24 gal Water of Life - Alexander

[uisge-beatha]

If I was going to clean the tank, I was going to do a thorough job of it!!

 

Yes, the cloudiness was from the new sand, despite rinsing it in a bucket 15-20 times. It cleared within about 6 hrs of the tank running again.

 

I think you're right about the ammonia, and I suspect the coral would be showing some stress if it was too high. We usually never measure ammonia, so it's entirely possible that the level normally fluctuates a bit, too.

[seabass]

First off, nice job.

It's not surprising, since I changed the sand, changed the filter sponge, killed the surface bacteria on the live rocks with the peroxide, AND killed a bunch of algae and benthic critters. The nitrifying bacteria should repopulate the tank fairly quickly, but I'll keep monitoring the cycle and dosing Prime to bind the ammonia (and nitrite, if necessary).

I also started dosing MB7 today, in an effort to prevent the cyanobacteria from taking hold again. I'll continue it daily for about two weeks, and then start to taper off to a weekly maintenance dose.

I don't believe that the peroxide killed the bacteria. However, you are correct about some of the benthic life that might have been on them (also the decaying algae). The API test is sensitive, so I believe that there is some total ammonia present (although Prime has temporarily converted the free ammonia to ammonium chloride). I'd keep dosing Prime for a few days (and MB7 is a nice add too). I think your tank will be fine.

[uisge-beatha]

The ammonia was down to 0 ppm (API) today, as brandon429 and seabass predicted. So, it looks like I avoided triggering a cycle by the rip clean process. I'll keep monitoring the ammonia for a week to make sure it's under control, but I think it'll be fine.

 

My hammer coral is beginning to recover, with 2 of the 4 heads getting fluffy and happy again. The other two heads are still closed up tight. I'm also having problems with my candy cane, which is losing tissue from it's stalk. They're supposed to be fairly hardy, so hopefully it will pull through. I fed all the coral some selcon & reef roids this morning, so maybe that will help - the candy cane definitely extended its feeding tentacles once there was food in the water.

[uisge-beatha]

It's been about 2 weeks since I rip cleaned the tank, and I'm happy to report that the livestock are happy, and there's been no sign of the algae or cyano returning. Interestingly, the chemistry of the tank is a lot more normal now, with nitrate at 5 ppm and phosphate at 0.1 ppm (both Salifert), versus the artificially low near-zero readings I was getting before. This tells me that there is indeed no cyano/algae to gobble up the nutrients before they can be used by desirable critters. See below for today's FTS.

 

[SquishyFishy]

The only thing I didn't do was scrub my rocks, left those in the tank then changed out the sand so there might have been bits of old rubble but not much.

 

The new sand bed was pristine for a couple of days and then.....itsh! IT returned. We'll see what comes of my dosing now.

 

I never had a spike, no ammonia, no nitrate/nitrite. I guess it could be complete lack of though! Ordered some new MB7 also, coming this next week.

 

Your tank looks beautiful.

[Cencalfishguy56]

It's been about 2 weeks since I rip cleaned the tank, and I'm happy to report that the livestock are happy, and there's been no sign of the algae or cyano returning. Interestingly, the chemistry of the tank is a lot more normal now, with nitrate at 5 ppm and phosphate at 0.1 ppm (both Salifert), versus the artificially low near-zero readings I was getting before. This tells me that there is indeed no cyano/algae to gobble up the nutrients before they can be used by desirable critters. See below for today's FTS.

 

what a difference!

[uisge-beatha]

The only thing I didn't do was scrub my rocks, left those in the tank then changed out the sand so there might have been bits of old rubble but not much.

 

The new sand bed was pristine for a couple of days and then.....itsh! IT returned. We'll see what comes of my dosing now.

 

I never had a spike, no ammonia, no nitrate/nitrite. I guess it could be complete lack of though! Ordered some new MB7 also, coming this next week.

 

Your tank looks beautiful.

 

I was surprised how much debris came off the rocks when I scrubbed and blasted them during the cleaning process. We tend to focus on the sand bed as the debris sink of the tank, but I suspect the rocks hold a lot of debris as well, particularly if they're porous.

 

Also, remember that cyano is a bacterium - it's tiny, and can hide anywhere. There may well have been some on your rocks that survived the cleaning process, and then re-populated the sand.

 

> Your tank looks beautiful.

 

Thank you!

[uisge-beatha]

I haven’t updated this thread since last fall, and in the interim I’ve neglected the tank somewhat.  However, I’m doing a bit of a re-boot of the tank, so I thought it would be a good time to update this tank log as well.  

What’s happened since my last update... no new denizens, and we lost Eric the Emerald crab and Tomaz the captive-bred Banggai cardinal.  Tomaz just sort of weakened and died, with no obvious cause.  It may have just been his time to go.  I also lost my favourite coral, the neon branching hammer, due to general tank neglect – I suspect my alkalinity got way too low for him.  

 

The cyanobacteria that I battled last summer never came back after rip-cleaning the tank, but we’ve got a fair amount of GHA waving in the current.    I’ve also recently noticed that some pink macroalgae has re-grown on the rock, after a year and a half!  It’s always fascinating to see what life those rocks harbour.  

My plan is to stabilize the chemistry, update the rockscape with some dry reef rock, de-algaeify the existing rocks, replenish the CUC, get some new fish & coral, and finally finish my DIY controller.  At that point, I’m going to upgrade my lights and circulation, and move toward keeping more LPS and some SPS.  It should be fun! 

 

[uisge-beatha]

Here’s my current plan for the new aquascape.  I’m going to build most of the structure using the new rock, but I’m planning to incorporate some of the nicer pieces of the existing rock to preserve the diversity of benthic life.  The fish are shown full grown – two ocellaris, maybe some sort of dottyback or basslet, a shrimp goby, and a either a midas or yellow fangtooth blenny.

 

And please… don’t be jealous of my awesome graphic design skills. 

 

 

[uisge-beatha]

Here's a current FTS.  This is just sad.  Although, that snail on the front glass has an awesome algae hairdo. 

 

The new rock has been ordered, and will be here late this week.  Maybe I can spend Mother's Day doing some aquascaping. 

 

[uisge-beatha]

Eeeee! This is going to be awesome!!   

 

[uisge-beatha]

Now I just have to figure out how to switch out the rock without causing a crash. 

 

I can't fit all the new rock in the tank without removing some of the existing rock.  I figure that adding new dry rock won't cause any problems, but removing the current rock to make room for the new stuff most definitely will.  Obviously, I can start curing the new rock in the meantime, and I'll be closely monitoring the ammonia level in the display tank.  I also need to think about my bumper crop of algae populating the new rocks, but I figure I'll just hit them with peroxide when I do the rest of the existing rocks later this week. 

 

Does anyone have any thoughts on how quickly I can swap out rocks in the display tank?  One rock every few days? every week? two weeks?  

 

Edit: I should clarify that this is dead dry rock - mined from land.  So there shouldn't be any organics waiting to break down when it gets wet.

 

 

[Weetabix7]

1 hour ago, uisge-beatha said:

Now I just have to figure out how to switch out the rock without causing a crash. 

 

I can't fit all the new rock in the tank without removing some of the existing rock.  I figure that adding new dry rock won't cause any problems, but removing the current rock to make room for the new stuff most definitely will.  Obviously, I can start curing the new rock in the meantime, and I'll be closely monitoring the ammonia level in the display tank.  I also need to think about my bumper crop of algae populating the new rocks, but I figure I'll just hit them with peroxide when I do the rest of the existing rocks later this week. 

 

Does anyone have any thoughts on how quickly I can swap out rocks in the display tank?  One rock every few days? every week? two weeks?  

 

Edit: I should clarify that this is dead dry rock - mined from land.  So there shouldn't be any organics waiting to break down when it gets wet.

 

 

 

Where exactly did you get it from? 

Not sure how long it needs to cure to get rid of phosphates, but that will depend on the source. 

Really hoping for good things for you in this reboot. 

Have you looked into fluconazole for the GHA. 

(awesome Fro on the snail, btw.)

There's a thread about it on here somewhere....

[uisge-beatha]

Aww, thanks Weetabix! I'm hoping for good things too 

 

I'm not worried about the GHA - I'll have a go at the rocks with my tweezers and then give them a soak in peroxide.  I beat back an epic case of cyano & GHA last year due to an autofeeder vacation disaster using brandon's methods, so I'll do the same thing again. 

 

The rock is Marco rock.  I gather that it's known for leaching some phosphate.  I may try putting a chunk in my DT to see how it affects my phosphate levels, and let the rest cook separately for now

.  

Here's my aquascape from earlier today.  There's also an arch that you can't see in the pic, so that there's swimming space side to side on the left of this photo.

[uisge-beatha]

Did some more research, and it sounds like my biggest issue may be less about phosphate and more about all that lovely uncolonized surface area being an algae magnet.  Given my tank's current ... ahem.. "relationship"  with algae, I'm going to cure the new rock for a few weeks on its own.  That way, it should start establishing a bit of a biofilm in addition to some de-nitrifying bacteria, and will hopefully be less susceptible to algae once it goes in the DT.

 

I'm still nervous about removing some of my existing rock, when the time comes.  I feel like it took about 18 mos. for the tank to really stabilize, and now I'm going to undo that progress!   I guess I'd better stock up on Prime and talk nicely to my skimmer. 

 

And I'm gonna have to get a better pic of that snail 'fro before I clean up the tank. 

[Weetabix7]

7 hours ago, uisge-beatha said:

Did some more research, and it sounds like my biggest issue may be less about phosphate and more about all that lovely uncolonized surface area being an algae magnet.  Given my tank's current ... ahem.. "relationship"  with algae, I'm going to cure the new rock for a few weeks on its own.  That way, it should start establishing a bit of a biofilm in addition to some de-nitrifying bacteria, and will hopefully be less susceptible to algae once it goes in the DT.

 

I'm still nervous about removing some of my existing rock, when the time comes.  I feel like it took about 18 mos. for the tank to really stabilize, and now I'm going to undo that progress!   I guess I'd better stock up on Prime and talk nicely to my skimmer. 

 

And I'm gonna have to get a better pic of that snail 'fro before I clean up the tank. 

 

I completely understand!!!

However, it sounds to me like you know what you're doing and obviously know how to research and find solutions. 

I think you're on a good track. 

I don't know if this would be helpful to you or not, but some people keep Macroalgaes in their display so that they will outcompete pest algae for nutrients. 

I've also seen people utilize an ATS (algae turf scrubber) for the same purpose. 

Just some thoughts.....

[uisge-beatha]

Yes, I've considered macroalgae, and would definitely like to add some in the future. I think I'm going to keep things simple with respect to refugiums and algae scrubbers, etc., but thanks for the suggestion. 

 

I've also heard that regular tank maintenance can help prevent algae. I'll have to try that too. 

[uisge-beatha]

Aargh, I have no luck with livestock.  

 

I'd been hesitating to get more fish for a long time because I've been having trouble finding the captive-bred fish I wanted - the availability of CB fish isn't very good here, aside from clowns and super-expensive dottybacks.  I decided that maybe it was time to go with fish from the ocean.  

 

So, I picked out a lovely midas blenny on Friday as an early Mothers' Day present to myself.  I visited him a few times at the store, and he's fat and healthy and I saw him eating pellets.  Good stuff.  Brought him home, and he's been slowly getting used to his new tank.  He ate gut-loaded brine shrimp yesterday.  All was going well.  

 

Until this morning.... when I woke up, the temperature in the QT was down to 70 deg F from 78.  The heater must have failed over night.  I quickly swapped in my other heater, but the water is really cold and the poor blenny is looking very stressed - dark stripes.  I really hope he pulls through! 

[Weetabix7]

23 minutes ago, uisge-beatha said:

Aargh, I have no luck with livestock.  

 

I'd been hesitating to get more fish for a long time because I've been having trouble finding the captive-bred fish I wanted - the availability of CB fish isn't very good here, aside from clowns and super-expensive dottybacks.  I decided that maybe it was time to go with fish from the ocean.  

 

So, I picked out a lovely midas blenny on Friday as an early Mothers' Day present to myself.  I visited him a few times at the store, and he's fat and healthy and I saw him eating pellets.  Good stuff.  Brought him home, and he's been slowly getting used to his new tank.  He ate gut-loaded brine shrimp yesterday.  All was going well.  

 

Until this morning.... when I woke up, the temperature in the QT was down to 70 deg F from 78.  The heater must have failed over night.  I quickly swapped in my other heater, but the water is really cold and the poor blenny is looking very stressed - dark stripes.  I really hope he pulls through! 

 

Oh no, I'm so sorry!!!!

Hang in there U-B Blenny!!!!

[uisge-beatha]

Thanks, Weetabix7!  I'm hoping he'll pull through.  At least the heater didn't fail on. 

[uisge-beatha]

QT is up to 73, and "Alexander" is looking a lot more yellow. We'll see how he does, but so far so good. 

 

My 9-yr old named him after the mineral alexandrite, which apparently also changes colour. I learn something new everyday! 

[uisge-beatha]

Alright, the blenny is swimming and eating again.  Whew! 

[Lula_Mae]

That snail hairdo! I have also heard tank maintenance prevents algae so I am also trying it out lol.  Fingers crossed Alexander pulls through--that's a really neat name selection by your kiddo!

[Weetabix7]

5 minutes ago, uisge-beatha said:

Alright, the blenny is swimming and eating again.  Whew! 

 

Hoooraaaaay, may there be continued improvement throughout the day!!!

I almost got one of those fish a couple of days ago and will likely get one before long. 

[uisge-beatha]

Thanks Lula_Mae!  The funny thing is she totally forgot that her cousin is named Alexander too.  She's brilliant but a bit of a space cadet.