My first bacteria bloom

[Hermiesguardian]

In all honesty, I suspected it for awhile. Kept myself in denial because I know what a huge job fixing it is. Especially in a 90gal. I have(had) 8 crabs in there. Ive recently seen 6 up at a time. Assumed the other two are gone. I'm in the process of setting up a 75 gal for the mediums and small. Which 6 are in a 40gb. So in the meantime, while 6 were above ground I set up the 75 as an iso tank. Very little ee. Small water dishes. The wheel and other stuff. Moved all 6 over. So while I was scooping out the sand, didn't even hit the bloom yet, lo and behold, I came across a molter. Alive. I was shocked. I apologized to him. I still have the kritter keeper the original 2 came in. Put him and his exo in there. Taped paper around the sides to try and get it a bit dark. Put that in the 75gal. Saw him alittle later moving around. This evening I put in some egg shell, hard boiled egg, and 2 very small portions of fresh and salt water. And proceeded to dig out more substrate. Found pooling water. I think I'll have to replace most of the substrate. Such a huge job all by myself. I'm not the most in shape person. I tire easily. My husband lives out of state but is coming home this weekend and will help. Although there are so many other things he has to do here. I'm going to completely redecorate the tank.
So I'm dumping the bad substrate in my yard. I assume the air and sun will kill any bacteria.
I know now how to keep it a bit dryer when adding in substrate now.
Who knows, I may come across my eighth crab alive.

[Motörcrab]

Uuugh! I feel your pain! We felt with two blooms in two tanks a 75 and 30 at the same time. Not fun at all. Our tanks are on the second floor so we had to lug all the sub down and upstairs. Hopefully you will find your 8th crab ok. We lost a crab in each tank.

Good luck and hopefully you can pinpoint what caused the flood.

[CrabbyLover77]

Aw I'm so sorry! What a mess! Wish I could help you. Whenever I get overwhelmed, I tell myself "Rome wasn't built in a day". For some reason, it helps me get through stuff that seems like it's going to take forever.

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[Motörcrab]

I thought I posted earlier. Floods are no fun at all. Xeno and I both know what you are going through. Hopefully you find your 8th crab. The bright side is you will be able to do a complete renovation of your tank!

Hopefully you don't have to lug substrate up and down stairs to the second floor like Xeno and I did. Not fun.

I often debated renting or buying a concrete mixer for mixing substrate.

[CrabbyLover77]

I thought I posted earlier. Floods are no fun at all. Xeno and I both know what you are going through. Hopefully you find your 8th crab. The bright side is you will be able to do a complete renovation of your tank!

Hopefully you don't have to lug substrate up and down stairs to the second floor like Xeno and I did. Not fun.

I often debated renting or buying a concrete mixer for mixing substrate.

You did post, there's a second one. Her post must have went through twice.

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[Motörcrab]

Oh! Lol! I just went back to work yesterday after being off for two months. My brain isn't functioning properly.

[JoeHermits]

Threads have been merged.

Hermiesgaurdian, I’m sorry to hear you’re going through that. Good luck, though!


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[CrabbyLover77]

Oh! Lol! I just went back to work yesterday after being off for two months. My brain isn't functioning properly.

Haha I was confused at first too, so no worries!

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[Hermiesguardian]

In all honesty, I suspected it for awhile. Kept myself in denial because I know what a huge job fixing it is. Especially in a 90gal. I have(had) 8 crabs in there. Ive recently seen 6 up at a time. Assumed the other two are gone. I'm in the process of setting up a 75 gal for the mediums and small. Which 6 are in a 40gb. So in the meantime, while 6 were above ground I set up the 75 as an iso tank. Very little ee. Small water dishes. The wheel and other stuff. Moved all 6 over. So while I was scooping out the sand, didn't even hit the bloom yet, lo and behold, I came across a molter. Alive. I was shocked. I apologized to him. I still have the kritter keeper the original 2 came in. Put him and his exo in there. Taped paper around the sides to try and get it a bit dark. Put that in the 75gal. Saw him alittle later moving around. This evening I put in some egg shell, hard boiled egg, and 2 very small portions of fresh and salt water. And proceeded to dig out more substrate. Found pooling water. I think I'll have to replace most of the substrate. Such a huge job all by myself. I'm not the most in shape person. I tire easily. My husband lives out of state but is coming home this weekend and will help. Although there are so many other things he has to do here. I'm going to completely redecorate the tank.
So I'm dumping the bad substrate in my yard. I assume the air and sun will kill any bacteria.
I know now how to keep it a bit dryer when adding in substrate now.
Who knows, I may come across my eighth crab alive.

Here are some pics. It's real hard to actually see the water in the picture.

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[Hermiesguardian]

Uuugh! I feel your pain! We felt with two blooms in two tanks a 75 and 30 at the same time. Not fun at all. Our tanks are on the second floor so we had to lug all the sub down and upstairs. Hopefully you will find your 8th crab ok. We lost a crab in each tank.

Good luck and hopefully you can pinpoint what caused the flood.

I'm so glad I don't have to do stairs. I think it's because when I mixed up the sand and ee, I added water, even thoigh the sand was already damp. I've read on here several people say tgey just wet the ee of course and mix that with the sand. And I just recently turned down the bubblers.

[Hermiesguardian]

Aw I'm so sorry! What a mess! Wish I could help you. Whenever I get overwhelmed, I tell myself "Rome wasn't built in a day". For some reason, it helps me get through stuff that seems like it's going to take forever.

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Thank you!

[CrabbyLover77]

Thank you!

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[Hermielover121]

Hope you get that over with seems like a lot of work. I just set up a 20 gallon I dampened substrate a lot and when I had just the EE without the stand I had a lot of water and it was very very damp and then added in more sand it did not fell that wet but do you think there may be a bacterial bloom in the future


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[wodesorel]

Oh wow yeah, that is a massive bloom. I can see how far the black is coming up the sides. When you get down beneath the water level, you may want to air the room out to prevent a buildup of gasses. I've made myself pretty sick a few times cleaning it out of smaller tanks. In something that size with that much affected sand it may get kinda bad.

I am so sorry. It is a huge undertaking. The crabs will be okay waiting though, so take it slow! You don't have to hurt yourself rushing through it.

[Xenocrab]

We took everything out of the tanks, scrubbed them with vinegar, rinsed with water, scrubbed and rinsed, over and over! Then we set the tanks up all over again. We unfortunately lost 2 crabs due to the bacterial blooms. They were a lot of work, but there's a lot to learn from the experience as well.

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