Operation Save A Tank

[TNreefer123!]

One strong benefit you’ll get from deep cleaning vs using dosers is you get to skip compound clouding


when people dose fluc or vibrant to kill mass gha, it dies and rots in system and adds to old waste stores, which were feed for the original growth. This way above you did takes that rot out of the equation, your system looks clean because it is


they say some things can’t be done fast in reefing, well cycles and algae fixes don’t have to adhere to that rule.


the first sentence in our challenge thread says that algae problems will persist until human will overcomes the algae, nice will TN that looks to be owned by a resolved individual above

decrease light intensity ten pct off where it is now that will help a lot with growback. Follow up attention will be needed, this isn’t a one off fix any more than my lawn is a one off weed fix each year. New dandelions are coming next year, my butter knife is ready to blast them out. I’m resolved to not be the crappy yard neighbor just the same. This method above is a cycle free way of gardening, it allows you access without harm but the physical work is what did it


did you spray peroxide on the cleaned surfaces? If not it’s ok, that just reduces growback work it’s not a requirement.

Brandon. I also have a 90 gallon tank as well. I’ve been fighting cyano forever it seems like. Do you think I could take a similar approach ? Deep clean and spot treat the rock ?

 

[brandon429]

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

we do that type work there. It’s about 90% likely to work if you prep the sand exactly as we did. 10% are rough strains that grow back fast then you’ll have to try meds and dosers, but at least it will be in a clean condition tank with far less mass


lets see pics of the 90

*nice job collecting various work examples in one place. OP will have many choices they can take based on works here, nice job

 

[TNreefer123!]

Official Sand Rinse and Tank Transfer thread

If you are reading this thread to cure a tank invasion from a link I sent you, we do not need to identify your type of invasion here we do not need you to test anything at anytime regarding nitrate, phosphate etc Above all, we do not need to see a microscope slide picture of your invasion at...

www.reef2reef.com

we do that type work there. It’s about 90% likely to work if you prep the sand exactly as we did. 10% are rough strains that grow back fast then you’ll have to try meds and dosers, but at least it will be in a clean condition tank with far less mass


lets see pics of the 90

*nice job collecting various work examples in one place. OP will have many choices they can take based on works here, nice job

Don’t mind the fish. I turned the light on. They are still sleep walking lol.

 

[brandon429]

Hey rare changeup

that looks white light intensity caused more than anything you have a very clean sandbed cross section, as clean as our post ripped ones

Nice tanks! They have the expected growth due to missing grazers, nothing seemed wrong with either one.


i would remove rocks and clean externally yes, some peroxide in a spray bottle as misting, after total cleaning externally it’s not sprayed on the target, is ideal then rinse that off with saltwater and set rocks back. Detail siphon the rest of the mat up from the bed no rip clean needed since that rock scape is open easy access and low bioload tank, hand guide it


the siphoning to remove topical patches probably equates to ten or twenty gallons of new water made back up, that too is refreshing as a total move set for that specific tank


if you did that cleaning, then installed a cheap amazon pond sterilizer (they’re small) that cyano w probably not come back. If you want to clean first here, a few times it needed, that’s ideal and I think by dropping light intensity and upping blue vs white that combo alone will reduce your cleaning work. But a cheap pond sterilizer is likely to cheat the growback away anyway. Helpful on large tanks those sterilizers are. There are sterilizers for tanks like the turbo twist etc

but one that costs the same, and is rated for twenty five hundred gallons, is a better war tool and our trick is never installing them in the invaded condition. Only in the clean condition, to fight growback.
They don’t have to run forever, can be kept in a drawer until battle cheat time.

human hand from a resolved individual is what keeps the tank absolutely sharp clean, until maturation of the system let’s you back off. In 2025

for sure one day it comes, the cruise control earned. Much delayed. Mines been on cruise since 2009 no work at all other than when mushroom corals took over

we earn a true hands off nearly self running reef later, but not up front.

 

[TNreefer123!]

Hey rare changeup

that looks white light intensity caused more than anything you have a very clean sandbed cross section, as clean as our post ripped ones

Nice tanks! They have the expected growth due to missing grazers, nothing seemed wrong with either one.


i would remove rocks and clean externally yes, some peroxide in a spray bottle as misting, after total cleaning externally it’s not sprayed on the target, is ideal then rinse that off with saltwater and set rocks back. Detail siphon the rest of the mat up from the bed no rip clean needed since that rock scape is open easy access and low bioload tank, hand guide it


the siphoning to remove topical patches probably equates to ten or twenty gallons of new water made back up, that too is refreshing as a total move set for that specific tank


if you did that cleaning, then installed a cheap amazon pond sterilizer (they’re small) that cyano w probably not come back. If you want to clean first here, a few times it needed, that’s ideal and I think by dropping light intensity and upping blue vs white that combo alone will reduce your cleaning work. But a cheap pond sterilizer is likely to cheat the growback away anyway. Helpful on large tanks those sterilizers are. There are sterilizers for tanks like the turbo twist etc

but one that costs the same, and is rated for twenty five hundred gallons, is a better war tool and our trick is never installing them in the invaded condition. Only in the clean condition, to fight growback.
They don’t have to run forever, can be kept in a drawer until battle cheat time.

human hand from a resolved individual is what keeps the tank absolutely sharp clean, until maturation of the system let’s you back off. In 2025

for sure one day it comes, the cruise control earned. Much delayed. Mines been on cruise since 2009 no work at all other than when mushroom corals took over

we earn a true hands off nearly self running reef later, but not up front.

I will work on that this coming week. I’ve been interested in a UV sterilizer for awhile. And yes my T5 bulbs need to be replaced ASAP! Thanks !

 

[jjwelch83]

Quick update...
Everything is doing good. All the Glowing tetra freshwater rock have been removed and there is now a proper sand bed. so far there have been no ill affects to changed the entire substrate in one go. It has been only 24 hours and the water parameters have not changed just waiting for the dust to settle from the new substrate.

 

[brandon429]

Very strong double run nice job JJ that does look sharp

 

[Brett S]

Quick update...
Everything is doing good. All the Glowing tetra freshwater rock have been removed and there is now a proper sand bed. so far there have been no ill affects to changed the entire substrate in one go. It has been only 24 hours and the water parameters have not changed just waiting for the dust to settle from the new substrate.

That’s looking much better. I would keep a very close eye on your ammonia levels with all the changes, just to make sure your biological filter is keeping up with everything. I would test at least once a day or maybe even twice a day for a few days. Keep some ammonia neutralizer on hand as well, just in case you see the levels starting to register on your test.

 

[jjwelch83]

That’s looking much better. I would keep a very close eye on your ammonia levels with all the changes, just to make sure your biological filter is keeping up with everything. I would test at least once a day or maybe even twice a day for a few days. Keep some ammonia neutralizer on hand as well, just in case you see the levels starting to register on your test.

Yup that's the plan. Feed very little when I do feed and just watch and monitor daily.

 

[brandon429]

Ammonia issues cannot happen in a delay after the job, it’s a rule for reefing shown in the huge work thread above. Ammonia issues from changing the order of ops above happen and then self resolve within a couple hours, tied to the actual change out but not as a delayed response.

that sounds opinionated but it’s an important prep step before enacting the work because if we know what ammonia does before the job then we will be thorough in action and thats safer than hesitancy. In the work thread above we pre rinse all new sand so there is no clouding in the new setup. That was skipped here, but it’s harmless to do so as new sand clouding is silt vs dangerous detritus from the old bed.

we are only having it easy here *because* non seneye tests show no free ammonia. That’s rare, they usually show some on any reef, ten thousand searches show for api and red sea and even salifert. And if they did show typical .2, the test would be wrong even if readers were just sure this time in ten thousand they were right. The time you can have an ammonia issue from mixing sand around is within a few hours of the event, but not days after.



we would never believe, reference or react to a non seneye ammonia reading on these jobs, your tank water clarity and fish health is the meter, not the nine dollar ammonia test.

 

[brandon429]

The most important detail for this thread is that when completing job #301 of 300, something surprising isn’t going to happen out of the blue.

it’s not that we do 300 jobs and then get a fail. It’s that none of them fail if we consider the posted reference threads any sort of pattern.

we specifically don’t want ammonia testing here since it won’t be right anyway when/if it shows .2 ppm free ammonia days later

if someone wants to run the work on a seneye meter, we’d accept that input however.

 

[jjwelch83]

This evening I noticed some film at the top of the water along with a film build up on the glass. My polishing cloth was super dirty as expected without running a protein skimmer. I decided to test the nitrates as I was sure they would be high. Sure enough they look high all right. The vile on the left is from my 20 gal running a protein skimmer and the vile on the right is the 40 gal tank without the skimmer. I also have more fish in the 40 gal so that contributes to the difference as well.
Also both tanks have a refugium with some cheato growing.
The other pic is of my 20 gal with the lights off.

 

[brandon429]

Looking sharp, fish happy water laser clear and nitrate looks normal too, Paul B’s tank hits 160 ppm nitrate at times so its allowed to range tank to tank

 

[Tired]

If you aren't flooded in algae and your corals don't look bothered, the nutrients aren't too high for your tank. Don't worry about it.