- Joined
- Dec 20, 2017
- Messages
- 174
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- 106
My tank crashed. It sucks, but I'm trying to look at it from a "glass half full" point of view. Now I get to build a new rockscape and do things differently. I'm planning on sterilizing the tank and starting with dry sand and dry rock.
Before the crash, the old tank had a very persistent form of calcareous brush or beard algae that nothing would eat, and no chemical or biological treatment could kill. I want to make very VERY sure that I don't accidentally reintroduce that stuff to the rebuilt tank. I tried all kinds of snails, urchins, vibrant, fuconazole, etc. Nothing worked. It feels like steel wool to the touch and it was very unpleasant to look at.
Also, I had a major problem with vermitid snails. Every single rock and frag plug was peppered with them so badly that grabbing a rock felt like picking up a very sharp hedgehog. They sucked up tons of calcium and alkalinity that should have been going to my corals, and I really don't want them again ether.
So here's my current situation. I have a QT tank that is currently full of fish, small coral frags, unhappy anemones, snails, random other inverts, and a big ball of chaeto that all survived. All of those things are contaminated with both the calcareous brush algae that I hate, and the plague-like species of vermitid snails. Some of them I can trash and re-aquire without too much guilt, specifically the chaeto ball, but the snails actually have both those pests growing directly on their shells and I really don't want to kill the snails.
If you were in my situation, what techniques would you guys use to make sure that you didn't reintroduce those pests into your sterile tank environment? What would you just get rid of, and what would you try to clean and save, and how would you do it?
Before the crash, the old tank had a very persistent form of calcareous brush or beard algae that nothing would eat, and no chemical or biological treatment could kill. I want to make very VERY sure that I don't accidentally reintroduce that stuff to the rebuilt tank. I tried all kinds of snails, urchins, vibrant, fuconazole, etc. Nothing worked. It feels like steel wool to the touch and it was very unpleasant to look at.
Also, I had a major problem with vermitid snails. Every single rock and frag plug was peppered with them so badly that grabbing a rock felt like picking up a very sharp hedgehog. They sucked up tons of calcium and alkalinity that should have been going to my corals, and I really don't want them again ether.
So here's my current situation. I have a QT tank that is currently full of fish, small coral frags, unhappy anemones, snails, random other inverts, and a big ball of chaeto that all survived. All of those things are contaminated with both the calcareous brush algae that I hate, and the plague-like species of vermitid snails. Some of them I can trash and re-aquire without too much guilt, specifically the chaeto ball, but the snails actually have both those pests growing directly on their shells and I really don't want to kill the snails.
If you were in my situation, what techniques would you guys use to make sure that you didn't reintroduce those pests into your sterile tank environment? What would you just get rid of, and what would you try to clean and save, and how would you do it?