Bought a used setup, need opinions please

[Mjharless]

Hello, I have never posted here before, but I have read many threads in this forum. I am looking for some educated opinions on a setup I just purchased.
Here goes:
I bought a 29gal "reef" tank for $100. It was set up, but I believe that it has been neglected for months. When I arrived to get it, there was a 1' round green algae plant growing from the bottom to the top of the aquarium.

The only known inhabitants, an emerald crab and a peppermint shrimp are dead. However, I found a hermit crab, a snail, and a spiny starfish(which I tossed) alive in the tank. The nepthea coral is completely gone, and the red mushroom coral looks really bad. I didn't even try to handle the coral gently, I just tossed it in the container with the other live rock.

I saved almost all of the water and all the sand and live rock. The sand and rock are in water now.

The tank and rock and pumps etc... were/are absolutely covered in red algae and some slime algae. Here are some pix.

So here are the questions?

1. Can I clean the live rock and if so How?
2. Should I use the old water or make some new and re cycle the tank from scratch?
3. How can I clean the tank and other hardware? Can I use bleach if I am very very careful to rinse it and leave the tank sitting with fresh water to absorb it all?

 

[lightcs4]

I wouldn't use bleach to clean the tank. Use vinegar instead. It does a surprisingly good job at getting the grunge loose. You can use it on the rock as well, but you will loose a little rock as it will dissolve the top layer.

 

[Mjharless]

What about the old water? Should I reuse it or replace it?

 

[lightcs4]

Sorry, I try not to comment on something if I'm not confident in my answer. You should be able to use the old water, but I would get another opinion to confirm it first. Either way, you should get a good start in the tank by using the rock and sand.

 

[cthegame]

1. Can I clean the live rock and if so How?
2. Should I use the old water or make some new and re cycle the tank from scratch?
3. How can I clean the tank and other hardware? Can I use bleach if I am very very careful to rinse it and leave the tank sitting with fresh water to absorb it all?

1. You can but i dont really see any reason to. If there is stuff on it that you want to get rid of, you can clean the rock in saltwater.

2. If you have already cycled water, i would use some of that. If you have a lot of water, use as much as you can.

3. dont use bleach. As already suggested, vinegar works great or just use plain water.

 

[Bifferwine]

The pink/purple stuff on the glass and the rocks is not bad, nuisance algae. It's coralline, which is a good thing. Since it's been exposed to air, it will die off and turn white, but reefers try really hard to get that stuff growing in their tanks.

Do not use bleach. The safest thing to use to clean is a dilute vinegar-water solution. Just rinse well after cleaning with vinegar.

I would not bother using the old water. Since the tank was neglected so badly, the water probably contains tons of bad things like ammonia, nitrites, nitrates and phosphates. Make yourself some new water when you set up the tank again.

The rock actually looks to be in very good condition. It's covered in coralline (good) and I don't see any nuisance algae on it. I personally wouldn't even bother cleaning that rock, it doesn't look dirty or algae covered at all.

 

[RyanG]

I would get some more water a heater and a powerhead in with the live rock. You want it covered with water, at about 78-80 degrees, with decent circulation to keep some algae down and coraline alive.

 

[reeffreak]

Welcome to the site!

I would just clean the tank with tapwater.Use a razor blade and water to scrape old coralline algae off the glass and any other dead algae.The live rock looks very clean with nice coralline coverage.I would start from scatch and make new fresh saltwater with RO water....not dechrorinated tapwater.

 

[Mjharless]

Thanks for all the help. Temps here are between 70 and 85 right now day and night. Will the rock be okay at those temps for a few days?

The sand is not really sand, it looks like crushed coral, do you think it is worth saving?

 

[Bifferwine]

The rock will be okay at those temps, at least the bacteria that makes it "live" will be okay. Any animals that came with the rock, however, would probably not survive such large temp swings. 85 is pretty high and 70 is pretty low for animals to survive. To preserve as much life as possible, you want to try and keep the temp between 76 and 82 or so. Large temperature swings are more dangerous than consistently high or consistently low temps.

If it's crushed coral, pitch it. Crushed coral is a very poor substrate and will lead to water quality problems down the road. When you set up the tank, set it up with aragonite sand. You can find aragonite at any fish store or large pet store.

 

[Piggy]

I have to agree. I would start from scratch.

1. Throw out crush coral.
2. Clean tank with vinegar water
3. Add sand and water to tank
4. put in powerheads
5. Add LR
6. Let tank cycle

Do you have a protein skimmer? If so I would hook it up while tank cycles.

 

[reeffreak]

Thanks for all the help. Temps here are between 70 and 85 right now day and night. Will the rock be okay at those temps for a few days?

The sand is not really sand, it looks like crushed coral, do you think it is worth saving?

The rocks will be okay at those temperatures.To preserve life,especially the bacteria colonizing the live rock,fully submerge the rocks and put a powerhead to circulate the water.

If it is indeed crush coral then ditch it,like Biff suggested and reasoning.

 

[Mjharless]

I do have a skimmer. I don't have a ro filter. How bad would it be to reuse the water and do water changes and skim to clean it up. I can get 10 gallons of water at a time to change out the tank.

 

[reeffreak]

You can buy RO water at many grocery stores,even most Walmart's sell RO water out of a machine.Even many LFS sell RO freshwater and even premade RO saltwater.Use your best judgement when it comes to re-using the old water.Maybe use some old,some new.

Tapwater,in the short term maybe fine to use.Make sure you use a good water conditioner,one that neutralizes heavy metals also,like Prime.After,I would switch to RO or RO/DI water.Very,very few people have success using tapwater in reef system long term.

 

[Bifferwine]

Like Freak said, you can buy RO water at any grocery store or Walmart in bottles or from a machine. Just look for "Purified using reverse osmosis" on the label of the bottle. I wouldn't reuse the old water from an algae filled tank, as algae is caused by poor quality water. If you reuse the old water, you'll likely have the same problems when you start up the tank again.

 

[Mjharless]

Got a couple powerheads and a heater in with the rock. Threw in the crab and the snail to give them a chance.:D

Can one of you look at these pictures and verify that this is crushed coral? It seems too large grained to be real sand, but there are a large amount of small particles also. I did not find anything living in it either.(that I could see)

Thanks

 

[Oscarsdad608]

looks like crushed coral to me.

 

[reeffreak]

I haven't used crush coral in a long,long time.The crush coral I've seen were larger broken pieces of shells.To my eyes,it looks like larger grain aragonite.

 

[Mjharless]

OK. Should I throw it out either way?

 

[cumminz]

To me it also looks like Large grain Arag. I honetly would keep it, but i would not re-use the old saltwater. Ask around, at my LFS i get free Ro/DI water