Hi everyone,
I recently posted about my GHA problems, and thanks to @brandon429 (and some inspiration from @WVU247), it looks like I got everything under control.
TL/DR:
Now I have new questions - all help is welcome and appreciated!
BEFORE - Here you can see some of the GHA, but there was much, much more. There were also lots of little caves/coves where the flow was awful.
AFTER - full tank shot
AFTER - happy paly and GSP
AFTER - happy duncan
I recently posted about my GHA problems, and thanks to @brandon429 (and some inspiration from @WVU247), it looks like I got everything under control.
TL/DR:
- I siphoned out all gravel, washed until clean, and replaced
- I scrubbed every bit of GHA off the rocks with a grill brush and replaced
- But it took two tries. After the first, unsuccessful, cleaning, I lost ~80% of my zenias, all of my snails, all of my fish, and my one lonely cleaner shrimp
- Before/middle/after pics below
Now I have new questions - all help is welcome and appreciated!
- How do I prevent the same kind of build-up of crap in my gravel? There's clearly some part of basic maintenance that I've been missing. Does one need to vacuum it all up regularly? That seems like a major hassle.
- What should I look out for before replacing livestock? I test for Nitrates, Phosphates, and Ph. Should I be testing for something else?
- I don't currently have any cleaner snails. Should I replace these with some urgency?
- When the GHA was at massive proportions, I stopped feeding my corals separately. Just fed the fish a small amount of mysis twice a day. Should I start feeding the corals now that there isn't much for them to eat in the water column?
BEFORE - Here you can see some of the GHA, but there was much, much more. There were also lots of little caves/coves where the flow was awful.
AFTER - full tank shot
AFTER - happy paly and GSP
AFTER - happy duncan