Help ressurect neglected tank - Long post alert.

[thesassyindian]

Greetings!
I'd like to address the recent state of my tank, which I regrettably neglected due to prioritizing the care of my son, who was experiencing some minor health concerns.

However, now that he has recuperated splendidly, I am eager to restore my tank to its former glory.
Allow me to provide a comparison of its previous state before the unfortunate demise of the Pocillopora colony:

The Pocillopora incident unfortunately led to the demise of everything except the gold hammer, acans, and goniopora, while the fish remained unscathed.
I transferred the approximately 12-head frogspawn colony to a DBTC thread through @Arvin R

Subsequently, the tank has experienced a gradual decline, except for the gold hammer, which has remarkably multiplied to around 20 heads!

Now, regarding the neglect:

The GSP ventured over to my main arch and is slowly encroaching upon the gold hammer, necessitating its removal.
Furthermore, the demise of the Pocillopora has disrupted my tank's chemistry, resulting in a bubble algae infestation that even treatments like Vibrant have failed to alleviate.

To truly make a significant change, I'm considering replacing the three rocks comprising my main arch.
Would it be safe to opt for dry rock and perform a complete replacement at once?

My plan involves adding a couple of bottles of bacteria and a bottle of pods to mitigate any potential loss from removing the original rocks.

What are your thoughts on this approach?
The only caveat is that we might be moving in August, which will introduce another disruption to the tank.

 

[RandyC]

Greetings!
I'd like to address the recent state of my tank, which I regrettably neglected due to prioritizing the care of my son, who was experiencing some minor health concerns.

However, now that he has recuperated splendidly, I am eager to restore my tank to its former glory.
Allow me to provide a comparison of its previous state before the unfortunate demise of the Pocillopora colony:

View attachment 54975View attachment 54976
The Pocillopora incident unfortunately led to the demise of everything except the gold hammer, acans, and goniopora, while the fish remained unscathed.
I transferred the approximately 12-head frogspawn colony to a DBTC thread through @Arvin R

Subsequently, the tank has experienced a gradual decline, except for the gold hammer, which has remarkably multiplied to around 20 heads!

Now, regarding the neglect:

The GSP ventured over to my main arch and is slowly encroaching upon the gold hammer, necessitating its removal.
Furthermore, the demise of the Pocillopora has disrupted my tank's chemistry, resulting in a bubble algae infestation that even treatments like Vibrant have failed to alleviate.

View attachment 54977

To truly make a significant change, I'm considering replacing the three rocks comprising my main arch.
Would it be safe to opt for dry rock and perform a complete replacement at once?

My plan involves adding a couple of bottles of bacteria and a bottle of pods to mitigate any potential loss from removing the original rocks.

What are your thoughts on this approach?
The only caveat is that we might be moving in August, which will introduce another disruption to the tank.

You have sand, so it’s likely you could replace all the rock at once without worrying about dumping in bottles of bacteria. Personally though, I’d probably replace one half of the rock and then maybe one or two weeks later replace the other half.

 

[Coral reefer]

Put the new rock you’re going to use in some tank water for a week before you switch

 

[IOnceWasLegend]

Another option would be to take a bit of tank sand, put the new rock in a bucket with saltwater, add the sand to the bucket, and let the bacteria colonize the rock if you want to try and isolate the rock a bit more from bubble algae.

 

[Arvin R]

I have Aussie live rock (some nice branches) in if you wanted to look into that as an option too.

But as others stared, a bucket with new rock and some old sand would also do the trick for a week or 2.

 

[Chromis]

Yay for removing star polyps and doing it the sensible way by dumping the rock (instead of wasting time scraping it away only for it to come back). Echoing what others said you have plenty of sand to support things without the rock, but do a 50% water change and siphon the sand really well to give it a better chance to process all the fish ammonia after the rock is gone. Why don't you add some macro algae? You don't have anything there that would eat it right? It will help fill the void when the rock is gone.

 

[IOnceWasLegend]

@thesassyindian Also - depending on how long it will be before you're planning on doing this, I'm happy to throw some rubble (or a chunk of rock) in my DT and seed it for you to be picked up at the frag swap. Tank is fully QT'd, and seems to be pest-free (no aiptasia, bubble algae, etc.).