Newbie with questions on an icky tank.

[chrisr3]

Hello,
I just bought a 72 gallon tank, off of a friend. It previously had 3 fish in it with horrible water. The fish have been sold and now it holds crushed coral in the bottom covered by a little bit of saltwater. My question is how should I go about cleaning the crushed coral and the complete inside of the tank, any tips would be helpful. thank you

 

[team2jndd]

Dump it all out completely and start over. Will save you trouble in the longrun.

 

[badoleross]

Clean the tank out with a mixture of water and vinager. Trash the crushed coral substrate and replace with sand.

 

[team2jndd]

exactly

 

[granny]

I would like to say that crushed coral isnt all bad. Sand is the 'new' thing to use-as are refugiums etc. Crushed coral was used as a substrate in almost all saltwater tanks for years and years and years and I personally still use it in some tanks. I provides a good buffer, looks natural and provides a good surface for nitrifying bacterial to multiply on.
Now the problem comes in when your cC bed is too thick and not cleaned frequently as it can trap detritus leading to excessive nitrates-but sand beds carry their own problems and are a bear to clean-especially the fine ' sugar' sand which is reccomended.
If you are going to keep the coral, just use enough to cover the base of the tank for aesthetic reasons and rinse it till it is perfectly clear, then let it dry out and rinse it one more time for good measure. Vingegar is an excellent tank cleaner and when mixed with warm water cuts through crud really well. Again, after using it, rinse everything well and let it completely dry before adding your salt water. Good luck whichever way you decide to go.

 

[unleashed]

i agree with granny on this one:i use cc in a couple of my tanks and have for yrs with no issues. you have a couple choises with the old cc you can clean it well in sw and a strainer which will help keep alot of the good bacteria on it.if you wish to start it up fresh and let it cycle its own bacteria you can rinse it with fw this WILL KILL anything on it.but it can however slow down the cycle process.when i first started in this hobby I didnt know any better and washed everything i purchased in fresh tap water LR and cc and all .I ended up with no unwanted hitchikers at all.and the tank did a normal cycle .

 

[zanoshanox]

I would go for new sand instead of CC, without question.

 

[saltfan]

Originally Posted by Granny
I would like to say that crushed coral isnt all bad. Sand is the 'new' thing to use-as are refugiums etc. Crushed coral was used as a substrate in almost all saltwater tanks for years and years and years and I personally still use it in some tanks. I provides a good buffer, looks natural and provides a good surface for nitrifying bacterial to multiply on.
Now the problem comes in when your cC bed is too thick and not cleaned frequently as it can trap detritus leading to excessive nitrates-but sand beds carry their own problems and are a bear to clean-especially the fine ' sugar' sand which is reccomended.
If you are going to keep the coral, just use enough to cover the base of the tank for aesthetic reasons and rinse it till it is perfectly clear, then let it dry out and rinse it one more time for good measure. Vingegar is an excellent tank cleaner and when mixed with warm water cuts through crud really well. Again, after using it, rinse everything well and let it completely dry before adding your salt water. Good luck whichever way you decide to go.

 

[pclown]

Originally Posted by BadOleRoss
Clean the tank out with a mixture of water and vinager. Trash the crushed coral substrate and replace with sand.
I agree 100% Go with the sand

 

[turningtim]

I would fill the tank with more saltwater and swish the CC around and get the yuck in the water colum and then drain the water. This will clean the CC quite a bit. save the CC in nylon bags or new nylon stockings in saltwater. clean the tank with vinegar and place new dead sand in after rinseing the sand. fill the tank with salrwater and plce the bags of CC in to seed the sand. this will kick the bio-filtration of the sand and reduce the cycle time. Once the testing comes in that the cycle is done remove the bags of CC and trash them.
You already have a good source of bacteria so why not use it. As stated before if you wish to keep the CC don't use to much and keep it clean.
HTH
JMO
Tim

 

[chrisr3]

Thank you everyone for your help. I will probably get rid of the cc. I would like to start a reef tank and have heard that sand is the way to go. My question about the sand is should i start with live or dead sand? How hard is it to maintain? Do I need a protien skimmer? How much sand do I need for a 72 gallon tank? Sorry for all the questions but I will probably have 100 more. Thank You again.

 

[turningtim]

Yes for a reef tank you will need a good skimmer. You will have to do maintenence which ever tank you get. You can do a sand mix some live some dry and the LS will seed the dry sand. But as I said in the other post. If you save even some of the CC and bag it it will seed the dry sand just the same and save a couple bucks.
Tim