another 0.7 pico

[brandon429]

Using kalk to burn off unwanted hitchhikers is still part of total substrate control so I vote for it 100%

 

if someone discovered any solution at all that had a cellular kill component, and residuals that were tolerable in the tank, then its all on par with peroxide. many are using straight tech M from kent as the algae spot treatment, not dosing it to the tank. The recurring theme Im seeing in your tank is indefinite biological lifespan by controlling what deposits and what does not.

 

[brandon429]

Roland

 

Your thread is an example of planning, persistence, thorough tank access, and more

 

A bump for you because I've linked you a lot recently and your .7 is being used right now at reef2reef as a procedural model for tearing down and cleaning giant reef tanks. Told you it was an example larger tankers can appreciate

 

Totm people, don't delay.

[Cameron6796]

yeah its been a year i think TOTM is acceptable

[Roland-Berlin]

Now it has happened: during some cleaning work, the reef rock precipitate from the sink, shattering on the tiled floor. Most of the single rocks fall apart, without causing any visible injury to the animals. Besides being angry because of my awkwardness, I first was not anxious about the animals. I put the single rocks back into the tank, without fixing them, waiting that the animals will get well again. Misjudgement: the next day all animals were in a bad condition, and one day later, the first animals started to dissolve. Starting wc did not change course, so I decided to evacuate all dwellers into my bigger reef. SPS is still bleaching and I know that it has reached its point of no return, LPS and soft corals are still fighting, tridacna was not opening for a millimeter any more. I have no explanation for this. As an act of desperation, I put tridacna back into the primal 0.7tank again, and now it is the first time, it opens up at least a little bit.

 

point of no return flicker of hope

last full view:

DAMN

[Roland-Berlin]

Roland

 

Your thread is an example of planning, persistence, thorough tank access, and more

 

A bump for you because I've linked you a lot recently and your .7 is being used right now at reef2reef as a procedural model for tearing down and cleaning giant reef tanks. Told you it was an example larger tankers can appreciate

 

Totm people, don't delay.

... and now, everything is destroyed. In one second. What a backstroke. I think, it is essential not to post sucess only, but also to adhere to throwbacks. I hope, that the story is not at its end. Although it feels like a total failure. Rubbish: it is a total failure.

[brandon429]

I agree these are the stresses of micro reefing, the hardware aspect of things is our daunting risk. is there any way we can trace out biologically some ways to save things? I accidentally left some pocillopora out in the air for 35 mins the other day it was baked dry. didn't think it would make it...id forgot about setting it out of the tank to clean around it.

 

90% recovery within a week, my goal being that in 5-7 more days some life can come back? the breaking of the rocks should still render them ok, the physical dropping of the clam I agree only time can tell if its ok. but the corals...if they weren't literally dried out, any non burnt portions will come back, mine always do. What aspects of the reef can be saved and parted back into service if you had to guess? maybe not too late! I have dropped acans and caulastrea lps on the floor before and if it shattered the polyp down through the middle I did lose some, but if it cracked only the edges those always grew back over after I parted off the broken piece to allow the flesh to grab onto solid parts still left on the corallite

 

Andrewk has another long term reef on here, the middle of his thread documents some physical insults and recoveries it does happen to all eventually, the test of this magnitude

[Roland-Berlin]

I agree these are the stresses of micro reefing, the hardware aspect of things is our daunting risk. is there any way we can trace out biologically some ways to save things? I accidentally left some pocillopora out in the air for 35 mins the other day it was baked dry. didn't think it would make it...id forgot about setting it out of the tank to clean around it.

 

90% recovery within a week, my goal being that in 5-7 more days some life can come back? the breaking of the rocks should still render them ok, the physical dropping of the clam I agree only time can tell if its ok. but the corals...if they weren't literally dried out, any non burnt portions will come back, mine always do. What aspects of the reef can be saved and parted back into service if you had to guess? maybe not too late! I have dropped acans and caulastrea lps on the floor before and if it shattered the polyp down through the middle I did lose some, but if it cracked only the edges those always grew back over after I parted off the broken piece to allow the flesh to grab onto solid parts still left on the corallite

 

Andrewk has another long term reef on here, the middle of his thread documents some physical insults and recoveries it does happen to all eventually, the test of this magnitude

thank you for your comforting words. I will follow your advice and will cut back the broken pieces of sps- .... time will show, and hope dies at last.

 

 

 

...

emergency surgery

[brandon429]

I know how stressful that is but if im reading correctly the main insult was dropping, not a chemical insult into the water? Id prefer dropping my entire vase on the floor to any chem insults, as crazy as that sounds. the physical act of dropping will probably only kill the clam, and it may live just fine if currently open, its really not insulting to corals past the actual physical break which in many cases is just like fragging

 

if I had to choose between someone putting in 5x too much alkalinity mix in my reef and letting it sit 30 mins, or picking up my whole vase and dropping it on the floor, id pick the floor and have a bunch of towels ready. id then run to wal mart, buy a new vase, and be reefing/mopping within the hour. my whole system could in fact sit on the floor, in the air, while shopping for the new vase, after all we have trained them like that *by design* this is just another emersion test for your system, test number 40 or so. the way we care for pico reefs actually selects for benthic growth and coral growth designed to handle the very test your system is enduring. we toughen pico reefs by being as thorough.

[Christopher Marks]

Sorry to hear this Roland

 

Keep working on that SPS, it is incredible how resilient they can be!

[Roland-Berlin]

Sorry to hear this Roland

 

Keep working on that SPS, it is incredible how resilient they can be!

thank you... I will report about their resilience.

[Roland-Berlin]

I know how stressful that is but if im reading correctly the main insult was dropping, not a chemical insult into the water? Id prefer dropping my entire vase on the floor to any chem insults, as crazy as that sounds. the physical act of dropping will probably only kill the clam, and it may live just fine if currently open, its really not insulting to corals past the actual physical break which in many cases is just like fragging

 

if I had to choose between someone putting in 5x too much alkalinity mix in my reef and letting it sit 30 mins, or picking up my whole vase and dropping it on the floor, id pick the floor and have a bunch of towels ready. id then run to wal mart, buy a new vase, and be reefing/mopping within the hour. my whole system could in fact sit on the floor, in the air, while shopping for the new vase, after all we have trained them like that *by design* this is just another emersion test for your system, test number 40 or so. the way we care for pico reefs actually selects for benthic growth and coral growth designed to handle the very test your system is enduring. we toughen pico reefs by being as thorough.

I guess, that there has to be some chemical insult into the water... the mechanical irritation was massive, but of course no coral will die because of this. I suppose, that some chemicals enclosed in the rocks caused the crash. The disrupt of the stone could have released these chemicals... leading to an intoxication. I had picked up the rocks from different beaches, I fixed them with commercial quality coral gum. Therefore, I have taken out all rocks of the tank.

[brandon429]

Crash detailing is fascinating, and specific biology we can trace it out to see if a real crash occurred

 

 

ammonia is the root of all crashes (chemically speaking) and there should be no source for ammonia inside the rocks, we clean too well for that, we are hands on for just that reason. If you can get a non API ammonia test kit, something that search returns show to be reliable for small level measurements like salifert, you can test the water the rocks and coral and clam sit in for ammonia. no ammonia, no cycle, and they are all just showing signs of the physical impact stress not a real cycle. as frustrating as it is to detail your tank's breakage, this is another learning example a plenty in your thread.

 

if you had been less clean, less hands off right now allowing the typical detritus storage in reef systems the masses do, such as live rocks full of untouched detritus, and a stinky sandbed, then you would have recycled and probably lost it all.

 

 

the hands on nature of your tank care that you detail here makes your reef as bulletproof as it can be, I actually expect your tank based on known history to have to recycle at all, just a droppage insult temporarily shown as withdrawn polyps

 

AndewK wasn't as extensive as we are in our water care and tank cleaning, his system was built around a little more dilution and 50% water changes with not much ever draining the tank and he used gfo, so his outcome was the same as ours-no detritus stored up.

he had a detritus-free design, no sandbed and he did remove detritus during the 50% water changes. Detritus causes ammonia causes recycling, his tank didn't recycle when he lost half the corals since it was so clean, just from a different angle.

 

Clean tanks can survive what just happened to your tank Roland, even your own .7 has a 95% chance of not much loss at all as long as no waste stores were made available during the break. clean live rock can be broken without a problem and used with no chemical poisons.

[Roland-Berlin]

It is more than 6 month ago, since my pico crashed. All animals were in a pitiable condition, and there was a sore temptation to break of the efforts to keep them alive. What I finally did is to make a new setup in a bigger tank, (30l, 8Gallon) with one fresh living rock. I cut down the dead parts of sps, thinking that it would be hopeless to wait and see. But after a while (about two weeks), the marvel began, when all animals started to recover. There was no single loss of any coral live, and after some more weeks, all wounds were healed and the corals stated to grow again. Although the bigger reef is in a quite good shape, it is not what I am really interested in (clearly visible on the uncleaned glass). And the first small 0.7 glass container, littered with scratched is still whispering, that it could host a small marine world again.

 

coral bleaching in march 2016

 

cut back coral

 

hidden in a bush of makro algae: the clam still growing.

 

a snapshot made today

 

[ABC]

That's great nothing has died, that's a great accomplishment. Can't wait to see the next build

[Christopher Marks]

How is everything doing in the new larger tank? I hope you will start a new topic to journal your new 8 gallon nano reef, we all enjoy your aquarium updates @Roland-Berlin!

[brandon429]

Roland

 

I just used you as a reference, man. Your work contributes to pico reef biology

 

This is a valid reference for anyone to chart long term clam growth in sub gallon systems, should that need arise.

A clam in pico, sustained correctly with proofs, is highest level pico reefing i can think of and this thread shows prudent design, follow through, persistence.

B

[Roland-Berlin]

Hello, everyone.
... ...four years after my last posting.
The world has changed, I have changed too. But I still have salty fingers.
And on my desk there's still this mini vase.
But the "reef" has changed a lot. I have given all my animals to friends with big saltwater aquariums. What remained is a stone covered with algae. No corals, no anemones, no shrimps and of course no fish in this mini puddle. Instead bacterial lawn and algae. As the only "higher" life form a worm-shell (Dendropoma sp) has settled down.
It is probably ridiculous, but I like to look at this small world with a magnifying glass. I change water irregularly, from time to time I fill up the evaporated water with water from a freshwater tank. I like to colonize sponges or foramifers, or other tiny creatures that are not for sale.
At the moment I like to explore fish markets and search for overgrown clams to increase the biodiversity in the pico. But I have not yet found what I am looking for.
 

 

 

[Christopher Marks]

It's great to hear from you @Roland-Berlin, thanks for checking in with an update on the tiny reef.

 

It can be fun to see what grows in these little ecosystems, even more simple life forms. Is this your only saltwater tank at the moment?