Update: Well I continued siphoning out most of my sand in frustration. I also massively increased my flow by running my MP10's at 100% for a couple hours a day. This moves the remaining sand around and piles it up in one area where I can easily siphon. At this point about 80% of my sand is gone and I have bare bottom in several areas. Its also keeping the rocks clean. I continue to feed heavily and my Nitrates are running in the 20's and Phosphate is around .2
I also took my 14 gallon quarantine tank's little UV sterilizer and put it in my sump. Not sure it really does anything since it is so underpowered but I figured if theres not sand and these buggers are forced into the water column then maybe it will get some of them.
Corals are healthy but my Monti's have browned out. I started getting pretty heavy turf algae growing on the back glass and some areas of the rocks so I added a small Tomini Tang and he is cleaning things up pretty nicely.
The positive news is I am not seeing any hints of Dino's on the remaining sand. In the past, as the sand bed shrank, I would see them start showing up slowly wherever there remained some sand. Its been 10 days now and no sign of them late in the day as was the norm these last many months.
I'm going to leave the remaining think layer of sand in the tank as a monitor for resurgence of dino's. I'm also going to try and get my nutrients down a little over the next few weeks.
Will likely just leave the tank as is while I finish my 425xl build and finish cycling, then move the rocks and corals over and shut down this old tank for good.
I also took my 14 gallon quarantine tank's little UV sterilizer and put it in my sump. Not sure it really does anything since it is so underpowered but I figured if theres not sand and these buggers are forced into the water column then maybe it will get some of them.
Corals are healthy but my Monti's have browned out. I started getting pretty heavy turf algae growing on the back glass and some areas of the rocks so I added a small Tomini Tang and he is cleaning things up pretty nicely.
The positive news is I am not seeing any hints of Dino's on the remaining sand. In the past, as the sand bed shrank, I would see them start showing up slowly wherever there remained some sand. Its been 10 days now and no sign of them late in the day as was the norm these last many months.
I'm going to leave the remaining think layer of sand in the tank as a monitor for resurgence of dino's. I'm also going to try and get my nutrients down a little over the next few weeks.
Will likely just leave the tank as is while I finish my 425xl build and finish cycling, then move the rocks and corals over and shut down this old tank for good.