A word to the wise, on used live rock.

Just thought I'd post this up, to hopefully, save someone some trouble. Anyone with similar experiences, please, feel free to chime in. I bought a used 120 gallon plexi glass tank, from a neighbor, with everything included. Live rock, sand, protein skimmer, lights, the whole bit. I thought I'd save a ton on equipment, and live rock. Great, right? Wrong! The previous owner told me he'd let maintenance slip, due to a back injury, hence the selling of the tank. He'd been dealing with cyano., for several months, and he was ready to call it quits, so, I made the deal, and bought the tank. Problem was, the stand needed to be redone, and I had to store the tank, sand, and live rock, for a month. I put all the sand, and live rock in a 35 gallon barrel, and did water changes, every week, for 3 weeks. I vacuumed the sand, when I moved it all, but it was quite dirty. I figured, I'd vacuum it, when I set the tank up, again, do regular maintenance, and all would be well, because diligence in tank maintenance wins every time. I added a bunch of dry rock, the sand(which is crushed coral or a large grain aragonite), and set the tank up, let it cycle a full month, did weekly water changes, and vacuumed the sand, with every water change. I ran the protein skimmer, and later added a brs dual reactor, ran gfo, carbon, changing it every other week. I added livestock slowly, and after a few months added coral. Almost, from the very beginning, I had cyano. Then, I started to get hair algae. I vacuumed cyano. Every week, with a length of rigid tubing, attached to airline tubing. I figured, it was a temporary problem, like my 75, before it. It'd cycle it out, a year later, I still have cyano., and hair algae. I added a second skimmer, and we'll see how that helps, but the moral of the story is (1)rinse sand, if you move a tank, and (2)when you buy used live rock, know you are inheriting other people's problems. I might have beaten the cyano. Back some, but it's still there. I have plenty of flow, I don't overfeed, I don't skimp on water changes, and all the other typical cyano. Causes have been ruled out. All the phosphates locked in the old rock are being released, slowly, and steadily. I believe I can, eventually, get it under control, but in the meantime, I have to deal with it. Rinse your sand, and make sure you purchase rock from clean tanks. Sometimes, that great deal won't end up being such a great deal, after all. Anyone else have a similar experience, and maybe some advice on how to get my cyano. Under control?

 

I think the mistake here was reusing the sand not the rock. When you disturb a long established sandbed it seems many people run into issues. Thats why when you move tanks they usually suggest buying new substrate and using only a few cups of the old sand to lay on top of the new stuff to introduce the critters and bacteria that will multiply in no time.

Good luck with everything and remember sometimes some algae is not a bad thing, as long as it doesnt overrun the tank. I am sure others will chime in but a list of exactly what your tank is will help.
What kind of skimmers? How is the skimmate? How much carbon and GFO do you use? What kind of light fixture and bulbs? Any other filtration? Any CUC? Whats the stocklist? What are the current tank parameters?

Also you said its a crushed coral/ large argonite substrate? This is one of the worst you can use. Unlike finer substrates which pack down enough and allow for denitrification to occur (and prevent detritus from settling down INTO the sandbed) or a bare bottom tank where detritus gets blown around until it finds the filter, larger courser sand allow for everything to accumulate deep down in the sandbed in areas you cant and dont regularly clean. This in turns usually causes nitrate issues.

Being newer to SW myself it is hard to give advice since the only experiences I can really pull from are years and years of FW keeping and only 3 months of SW, but after researching the forums for many hours every day and reading a countless numebr of articles, the best experience I can give you is to ditch the substrate the go with sometime much finer then crushed coral. You also said the light was used with the tank so make sure the bulbs are the correct type and if they are mroe than a year old replace them since old bulbs no longer give off the appropriate spectrum of light and can cause algae issues. Finally, remember that just because it doesnt test + in the water does not mean its not there. You can very well have high nitrates and phosphates but test very low because they are being used up by all the cyano. I also like to believe that sometimes simpler is better, MrBill has a nice link in his signature about this.

 

+1 agreed

its being used up by the cyano.

 

I have picked up four working setups from craigslist, etc and have found that the substrate is the major problem. I now dump all the substrate and use new live. None of the problems of high levels have persisted after that.

 

Sounds like I should've posted this under sand, then. It's a 120 gallon plexi glass tank, 29 gallon sump, the sand isn't quite crushed coral, but I'm comparing it to my 75's, which is 1-2mm aragonite, bigger, but not huge. I'd still consider it sand, and not gravel. Asm g-2 skimmer, just added a 2nd g-2, a week ago, 2 three hundred watt heaters, a 4 bulb t5ho, a 2 bulb t5ho, a 4 bulb compact light, all bulbs less than 5 months old, lots of live rock, over 150lbs., 2 mj 1200's the new one's, with the water mover/mod., 2 mj 900's, both with rotating water deflectors, dual returns, with loc line spliting it into 4 returns, light grid, and pvc pipe cut into discs under the live rock, to raise it off of the sand, don't know what type of return pump it is, but it's plenty strong, might be a mag drive, not sure, no name on it. I have a yellow tang, blue eyed kole tang, 3 pink anthias, 6 blue green chromis, 2 engineer gobies, an unknown red wrasse, a blue clam, unknown type. It's hard to identify the wrasse, and the clam, but not for lack of trying. The gobies dig, all the time, and I vacuum the sand they push out, and all the sand I can get to, weekly, with water changes. Weekly water changes of more than 12%, with reef crystals, and well water. It's not the well water, because my 75 uses it, too, and it's going on 3 years, successfully no algae or cyano. I did, just recently, vacuum out all the sand I could reach, behind my rockwork, and rinsed it, really well, before I returned it. That could help some, right? I've tried most of the cyano. Cures, besides chemically treating the tank. Blowing detritus out of the rockwork, siphoning out the cyano., extra maintenance. It has slowed, a lot, but hasn't disappeared, completely. I'd rather not change out the sand, completely. I've considered swapping some, from my 75. Then, it would be a nice mix of sizes. Any thoughts? I didn't rinse the sand, before starting, sounds like the main problem. The sand is pretty well immaculate, at this point. The gobies moved it all out from beneath the live rock, and I moved it from behind. That, and the added skimmer, might do the trick. Let me know what you think, thanks.

 

I know this is the live rock section, but to finish my original post:I just(last night) transferred quite a bit of 1-2mm sand from my 75, to my 120, and mixed it with the larger grain of sand, that came with my used 120. The fish seem much happier, with the sand. It, probably, carried a lot of beneficial bacteria, from my 3 year established reef, and that helped water quality quite a bit. Hopefully, this will solve my cyano. problem. Thanks for the advice. Any other advice will be appreciated. I've read a lot, but still like to get people's feedback, because, sometimes, I just plain forget stuff or I don't think of stuff that I read years ago.

 

The one thing I see you constanly refering to is vacuuming the sand. This is probably the worst thing you can do. You are disturbing the bacteria and nutrients accumulating there. The SB in a saltwatwer tank should never be vacuumed and if you are disturbing it doing only a small ammount at one time is all that should be done.If you want to clean your SB and keep it from compacting use snails like Nasssarius or a Fighting Conch as they will do it slowly and consume detritus.

 

Quit vacuuming your sand!!!

 

Theres so many differences from FW to SW fresh water vacuuming the sand is a must and SW is a big no no lol

 

+1000 to not touching the sand. This is probably 90% of your problem. The sand in a SW system tends to act like a sponge, sucking up detrius, nitrates, ammonia, ect. If you disturb the sand this releases these trapped substances into the water column which if your lucky causes an algae bloom... if you're not lucky, you could actually nuke your tank. This of course is an extreme and there are other issues involved that would contribute to the doomsday scenario but it can, does, and did happen to me... Some one else mentioned about your lights as well. You'd be surprised what will grow under these things once they get old... I can tell my VHO bulbs are at the end of their life as out of the blue i suddenly am having a buildup of algae in general. So... When you have an algae bloom.
1. Check the water params (don't forget to check your fresh/top off too if you're not using RO/DI water which you should be... especially if you're using treated tap.)
2. Check your flow
3. Check your bulbs