I have been in the saltwater/reef hobby, since I bought my first tank in 2009, roughly, but since then, I have gotten out of it due to a bad slime algae infection. My tank is 75 gallons, and has been down for a year. It still has sand, LR, and all equipment seems to be in working order. My question is this: if I do re-establish my tank, what all will I need to do, to get it ready?(i.e. cleaning, etc.)

I'm not the authority on SW tanks, but unless your live rock has been somewhere that the micro organisms have been able to feed and multiply I would assume that it is now just rock and no longer has anything living on/in it.

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75 Gallon Planted

Apparently I'm no authority either, since my tank died pretty fast, but the LR has never left the water, if thats what you mean. Please clarify.

Clean it out using vineagar and water. Fill it back up, throw in the rock and sand, and wait for the cycle. Easy as that, just like starting over with all new stuff, just look at it that way, only thing different is that you don' thave to buy any of it.

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All I was trying to say was since there is no "food" for the micro organisms to feed on they would have died off.

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75 Gallon Planted

I'm lost, are you saying since my tank has been dead for a year(no feeding, no corals, etc.) that the LR would now just be rock?

hi hippyman,
I had a SW setup for a couple years.
Here is what you can do.
First, rinse EVERYTHING with water(dont matter if chlorinated cuz everything is "dead").
Then, you will hand scrub all of your equipment cuz of barnicals and other fan worms cases.
Fill up your tank with saltwater with your rock all in it.
Now take a trip to your local fish store and buy either a little chunk of live rock or a scoop of live gravel.
you will then put that gravel or chunk of rock in your tank. I would recommend buying a bottle of minerals needed for coral growth and add the correct dose to help feed the algae with the proper nutrients.
now you will wait.

*it will take a long time but you will soon see coraline algae slowly bloom on the other rocks. and you can still have fish in the tank too but if its new i would just recommend damsels or chromis.

Now im in the mood to start up my SW tank again lol

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36 Gallon Saltwater reef tank
Ocellaris Clown, Scooter Dragonet, sandsifter star, Decorator crab, emerald crab, coralline snails, blue leg hermit crab, and horseshoe crab.
Zooad's and shrooms
40 pounds of Live sand, 20 pounds of LR

Funny you should say that, I bought my girlfriend a beta, over thanksgiving, thats gotten me wanting to start back to reefkeeping. Gravel, in a SW tank? I thought gravel was for a FW tank.

i meant gravel as in grinded shells. I used live gravel in my 10 gallon nano cuz i had a pseudochromis that wanted to burrow which he couldnt do in sand. the gravel was made out of shells which was a plus with mini hermit crabs when they decided to change shells which happened everyday lol

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36 Gallon Saltwater reef tank
Ocellaris Clown, Scooter Dragonet, sandsifter star, Decorator crab, emerald crab, coralline snails, blue leg hermit crab, and horseshoe crab.
Zooad's and shrooms
40 pounds of Live sand, 20 pounds of LR

Crushed Coral- Florida Crushed Coral for Aquariums
Live Sand- Aragamax Aquarium Sand
Take out the Rock thats in the tank, scrub it off in a bucket of water. Put it back into the tank, it will go through a normal cycle. It will have to cure all over again.

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I'm probably getting ahead of myself here, but how do I feed the corals, once I get them in?

That all depends on which corals you get. Some feed off phyto, a liquid, some you turn off your powerheads and you spot feed.

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http://s1050.photobucket.com/albums/...eefingMadness/

I agree. I had a bubble coral that ate shrimp pellets and phytoplankton. coral are also photosynthetic so a strong lighting is required unless you are using low light coral like sea mushrooms.

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36 Gallon Saltwater reef tank
Ocellaris Clown, Scooter Dragonet, sandsifter star, Decorator crab, emerald crab, coralline snails, blue leg hermit crab, and horseshoe crab.
Zooad's and shrooms
40 pounds of Live sand, 20 pounds of LR

I hope this threads still alive, I've been afk for awhile. I have managed to squeeze in some research, and wanted to double check it...am I correct that I should only use either a water/baking soda paste, or just water, to clean the barnacles?(i.e. no soap)

Water and a scrub brush. I've never heard of using baking soda paste. But, i don't see why you couldn't, as long as you rinsed the rock well. IE- No Soap.

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