Inherited Husband's reef tank.

Yes, that is what I understood, livestock has been moved to another holding tank. I would still do pretty large changes 30-50% even with livestock just match water parameters. They must be pretty tuff critters if they are still living in the neglected tank:)
 
Actually, I didn't move the fish to another tank. (That was another poster's idea.) I'm afraid of killing my dragonette. We use to just sit and watch her dance for us. I don't want to stress her out and kill her trying to get her out of the tank (she's not an easy catch). We were told dragonettes were not hardy fish, but mine seems to be thriving in a dead tank. Since she seems to keep going through all this, I figured my odds are about even which will kill her first... my attempt to get her or the tank itself.

All the coral is either dead or dying. Even the palm tree polyps (which I thought had to be the hardiest of anything one might put in a salt water tank) are wilting away.

Dark red algae growing in a couple of spots on some rocks. I have been doing less water changes--as it just seemed to make it worse rather than better. Glass is growing a gold color algae on it (not the green it had before).

My elderly neighbor died on Monday the 21st after quite a hard battle the last two weeks at the hospital. The boys and I have been busy helping and worrying over our neighbor's spouse as elderly mates don't usually do so well after lossing a loved one and he is all alone now. Their kids are grown and moved out of state. We're hoping to keep him alive too. :) Sorry I haven't gotten photos or been up-to-date.

I really appreciate the help here.
 
Sorry for the loss but thank you and your boys for being such good neighbors. I misunderstood that you still have fish in the tank so...........yes scale back the water changes to 10-20% every other week just check the specific gravity of the tank water, match it and water temperature. You can siphon off the nusisance algae and dirt for the water changes. If the salinity is off, should be 1.22 - 1.25 just increase gradulaly with the water changes, best to go slow a little at the time and more often than trying to make a big change at one time. What you can do is run a filter on the tank such as a Fluval or Ehiem that you can get at Petsmart or such this will also help to clean the gunk out of the water as it is stirred up. Hey, don't give up, it can be done. Let us know how it is going when you can.
 
I can't find that level thingy-bob my husband used to check salinity. I thought once the salinity was right that it stayed right. (The salt stayed in the tank.) I will have to go out and buy one as I can't find his. I can tell you the rest of the testing looks right to me. No phosphate or nitrates (I really thought I had a nitrate issue and rechecked and then checked again with the strips instead to see if the result were different with them... I might get a new test just to varify if I can't get the tank to come back). Calcium at 440, KH at 179 and ph at 8.0.

Last of my soft coral is dying but lots of worms with fans on the end are sprouting out now (haven't been visible until the last 48 hours or so) so evidently they are being well fed.

Thanks for alerting me to check the salinity. I didn't think I had to worry about that. I couldn't figure out why the tests seems good but the tank is tanking. I'm hoping it is a salinity issue now as then I will have a clue how to fix it.

I think I have a diatom algae problem too. But reading up that may be due to cycling even though this is not a new tank and the water changes might help that out eventually.

Thanks for the encouragement. I must admit I have been hearing mission impossible music in my head as I work on the tank. :) I'll give it more time and perhaps I'll figure it out along the way.
 
The strip tests are notoriously unreliable, i would stick with the liquid tests. But you can always take some of your water to a lfs and have them double check your results.

And the diatoms are probably feeding of silicates in the tap water you put in there, but once they use that up, they will go away.

And slow but steady will get this tank back together. I really admire your hard work.
 
The LFS would be a great way to know if my tests were right! Thanks.

I thought the diatoms were from stirring up the sand. I hope it's not the water. I did start buying it just in case my filter wasn't good enough.

Thanks for the idea and encouragement.

(Now I gotta find another newbie to bump up.)
 
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