Tank Journal - 135 FOWLR

[Floyd R Turbo]

I've started several threads on this and other forums with questions related to how to turn a customer's tank in a restaurant from an environment in which, IMHO, the fish are barely surviving, into one where they are happy and thriving.

So, I decided to merge these various threads...

Need to raise pH, how fast is safe? - Reef Sanctuary
Need to raise pH, how fast is safe? - Reef Central Online Community
Which protein skimmer to go with? - Reef Central Online Community
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f45/need-to-raise-ph-how-fast-is-safe-124208.html

...into one thread for this system, which is a 135 glass with dual overflows and Oceanic 3 sump (30g) so with sump at max operating level it's got about 150g of system volume. It is inhabited by a Dog-faced Puffer, and 3 Sergeant Majors. There was a Yellow Tang but he died - I'll cover that one later.
I started maintenance on this tank on December 13, 2009. On November 29th, I took an initial set of pictures and did a full battery of test. These were the initial test results:

Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrates, off the scale on both API and Salifert
pH 7.4-7.6
Alkalinity 3 to 4 dKH
Salinity 32 / SG 10.235

And this is what the tank looked like:

Full Tank shot

Cyano and waste attached to substrate, LR, and decor

And the sump? Gag me...

Salt creep like this all the way around

Left side at the outflow of the overflow inlet - you can't tell, but there are bio-balls in there

Sump, Right side

One of the biggest problems was that the water in the sump was flowing over the high barrier on the right. You can kind of see it in the first sump shot, there is supposed to be a sponge sandwiched between the low and high, and it looked like there was no sponge at all, just a bunch of sludge built up and it was completely blocked. Or at least, that's what it looked like. As I will show you in the next post, looks can be deceiving.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

First stage cleaning, 12/13/2009

I took on the first clean-up step on Sunday December 13th, 2009

Initially, the customer wanted me to clean up the display tank first. I convinced him that we needed to get the sump in proper operation before doing anything to the DT. And it's a darn good thing I said that, because I pulled 5 buckets like this

out of that sump after I shut it down. I also found these in the overflow intake tower

Which did not make me happy, however the bio-balls are probably the only reason he's got any decent level of nitrification. I was also surprised to find out that when I was trying to siphon between the low/high barriers, I found the sponge! However, it looked like this

Which then explained why the water wasn't flowing through it!! When I got all done cleaning up that mess, which took a couple of hours, here's what it looked like all put back together again:

Bio-ball tower

Sponge & Return chamber

Removed as much salt creep as possible

Unfortunately, there was some kind of overflow or something along the line, because the sump is not level, and the base of the stand is warped so the sump actually isn't supported along the ends. Also, the sump is locked in, there's no way to get it out. Solving this problem without a total tear-down is on my to-do list.

After all of that, I used 30 gallons of the 40 I came with, so I only had enough left over to clean up about 1/4 of the DT, I just sucked the waste and cyano off along with the top layer of substrate using a 3/4" ID hose. It went way too fast. So after this first cleaning, here's the DT

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Second stage cleaning - 12/16/2009

The second stage cleaning took place Wednesday, December 16th

I hooked up my old Marineland Magnum canister and shut down the sump.

I took all the rock and decor out one piece at a time and scrubbed it off in 10g of SW pulled from the tank in a 25g Rubbermaid tub. When I got done, it was a nasty purple soup that smelled horrible. Then I siphoned off the remaining gunk and top layer of substrate, siphoned most of the glass and overflows of cyano, filled it back up, used a magfloat on the glass, and let it clear up. Here's how it looked after all that

Also here's a shot of the overflows after cleaning #1, they were so clogged with cyano that the water had to be 1/2"+ higher than it is in this pic just to get water flowing through it. Plus you can see how bad the cyano is on the overflows and the inside of the glass on the left (next to the window)

Total of about 38 gallons changed out. I put in the diatom cartridge and have been letting that run for a few days. It didn't pull much out in the first 8 hours, so I have just let it run for the last 2 days.

The next step will take place tomorrow: cleaning all remaining cyano, vacuum substrate, clean the overflow and U-tubes, clean all filter pads, and a 40 gallon change. Plus I'm going to cut his tank water with fresh SW 25% to 75% to get a handle on his Nitrates, since anything over 80 pretty much looks the same no matter what kit you use.

 

[h8z2luze]

Great job! Nice to see a tank come back to life!

 

[mfdrookie516]

Im definately excited to see what else you do with this, well, whats the word im looking for??? Mess? Anyways, looks like you have made some AWESOME progress so far. Great job

 

[Lynae]

I love how you have been helping your locals with their gunked up, *ahem* inhabitable tanks!
Great work!!!
We'll all keep taggin along...

 

[Mitchell0605]

How can anyone let a tank go to that kind of stage?!? Good to see it's being cleaned! BTW what did you do with the fish that was in there that we saw in the above picture?

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

The puffer and Sergeant Majors stayed in the tank the whole time. I did leave out one part - on 12/12/2009, the day before I did the sump cleaning, I added 3-4 fl oz of a stock solution for Brightwell Alkalin8.3-P (powdered type, made the stock solution from that) to attempt to bring both the pH and Alkalinity up a bit so I wouldn't shock the system. The next day when I got there, the owner told me that the Yellow Tang died a few hours after I added the Brightwell solution.

So I don't know if it was just his time or what, but I told him that I was surprised that any of his fish were still alive - and I still am. Hopefully today I will be able to get a read on his Nitrates.

 

[Mitchell0605]

I'm shocked fish can live in such terrible conditions. When was the last time he did anything on that tank?

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I'm shocked fish can live in such terrible conditions. When was the last time he did anything on that tank?

Never. 3 years running, one employee told me that he had NEVER seen anyone do any kind of substantial cleaning.

I did a 50 gallon change & cleaning today and boy was that a mess. I thought the hard part was over. Will post details later, gotta go to a basketball tournament finals. Our 5th grader's team is in the finals - gotta love it when a 4th ranked team beats the #1 team.

 

[SHARPiE]

Being SW Aquarists, It would be really hard to eat at a place with a tank like that. Hopefully their standards in their kitchen are on par


Nice work Flyod - I'm tagging along for the ride.





GL with the BBall

 

[Mitchell0605]

3 years and no maintenance?!? Someone shoot him. Good luck to your son!

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Third stage cleaning - 12/20/2009

My plan for this cleaning was to scrub the rest of the algae off and gravel vac all the substrate. I started with 35g RO water that I mixed and heated up early the day before. After I transported the water, I decided it would be a good idea to go get 20 more gallons, just in case. That turned out to be a very good decision.

While that water was heating and mixing, I thought “hey, why don’t I stick my tube scrubber down the overflow uptake and see how dirty that is?” That turned out to be a very bad decision. Not in the way that it harmed the fish, it just extended my stay for about an hour. As soon as I started, I realized that there was so much gunk in there that there was no flow coming up through the lower slots. I also quickly realized that the sump was getting clogged, thankfully I positioned a piece of poly batting over the baffle before the pump to catch excess debris, but so much came out that it clogged the floss above the bio-ball tower, and water started just pouring off the top, then the batting clogged and the pump started sucking air, right about the time that I got done scrubbing the second uptake.

So I shut down the sump and spent the next 45 minutes cleaning it up. I sucked another 3 buckets of filth water out of it, cleaned all the pads, wiped it out, filled, and fired it back up. I was too busy to stop and take a picture, but after I fired up the sump, this is what the diatom cartridge on the Magnum looked like

It was pretty much clean before that. Scary, huh?

Then, I took a toothbrush and scrubbed all around the edges, and went to town on the tank side of the overflows. This is what it looked like during that

It actually was a lot worse that this pic shows at one point. After that cleaning, the sump again started sucking air and I had to shut it down, clean the pads, suck it dry, fill it up, and fire it up again. I left the Magnum going this time, even though it looked just as bad.

Then I evaluated my water situation. I estimated that I had about 25-30 gallons left. I calculated out the surface area and figured I could take the tank down about 4-1/2 inches, so I started doing a deep siphon with my python on the gravel bed. This is what I was getting out of it

One word comes to mind. Ewwww.

About halfway to my 4-1/2” mark, here’s how it looked

And after I hit the mark and filled it back up, I had made it about ¼ to 1/3 of the way across the bottom. I cleaned the diatom cartridge once again and packed it up for the day. It only took 4 hours.

Notice how nice and clean the overflows are (except for the encrusted parts)

I thought this would be the last leg in the major cleaning series, but bad news – it’s not. The good news is that I only have the rest of the sand bed to go, which should only take another 50 gallon change and it’s all gravel siphoning. Yay!!

So needless to say, I’m tired, back is sore, and until I took a shower, I smelled awful. Time for bed.

 

[Mitchell0605]

Definately. Sounds like you deserve it. Hope your getting paid HEAPS. Great job.

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to post this finding. I finally got a read on the Nitrate level in this tank. I took 2 full test tubes from the tank this afternoon.

I determined the Nitrate level by diluting a sample with freshly mixed RO saltwater. I am using the API test, and I do it by the book – 10 drops of #1, cap and turn over several times, shake the bejesus out of bottle #2 for 30+ seconds, 10 drops, shake like crazy for 1 minute, wait 5 for color.

I started with the freshly mixed water for a control. Then I did 100% tank water, just for kicks.

I filled one vial with 5mL tank water, then split it in 2 vials of equal levels, and filled one up the rest of the way with new water, and set it aside. The other, I filled also, and then used that vial to split it again. I continued until I had a 50% tank water sample, a 25%, and a 12.5%. I tested all. Here is the result:

From left to right: Control, 100%, 50%, 25%, 12.5%

It was still hard to get a reading, so I cut it one more time. This pic has 50% down to 6.25%

And here’s the 6.25% (that’s 1/16th strength)

It’s hard to tell from a flash picture, but this reads about 20 ppm or so. Minimum 20 ppm, maybe as high as 30 ppm, but I’m going to go with 20 ppm to account for error.

That means that the Nitrates are at – get this – 320 ppm.

Before the last 30% water change, that would make it 320 / 0.7 = 450.

Before the previous 25% water change, 450 / 0.75 = 600

Before the initial 20% + water change, 600 / 0.80 = 750

SEVEN HUNDRED AND FIFTY PARTS PER MILLION.

Now I’m not taking into consideration how much is still being produced, etc, but exactly how in the H E double toothpicks does a fish survive in that condition?

That is a testament to the durability of marine animals, if I’ve ever seen one.

 

[Mitchell0605]

That's horrible for the fish. Read that guy the riot act! Thank god you've saved em. Keep up the great work Floyd!

 

[sgc0286]

Great Job! I wish I could find a side job like that one. Could you do me a solid and convince them to take out that terrible decoration (barrel and frog)

 

[Mitchell0605]

And put some more LR in there. Was that all they had Floyd?

 

[Floyd R Turbo]

Could you do me a solid and convince them to take out that terrible decoration (barrel and frog)

Yeah, no kidding. Maybe that would look more appropriate in the 225

And put some more LR in there. Was that all they had Floyd?

That's all they still have! My guess is about 30-40 lbs LR and a few more big heavy non-reef rocks. I just picked up 100lbs+ of dry Fiji & Florida rock for $100.

 

[Mitchell0605]

And put some more LR in there. Was that all they had Floyd?

That's all they still have! My guess is about 30-40 lbs LR and a few more big heavy non-reef rocks. I just picked up 100lbs+ of dry Fiji & Florida rock for $100.

*Faints*

I have more LR in my 23.8G tank.