Jestersix

Where to go from here....

@Meshmez -- Restart! it's part of the hobby along with it's trial and tribulations.... but after awhile, things will settle. You've heard my woes. I go through periods of success and then a couple down points. In fact, had a recent one right now that I have been paying for due to a malfunctioning DOS I received back from Neptune that was supposedly repaired. Lost a lot of irreplaceable pieces (not to mention $$$) but it did force me to level up on being better at this next time.

Some of my best tanks are my most ignored tanks. So set it and forget it actually works is a possibility -- my tanks suffer most when I make changes.

Give me a ping sometime, I can give you some ideas to make things pain free as possible. I can give you some almost impossible to kill pieces to help you restart too for even more set and forget -- and not aiptasia.
 
I would try to figure out what happened even something simple as collecting water and send it off to icp testing. Did one of your parameters go out of whack? Zinc coated screw fall into the tank? Just figure out of there is a chemical issue, then worry about what caused it later
 
Many of us have been there with something obliterating your tank.
With mine it was Majanos. I bet I had more of those than you have worms.

My suggestion - reboot slowly.
Sometimes a tank is so far gone you cannot get it back with normal fixes.
You have to start over.
But an emphasis on slowly. Shut it down and take a break. Plan out the new tank carefully.

If you have anything with personal attachment, put it in some small Petco cheap tank.

For rocks:
Grind the worms off. Soak in muriatic acid solution. Power wash. Then soak for weeks in tap water.
Looking at Cyano and worms, you likely have a ton of embedded detritus and phosphates.
Use those weeks to relax and think about it.
Or just buy new dry rocks. But you still need to soak and cure those.
 
Thanks for all for your support and suggestions!

I'm ~10 years into this hobby, and have moved up through tank sizes, and thought this would be my "forever" tank. I think that's what makes it so hard. My tank was doing really well and looking great.

I'm pretty sure the "issue" is neglect due to lack of time, which is why I need to make it as easy as possible to do maintenance and automate. I have done ICP tests with nothing out of the ordinary showing.

I agree I need a reboot, but I have decided not to do it in the same tank. I placed an order for a IM EXT 112 lagoon! It's a little bit of a downsize on overall volume, but also shorter and hopefully easier for me to more quickly do maintenance without getting the step stool out. I'm really excited for the footprint and the aquascaping possibilities!
I still need to figure out the logistics of how I'm going to clean up the rocks, rescape and move things over, but I have a couple months until the tank arrives. But it's getting me excited again, and hopefully that's the start I need.

If anyone is interested in a eurobraced 60"x24"x24" Starphire tank with shadow overflow, stand and sump.. I'll be selling one around Feb
 
Around 100G is a good size. Big enough to handle decent size fish and be stable, but smaller and easier than the long ones.

Three things to make it easier:

1) Go with "easier" corals and fish. Encrusting hard corals, lots of soft corals, a few nems.
You can have a great looking tank without expensive pointy sticks.

2) Have less fish.
Too many fish is so often the problem. You have to feed them or they starve, but dealing with all those extra nutrients is a never ending battle.
Especially avoid large predator fish.

3) Do not chase numbers.
The constant tweaking causes both you and the tank stress.
Fun advice to enforce that - only use the cheap API test kits.
 
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