Negected tank, need advice for reestablishing

fishyrobbie

Reefing newb
I had a thriving nano reef aquarium, 24 gallons for a year but after a couple years of problems in life and several algae blooms my tank began to be neglected and the past couple months it has been a mess.

I know enough about aquariums to get by; I used to rely a lot on my dad who helped a lot at the time that it was doing well.

I know that sounds bad but I'm dedicated to rebuilding the aquarium and I need advice on exactly how to go about it.

So far;

- I've cleaned out as much algae as possible, there's still quite a bit in hard to read areas around rocks and corners.

- I mixed up the sand a little so that it can breath again and removed the algae from the top as well as i could.

- Every day I am changing a gallon or two of the water every 24 hours and cleaning the filter once a day. When i started the salt levels were embarrassingly high and the water had a slight green tinge. I'll continue until the water is normal in color, ph, calcium and salt.

- I added in a phosphorus removing filter

- The aquarium is heated to ~ 70 degrees fahrenheit


So what steps should I take next for the aquarium? Which supplements should be added? which (and about how many) critters do you recommend? And anything else that needs to be done. Time frames would be helpful as well, I'm trying not to send the remaining animals into shock..

I think it should say below but it is fully stocked with live rocks (albeit lots of algae), one clown fish (its mate jumped into the filter a little while back), one sickly large toadstool and a small sickly toadstool, about eight mushrooms and one hermit crab are what remain.

*I'm especially concerned about some fairly large groups and one very large single bubble algae, I'm going to try removing them by hand without popping them. The very large bubble is behind the rocks so I'm not even sure if I could bend anything back there to knock it loose..

*Please don't let me know what a failure I am, just give advice for how to fix the problem..
 
Just as a note, the toadstools are sick looking but not deteriorating so they are still survivable. What food is best for them/feeding method? I've been just adding planctin into the filter.

The mushrooms are perfectly healthy, should they be fed any special way or are they fine filter feeding?
 
Most corals will do just fine with only light, with the shape the tank is in I would add as few nutrients as possible. Be very careful disturbing the sand you could cause a minni cycle. Best way to clean the sand would be to do very small sections at a time. I would wait for at least five days between. As far as the bubble algae, I saw a neat trick on youtube by Mr. saltwater tank. He takes a piece of airline and creates a siphon with it then with the airline next to the bubble breaks it sucking up the spores, make sure to remove all the pieces left behind..

On a side note this happens to many reef keepers, life sometimes just smacks you on your ass. Take the clean up slow, nothing good happens fast in saltwater even fixes. It will come around but will take time...Good luck.
 
Good catch ya it should be. 70 would be good for a seahorse tank but most reefs are 78 to 80
 
+1 everyone...with that bubble algae, since it's just ONE big one, I suggest take out the rock and scrub it down. But if it's many small ones, Ted is right...here's the video:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeqtPe3XukM]4 Ways to Remove Bubble Algae From Your Reef Tank - YouTube[/ame]

As for stocking, you can really add just 1 more fish besides your clownfish. Typical rule is 1 fish per 10g, BUT with that, you must keep in mind a fish's basic requirements. You can't put a tang, for example, in a 24g, even if he's the only fish. So if you choose to get another clown, get one larger or smaller than your current one.

Keep up with the water changes, get your salinity down slowly to 1.025-1.026. You should bring it down at a rate of .001/day to reduce shock. Are you using a refractometer?

As for the algae on the rock, I suggest you take each one out one by one, put them in the old water you just siphoned out, and scrub them off in there.

It will be a lot of work, but keep it up!
 
+1 everyone!! Good luck getting the tank back in shape!! I would definitely stop adding plankton. You need to be reducing the amount of nutrients going into the tank. Those corals will do fine with just the light and filter feeding what is left over from feeding the clown every other day.
 
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