Cook's 105 Planet Aquariums Crystaline Reef - 48x20

[Cook]

These are images from this evening. I have done nothing other than protein skim and feed the tank since the cleaning. I will be doing a water change this weekend.
There is some algae stubble in a couple of areas. The sand has some diatom blooming as well. I added new rinsed sand along with rinsing the old sand, so I can’t say it’s a direct result of rinsing the old sand alone.

 

[brandon429]

Yes these are common and consistent reef associates agreed. The deep clean is so that upcoming topical cleans won’t cause clouding and tradeoff invasions. Also, in this very reduced mass some uv installed is really aligned as a powerful cheat

not that uv is required but it’s common in large setups where direct access is precluded. Additionally, common dosers folks experiment with are aligned much better against the fractional mass invasion. Same for cuc

still looks wonderful in close up detail

 

[Cook]

So it's time for some catch up. I was so happy with the results of the rip clean that I was over confident and I did not replenish my clean up crew quickly enough to keep the GHA at bay. The algae came right back and found more places to accumulate on the live rock that had previously not been exposed to light.

These images are from April 30th.

 

[Cook]

I started treating the tank with Flux Rx, Fluconazole, on May 2nd utilizing 150% of the recommended dosage. After 5 weeks, I was seeing some progress. I did three 20% water changes a couple of days apart in preparation for moving to a lower dosage for several more weeks and I ordered a full clean up crew from Reef Cleaners that arrived May 27th.

These are images from June 2nd. Essentially, the GHA was rebounding and the clean up crew was making slow progress.

 

[Cook]

I waited until June 11th before I decided to redose the tank again with Fluconazole as in theory, with my water changes, I should have maintained about 90% of the original dosage though I am sure this medication degrades over time. I added 50% of the recommended treatment on June 11th to ensure no harmful effects were seen with the CC. I waited a week and added 100% of the recommended dosage on the 18th. During the week of June 21st, there just really wasn't any progress, so I began to consider more extreme measures. What I am saying is that the GHA was still firmly attached to the rock work and manually trying to pull it off the rocks was very difficult.

Since the original rip clean and tank deconstruction, my rock work was not as stable as before and the Kenya Tree that I had moved near one of the gyres had gone from a model citizen to a branch dropping warmonger which was going to get out of control. Not to mention I was losing all my GHA progress I had made, so I was frustrated.

Instead of repeating the rip clean as I did it before, I took two buckets of salt water from the tank to use as a rinse bath and I removed 1/3 of the live rock from the tank, one rock at a time and took them outside. I then used a power washer to blast off all the GHA I could find and immediately after each rinse, I placed the rock back into the salt water bath which I hoped would minimize any die off and allow me to make sure there was no residual GHA. This took me maybe an hour of time total.

I reconstructed my rock work and waited two weeks to see what happened. There were no negative consequences to my drastic measures. During this time, I also turned off my refugium light.

 

[Cook]

The image below is from July 5th where you can see the left half of the tank rock work is clear of GHA, while the right side has dieback on the GHA, but it's still there. This is also with 9 weeks total of 80-150% dosage of Reef Rx. Encouraged by this, I pulled the rest of the rocks, one at a time as before, and power washed all those as well. A couple rocks with mounted corals I could only scrub manually and use Hydrogen Peroxide with a toothbrush where necessary.

I have been only sparingly feeding this tank the entire time. I also moved to TDO small pellets to reduce the phosphate input versus Hikari Marine Carnivore pellets.

I have only had this tank running for 2 and a half years, but the live rock is more than 8 years aged at this point, so I'm wondering if it is leaching phosphate. I have a frag tank that also had a GHA problem and the clean up crew addition has wiped that tank completely clean and gotten the GHA under control during this same time frame.

I did a 20% water change for this work, I used half for the live rock rinsing and I added another 50% of the recommended dosage of Reef Rx to the replacement water. I've been reading about dosing phyto to outcompete GHA. I'm going to use Purigen in two weeks to remove what's left of the fluconazole and see what results. There is some cyano that is appearing that I need to watch carefully.

 

[brandon429]

Cook I promised to never forget a good rip clean

see how your build was the flagship example he can use to rip clean below

hes got quite the matured 90 we need full access to, so we can rip out offending ricordeas

even though rip cleans seem overdoing it, removing all the rocks and changing out in the presence of unrinsed sand would hyper-age his tank, but ejection or detritus will renew it while keeping all the best attributes, he can see this in your build and follow ups before starting. Surgery on tanks is a big deal bug money line! We can always sense when someone is fed up with status quo though and they make the best reef surgeons.

Thinking about a rip clean.

I'm thinking about rip cleaning my 90 gallon. I have a little bit of cyano but that because of recent neglect on my part. The main reason is I want to rid my tank of mushrooms. There's one specifically that's absolutely taking over and now it to the point where they're affecting other corals...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[brandon429]

this is still the top work link in the sand rinse thread, that secondary round of access control above is exactly how to guide a maturing reef tank. I guarantee you in time thick coralline will build up that rejects the implantation of algae.

 

[Cook]

I can provide a little bit of catchup, since this post, I went from high phosphates back to zero as GHA started to reclaim my sump, GHA is still under control in the display area of the tank. The Planet Aquarium tanks, and I'm sure others, have a perfect GHA factory which is the overflow area as the water column is fully exposed to the light. I'm going to tackle that problem soon with an acrylic cover for the overflow.

August 5th: I power washed the other half of the rocks with zero ill effects. Just like before, I washed them off and then immediately placed them back into in a saltwater bath. The cyano has continued to be a problem and it was spreading despite water changes, sand cleaning, and brushing it off the rockwork while siphoning. I just completed a 3 day blackout as of this morning, so we will see what things look like tonight. I added a dose of Dr. Tim's Eco Balance last week and I am dosing live phyto every other day to try to course correct after the extended period that this tank was treated with fluconazole, 14 weeks total between the two extended treatments I tried. I also fragged my splatter hammer colony down to a much smaller size to make room for some frogspawn.

I can say that I have learned through all this to be less timid about destroying my carefully crafted ecosystem, though extreme measures inherently carry risk which each reef keeper must decide for themselves.

 

[Cook]

From August 13th:
The three day blackout did the trick for the cyano problem. No trace of it a week later. It’s interesting how these torches can change color as they adapt to tank conditions. My 21 tails, front left, has gotten a lot darker than when I first got it. I also added a NY Knicks. I never wanted one until I got to see it in person at a recent frag swap.

 

[brandon429]

what a powerful multi prong approach. I forgot this was a tapwater access run, we've done three of those lately and its great to see this one follow up.

one thing handy, the biofilter that endures all these treatment options really is locked in equally among reefs. What your tank can endure without recycling is what all tanks can endure, that inherent connection among tanks remains fascinating though agreed how we each anticipate variables and make unique tunes against them that's where invasion outcomes diverge. I'm seeing coral mass take over above, it will physically exclude a large portion of invasion issues for that to continue, its vital space takeover in action.

You're blending force control as the base, and then various tunings as intended growback management, from the controlled vs invaded vantage point. you never allowed this tank to go down hill, it still remains our top work example even better now. as soon as its tuned to where you don't need surgical assistance/external work then that's the graduated tune/you win.

 

[devlinsreef]

awesome thread!