterchanges (hard to get that last bit out) and but to no avail. I removed all of the corals from the tank as everything looked terrible and was crowded out by the algae (everything is flourishing in the big tank at home). In late December/early January I had what looked like dinos starting up so I blacked out the tank fully for 3 days and did a waterchange afterwards. Since then I've done 2 more waterchanges.

There are a few zoas left in the tank, they migrated from the frag plugs onto the rock so there wasn't much I could do for them. They're still there but haven't opened for months. I have one tiny green ricordea which used to be the size of a twoonie, now the size of a pencil eraser. 2 weeks ago I added some healthy zoas and ricordea from the big tank. The zoas strted to curl up and are mostly closed and the ricordea seem ok, same size as they were in the main tank but I can see something is up.

I added a couple of hermit crabs to clean up the last of the algae and act as canaries in the tank. For some time the snails in the tank would all be in stasis, not dead but not mobile either. Now they're fairly active. One of the hermit crabs died, but I think his buddy helped him out with that, hermit crabs are jerks. The one thats left seems fairly active but I'm not sure if he needs a prod in the mornings because he likes to sleep in or what. Hes been in the same spot on the sandbed since the lights came on 2h ago.

So my question after this lengthy read is, the tank is obviously not flourishing. Do I wait it out with more weekly waterchanges? Or do I restart with new rock and sand? The tank looked really good for awhile before the shit hit (which I suspect was triggered by some cleaning spray by an office mate, who has been since told to cease and desist). I can wait but everyone stops by to see how the tank is doing and well, its not really doing. That being said, I do see lots of amphipod action this week which hasn't been seen in quite awhile. So maybe its coming around??

Thoughts, suggestions, advices??

Tank in April 2015
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b365/christyf5/5627_zpskbj0exwl.jpg

Tank Today:
http://i23.photobucket.com/albums/b365/christyf5/20160204_102015_zpsifpzgwos.jpg?t=1454524665

[Dearth]

Water change and wait it sounds like with pod activity the tank is recovering sometimes doing less is better than dong more

But then again redoing the tank is also an excuse to try a new aquascape

[mseepman]

Have you done any testing on parameters? Sometimes on Nanos I find things get out of wack and then we do big water changes which fixes the problem but maybe a little quickly for our inhabitants to be happy with.

I think patience will pay off with this, especially if pods are back. Maybe a small fish would help as those corals tend to like certain nutrients in their environment.

[christyf5]

But then again redoing the tank is also an excuse to try a new aquascape

LOL are you saying my aquascaping could use some work? :wink:

[christyf5]

Have you done any testing on parameters? Sometimes on Nanos I find things get out of wack and then we do big water changes which fixes the problem but maybe a little quickly for our inhabitants to be happy with.

I think patience will pay off with this, especially if pods are back. Maybe a small fish would help as those corals tend to like certain nutrients in their environment.

No I haven't done any parameter testing. As I assumed the problem was likely mostly chemical I figured a bunch of water changes would do the trick. My problem now, is with the reintroduction of the corals. Two days and they're back to square one, all pinchy faced and unhappy looking. And this is after at least 6 FULL waterchanges. I'm wondering if the rock is going to leach some sort of undesirables forever or what.

[Dearth]

LOL are you saying my aquascaping could use some work? :wink:

Brad made me do it

[christyf5]

Brad made me do it

LOL! Jerk.

:razz:

[Aquattro]

LOL are you saying my aquascaping could use some work? :wink:

knew that was coming :)

[Aquattro]

LOL! Jerk.

:razz:

Whoa, nothing to do with me. I did laugh when I read it though...hehe

[spit.fire]

Take the sand out, big water chance and everything should be fixed

[gregzz4]

I agree. Test your parameters. Maybe your salt is imbalanced and it threw things out of balance, or at least changed them quickly enough to PO everything on top of the possible chemical contamination.

Are you running carbon? If not, maybe do it for a week or so ...

[gobytron]

I'm lazy.

I'd run carbon, maybe some Chemi Pure.

If you don't know for sure what got in there, it's tough to do much more than try a blanket solution.

If that doesn't work, how hard is it really to redo a nano?

You probably have a stash of new sand and LR (don't we all).

Then again, this comes from a guy who never feeds or does water changes. :mrgreen:

[gregzz4]

So?

[christyf5]

so it still sucks. I'll likely remove the sandbed at some point. I don't have any replacement sand, that was the last of my stash. My 180 is bare bottom because I can't seem to do sandbeds. I do have some other rock but the pieces are ugly yellow and I don't know if they'll fit in.

I am running carbon, some of those chemi-pure nano thingies. I think I have the full on chemi pure in there right now, or maybe one of the elite ones. I can't remember.

I've decided to give it another month or so. I'll keep up with the waterchanges and such but if things haven't turned around by then, the sandbed goes and I'll replace the rock. Hopefully I can last that long, it drives me nuts looking at it all day, just staring back at me all empty :razz:

[sumpfinfishe]

Well i think it looks pretty good(minus the elephant stool aquscape lol) and no Brad didn't make me say that but i couldn't resist:razz:

I think you need to just let the tank slowly come back and with pods coming back is a great sign. Add a cheap fish or two and get some well seeded sand from someone to help give your sand bed a bit of a boost. I would also add a small hang on container to the back wall with some chaeto or other macro algae. I would do 20% changes now as it looks pretty good. Also maybe setup a hidden camera near by to make sure nobody is playing with the tank lol.

[christyf5]

hey! it just doesn't photograph all that well. I don't think I need to reenact yoga poses with my rock like y'all are fond of :razz:

I'm desperately trying to wait it out. Already this morning I want to chuck it all and start over. But then I see a bristle worm waving at me and an amphipod scurrying across the sandbed (which is starting to become diatom laden).

Ugh, why can't this hobby just be fun? Wheeee?!?

[gobytron]

It's like an aquatic version of horton hears a who.

[christyf5]

It's like an aquatic version of horton hears a who.

LOL!!

[PoonTang]

Well at least its just a nano. For a minute there i thought you were describing my DT. I dont really relish the thought of replacing 50 pounds of sand and 150 lbs of rock.