'old Tank Syndrome'

[SCOOB]

Hi guys,

firstly congratulations, can't wait to see this one grow, it all looks very impressive so far. A fine selection of experts :thumbsup:

secondly, my point. having spoken to various experienced successful reefers in the past about their pride and joy, a re-occuring concern frequently crops up. the dreaded 'old tank syndrome'. the phenomena that does seem to strike some systems down in their prime and if it doesn't, it plays on the mind of the aquarist to the point they may make a slip. As far as I understand there are many 'possible' explanations and theories as to why this can happen but nobody seems to have an ounce of hard proof of what the EXACT catalyst is.

my questions,

1) what are your experiences, if any, with the dreaded and what were the first signs?

2) what have you done/do you plan to do to avoid this happening?

3) does it concern yourselves as much as others i know?

4) or is it all in the head, so to speak.

5) For all i know you may think that such things are poppy-cock but having kept successful systems for soooo long, what if anything, concerns you most about the longevity of your already 'mature' systems? human error or biological malfunction?


thanks in advance. :thumbsup:

[SPS Hoover]

Martin is best person to answer this one I know he has strong views on this subject.

My systems have never been setup for more than three years so I haven't suffered from old tank syndrome.

One thing I would throw in to mix so too speak, is it complacency and lack of enthusiasm which causes the issues

[simon garratt]

Ill agree to Let martin answer first as well, although i do have a few theories/logic veiwpoints to air afterwards.

Regards

Si. :)

[Acropora]

Hi

Old Tank Syndrome

Firstly, I do believe that closed system tanks, which have been running for some time, say 4 - 5 years seem to get 'tired' and 'sour' and corals don't seem to grow at the speed they used to. So why is this ? Well I cannot give a definitive answer, as no tow tanks are the same. However, I have some suspicions.

I’ll outline a few of the problems and then some potential solutions.

Water Quality
The effects of imbalances of salts and minerals, probably accumulate, even if you do a 10% water change once per month, 90% of the water isn't.

More often than not, older tanks have increased Nitrate levels, and these need to be kept in check. My system is currently at about 35mg/l NO3which is far too high.

The amount of fish we hold within our systems increases during the life of the tank, adding to the biological load, the problem being compounded due to their increased size as they mature.

Even if you have really good water circulation, detritus builds up in the sand bed, between the rocks etc.

Coral Growth

If you imagine a storm on a coral reef, and say an area 1m2 has been left bare, initially, a multitude of corals will settle and start to grow, however, 5 years later, it would be highly likely than a much smaller number of corals will be present, since the more dominant ones (those who favor the particular conditions) will take over. Very few of us like a species dominated tank, however, this is what nature would do, for the same area as our tanks, also bearing in mind that our corals don't get a 100% water change ever few seconds, like they do in the wild.

Owner Complacency etc

So we all like to go and buy new gadgets for our tanks, however, buying replacement parts and servicing is no where near as much fun. Purchasing a new £40 RO membrane doesn't quite have the same appeal, spending £300 on a set of replacement lamps for the 5th year, gets a bit tiresome.

Or perhaps you think the tank is running OK, and there is no need to do a water change this month.

Or perhaps, you have begun to question how much the whole thing is costing, both in terms of capital expenditure, running costs and time.

Proliferation of 'pests'

This is likely to include encrusting algae eating star fish, the tiny white ones, or perhaps Manjano, or Aiptasia anemone.


These in my view are some of the problems, so what can we do ?

Well the solution to some of them is obvious. Don’t forget, you need to go backwards before you can go forwards. I would suggest that in addition to your regular maintenance, you need to do some major maintenance, every 2 - 3 years. Here’s a list of suggestions:

1. Hold a power head in your hand and point it towards the rock work, to flush out detritus, then siphone it off the bottom.

2. Remove your sand, I suggest you do this by siphoning it out to minimise the impact to the tanks occupants (and replace with new, I prefer the fine grain white sugar sand). Some would suggest that this would cause too much of an imbalance, well unless you are using undergravels, you should be OK, I’ve done it, and it was OK – this is one of the reasons why your rockwork goes in before the sand)

3. Do a 50% water change, but ensure you slowly mix the new and tank water. I don't have the link, but I've seen (on Reef Central, some excellent graphs showing how long it takes to completely replace a tank of water, depending upon the percentage of water changed). If at all possible change your system so you can do water changes by just turning a few valves, if doing a water change is easy, it’s far more likely to be done.

4. Check the TDS levels of your RO, and if necessary carryout some maintenance.

5. Clean out all of your pumps, removing encrusting algae etc.

6. Clean the reflectors on your light.

7. Thin out some of the corals, ‘replanting’ from frags some of the acros with lots of lower dead branches -(this is quite natural), keeping the balance between hard and soft corals in check, removing encroaching sponges (like the blue slimy one - don't know name).

8. Make sure you have the correct predators to eat pests, for
Starfish - add Harlequin shrimps
Aiptasia - Copperbands
Manjano - Sea Grass Filefish

9. Install a Nitrate filter, I’m currently maturing on of the new Deltec Reactors (the ones you ‘feed’ and control the Redox between -50 and -150).

10. Maintaining a sucessful tank over a very long period of time, takes some long term planning. In addition to thinking about accessability, consider the critical parts of your system, so what would happen if your sump return pump stopped ?, do you have a spare ? Do you use heater high temperature cut outs. Do you have low temprature alarms. What would you do in the case of a power cut ?

11. Make sure you own a trap to capture problematic fish.

It seems that tanks appear their best once they have been running for a year, and say for the next 2 years, run at their best, then very slowly deteriorate, and it is for this reason I would suggest some major maintenance work is carried out. Saying this a system which is run ‘in tune’ and in balance, which is far more likely to be ‘species tank’ (containing just a few types of corals), with not many fish, is much more likely to be successful in the long term.


Hope this helps


Martin

[Reefworks]

Martin has answered things nicely. Personally I think with the normal practice of maintenance and laziness that tanks can deteriorate, but there is nothing that cant be rectified by one of the proceedures that Martin mentioned.
I think tanks have to go through a major overhall every 2-3 years anyway due to the coral growth. I had a tank set up from entirely frags and after two years I removed almost all the corals because it had become overgrown and past it's best. They had become so large that they were all overshaddowing each other, vastly restricting water movement and swimming space.
Resetting the tank alowed me to give it a major overhall and make some adjustments that improved the system as well as giving me some space to introduce some new corals :D

[SCOOB]

thanks for the great responses guys, now that i am allowed to reply to say that :thumbsup:

i suppose you've struck the right balance there clayton, overhaul needed to ensure longevity and general tank health might as well be done at the same time as large 'pruning' regimes.

[Mo.]

Si,

You never did tell us what you thought about old tank syndrome.....

[damianandrew]

To be honest i am still confused
So.......
Replacing the sand every year and giving your live rock a blast will help?

[tontikki]

what is the reason for replacing the sand? why isn't it enough simply to wash it well in newly made clean salt water or, if needed, in fresh ro water?

[Nikolai]

Sand is both a good and bad thing, it can break things down but still gets clogged up with other stuff sometimes it can be good to think of it(sand) as being like a dirty carpet lol sometimes a hoover works wonders other times it just has to be replaced....bad description I know lol