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 ...

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:

So?

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:

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.

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?!?

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

LOL!!

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.