Best way to shut down tank and store everything?
 

Those of you who have shut down tanks and restarted at a later date, what's the best advise to give?

Do you clean out the tank, remove algae, coralline, etc. before removing water, vinegar bath the tank?

I will end up with some LR left over, thinking of throwing outside to dry off, then store in a bin?

Bought a few bottles of vinegar yesterday to clean equipment, that's a no brainer......

I plan on leaving the plumbing hooked up and not removing at this time, is there any risk to leaving the plumbing as is with things drying out??? Should I remove the bulkheads from the back of the tank or leave them? The tank will be used as storage for all equipment and covered with a sheet....very attractive, but to keep the dust and pet hair out.

How clean do you get everything or do you?? Thanks

I would clean every thing out and leave all the equipment in the tank and run vinegar for a few days with all the equipment running, drain the tank after everything is clean. It might take you a couple cycles to get everything out. Once that's finished, dry all components and store it properly.

Couple of options for live rock, you can leave it running in a tub with heater and a powerhead to keep it alive or you can dry it out for easy storage but if you do that, when it's time to restart, you will either have to use acid or vinegar to get rid of all the dead organics so you wont have to battle endless days of algae issue.

Let me know if you have anymore questions.

Thanks! Great suggestion on running equipment in the tank to clean!!! This will save a lot of time!!

Live rock - I'm ok with drying out and restarting. Not too worried about this part. Maybe have 50-75 lbs left, which is will be ok.

Weird to be excited about having it cleaned up....

OCD kicking in!? lol

I have a total lack of OCD,,,maybe that's the problem...:lol:

I broke down my tank for a cross province move and I bleached all my rock was nice and clean for storage and I could easily epoxy it together for dry aquascaping .