32g rework...

[Jedi1199]

Tank all emptied out and ready to be scrubbed squeaky clean...

@brandon429 I assume I need to get rid of all the algae from the bucket?

 

[brandon429]

very nice so far, excellent pics


as you fill and swish and dump sand over and over with tap water/hose outside it’ll clear soon enough, I bet it takes about 45 mins of rinsing


* to test a sub section in a clear glass of water held up to light is an ideal way to know if the overall sand is ready for the new setup. When dumped into the test cup the rinsed grains should fall like a cloudless snowglobe

 

[brandon429]

You are holding rocks in saltwater right until reassembly?

if not, that is unique. Most aquarists would be in total shock to hold reef rocks in freshwater for extended periods. It’s uncharted territory, fascinating still if this is the test case at hand. I predict the rocks will still work when placed back in saltwater if this is the case.

 

[Jedi1199]

Yes I am... clean fresh saltwater, not tank water.

Tank is all cleaned out and ready to start reinstalling equipment...

 

[brandon429]

You are indeed at 100% clean on the glass. Sharp looking

 

[Jedi1199]

You are indeed at 100% clean on the glass. Sharp looking

Now I have a problem... I had not intended to undertake such a project today... It is almost bedtime and I still have to rinse the sand with RO water... I will have to finish this up after work tomorrow.

 

[brandon429]

Reassemble the setup without sand agreed it’ll be ok on rocks alone


add in sand tomorrow after preps, neat variables challenge!!

agreed it’s better to totally delay the sand coming back in rather than to under rinse it. I have two big threads where we delayed sand getting added back to ensure dinos were gone. They stored their prepped sand for weeks before snow globeing it all back in around the clean rock stack.

 

[brandon429]

hows this big job working out so curious

 

[Jedi1199]

hows this big job working out so curious

So, last night I ended up working over 4 hours OT. By the time I got home, all I really had time to do was get the rocks, water and fish back in. Was too tired to reinstall the light and get any pics. Today I got the lights remounted and here is a pic of the tank today.

I will run it bare bottom until the weekend when I have more time to make sure I have plenty of RO water for the final sand rinse.

The bag in the corner is the poor Diamond Watchman Goby that somehow got left in the holding can all night and day... I'm shocked hes not dead with no heat and water movement for around 20 hours.

 

[brandon429]

Well it looks totally clean, it cannot recycle. Any cycle risk interval has passed, major biofilter intact completely. Very very helpful as no bottle bac skip cycle works go.

 

[Jedi1199]

Well it looks totally clean, it cannot recycle. Any cycle risk interval has passed, major biofilter intact completely. Very very helpful as no bottle bac skip cycle works go.

One more example to further your, already well documented, research.

 

[Jedi1199]

I do not own an ammonia or Nitrite test kit so I can't, unfortunately, document the validity of the skip-cycle other than the fact the fish have been in the tank for over 20 hours now and none of them have died.

 

[brandon429]

And your unforseen variables too really, the freshwater portions thank you for documenting this new angle too

If you did own those kits they'd lie like dogs lol, clean water is our milieu

 

[Jedi1199]

And your unforseen variables too really, the freshwater portions thank you for documenting this new angle too

If you did own those kits they'd lie like dogs lol, clean water is our milieu

Ok Brandon, let's continue this topic a bit. Partly because I wish to document the entire process, and partly because I hope anyone else reading this will benefit from the discussion.

As you can see plain in the following photos, not ALL of the algae is gone. Sorry, but I do not have the patience for a job as tedious as picking every last hair off the frags with tweezers and a magnifying glass. I am concerned that by putting them back into the tank I may be setting myself up to face the exact same issue again in a few months.


So the question is: Is my fear misplaced? I have never seen you once recommend chemical solutions to issues like that and I prefer to avoid chemicals myself.

 

[brandon429]

We always treat the algae directly on surfaces during disassembly, out of tank, with peroxide. That way it only touches the target not the corals

We scrape the algae off with a knife not as tweezer pull, but knife tip scrape up and out that way the holdfasts are harmed. Final treatment on cleaned area is with peroxide direct, then rinse off after a few mins precise contact burn. Either that or balanced animal grazing will slow re encroachment

Removing all detritus removed all the algae fuel, this clean of a redo is great. Current algae tufts can live on their own stores a while. I bet direct follow up on sections will be needed but not urgently it looks great

 

[Jedi1199]

OK, so I am not a fan of chemical treatments, but I am also not naive enough to believe I wouldn't use them if it allows me to avoid manual removal of all of the algae that is interlaced in those coral frags.

Honestly I don't have the patience OR the time really.. I am sure there are plenty of other reefers that share that opinion.. otherwise they wouldn't MAKE those chemical fixes.. right?

 

[brandon429]

If I had to choose one hands off way among the many, meaning dose to the tank water I’d choose reef flux / fluconazole first and then vibrant as second place

those have decent fix rates in their respective work threads and it’s no violation to decent rip cleaning because they’re being used in the clean condition, low systemic loading, you wont chemical soup the setup now and I give fluconazole dosed and sustained per whatever its levels are a 75% chance of killing off the rest of the algae in a month


fluc has no known unintended animal kills I’ve heard of, it’s safe to try

 

[Jedi1199]

OK.. Another question.. Now that I have completed the rip clean, is it safe to add carbon? My water looks rather milky to me.

 

[brandon429]

Sure that’s good for particulate removal, pre rinse it well

 

[brandon429]

Its amazing the lysmata still kicking, very very sensitive organism there he’s a good water quality canary. I do believe the minor milky is sloughs from the rocks carried up and off in the currents

any type of filter crash is closed up corals tightly, very quick change to cloudy water, fish hovering or acting weird and dead shrimp

** feed lightly next two days much under norms then back to norm slowly towards end of week. Too much feed is something to consider as the tap rinsed surfaces rebound quickly in the tank by the hour.