Help needed confused

[Coralgurl]

Originally Posted by TheNewGuy

What are your water params? I assume she wasn't feeding anything to the tank as there is no fish/corals/light. I would think that a treatment with prime to remove any chlorine in the tap water would be needed but if you still have life and low nutrients I don't see a reason to pull the plug. Just go slow with fish additions as your biological filter will be at a minimum.

+1

Test your water first and see where everything is at. Should give you an idea of where to start, post your results. Sounds like there's a bit of life in there. Start doing some water changes and maybe ghost feed the tank a little, add some snails and see what happens from there.

[Proteus]

What are you worried about?

The ocean was fallow for a million years. Test water do a w/c. Chlorine will evaporate within 24 hours

[ScubaSteve]

So the big problem is that she's been using tap water? This isn't a huge deal, tons of people do it.

Sitting with lights off with no corals. No problem.

No Feeding? No problem.

The biological filtration of the tank will be in a fairly dormant state right now because of the lack of life, but if you take things slow it'll bounce back fast enough. I've left tanks fallow for months without issues.

Sooooo, let's go back to that first question that you seemed to have missed: what are your water parameters? We can give you a game plan if you tell us what we're working with. Without those it's like calling a mechanic and saying"my car is broken. How do I fix it?"... well, what's broken?

I can tell you right off the bat that you should start with a water change (After you test your parameters) and getting a simple clean up crew, etc... almost like you're starting a new tank.

[toytech]

Get you salinity in check , its out for sure . Do some water changes and then watch your phosphate , if the tap water had high levels then it might have saturated the rocks and will take some time to leach back out . With any restart algea is going to happen , as soon as you add light BOOM there it is , no big deal start adding a cleanup crew slowly and dont panic . Add fish slow too , let the bacteria catch up and you will be back running in no time . And again Dont Panic , go slow.

[tritan]

will let yous know my water parameters as soon as get my test kits this weekend.any sugestions for acurate test kits?

[Baldy]

Hanna checker for phos, I use API for everything else except mag, which I use an elos kit. I wouldn't buy another elos kit, not mag anyway. Next on my list is red sea, they look like nice kits to use

[craigwmiller]

Red Sea for Akl/Cal/Mag
Hanna for Phosphate

[Proteus]

I use API to top off my garbage can. And use Elos and Red Sea for everything else