Recovering a tank

[Jarred Darque]

I have a 29 gallon, it has been running for about 2 years now. only fish I have lost, one jumped and one died when moving the tank 200 miles. The two clowns been in since the start are just fine, if not growing at the expected rate.

Anyways, I am in college, and thus broke. As an engineering student, I have no time. As such, the tank has been slowly falling apart for the last year, no money, no time. the money issue is about to be resolved, time, no so much.

My quistion is, what all would it take to recover a tank that is in the middle of a drawn out crash? readings on everything are too high, except minerals, bad algae growth (no macro algae though.....um...the slimy stuff....just hair algae and similiar), lots of aptasia, smaller than necessary cleaning crew (maybe 2 hermits, 3 nessarius snails left). No filter, only a skimmer and a power head, no actinic (one of the ballists on the PC light is blown)


My options are either to try and recover this tank, or to sell the livestock (2 false P clowns, 1 tiger pistol shrimp, 1 urchin and clean up crew) and corals (leathers, ricordia, and about a dozen zoos), drop the salinity to bracking, let cycle from die off of live rock, and put in a GSP and slowly raise back up to full salt.

 

[pat8you]

If your going to break down i would probably just sell the fish and inverts and let the rock dry. Aptasia and hair algae can be incredible resisting and i would take the chance of either of them surviving because they can be a real pain to get rid of once you have the tank running. Then just recycle using all the die off from the live rock after it has dried.

 

[Jarred Darque]

could either the algae or aptasia survive brackish conditions?

 

[melosu58]

IMO the best thing you could do to get things back where they need to be is frequent PWC`s. When you draw out the old water try to take out all the undesirables like algeas and then add good SW to the tank. You`ll start to see a change over time.