Sadies Biocube 16

[DannoOMG]

Can I ask a question Saddie?

 

I am about to rip clean my nano tank. You said you scraped your rocks with a knife and the longest you took was an hour on one of the rocks? Was the rock out of the water the entire time you did that?

 

I'm new to this hobby and I am not sure how that process works.

[brandon429]

I'll add my max time out of water was 33 mins with all rocks and corals in the air. Curious how long Sadie has hers in the air. 

 

 

There's really no need though, a mist bottle of saltwater is a creative simple workaround. With that setup, it would be possible for some corals to stay days on end emersed as a test. The filter bacteria would never die if occasionally misted, days out of the water. If concerned over cleaning time add in some support misting. It's the key to coralline preservation too. Keep it misted during the takedown and reassembly

[sadie]

6 hours ago, DannoOMG said:

Can I ask a question Saddie?

 

I am about to rip clean my nano tank. You said you scraped your rocks with a knife and the longest you took was an hour on one of the rocks? Was the rock out of the water the entire time you did that?

 

I'm new to this hobby and I am not sure how that process works.

yes, it was out of the water the whole time, it was more like 45 minutes for the scraping and then 5 min with the peroxide on it, then the rinse with the tank water I took out of my tank.  I had a spray bottle of salt water from my tank that I misted on the RFA and toad stool every 10-15 minutes to keep them moist.

 

good luck, if you have any more questions, feel free to ask.  I am sooooo happy with my tank after the rip clean.  Everything is doing great.  I love it.

[DannoOMG]

10 hours ago, sadie said:

yes, it was out of the water the whole time, it was more like 45 minutes for the scraping and then 5 min with the peroxide on it, then the rinse with the tank water I took out of my tank.  I had a spray bottle of salt water from my tank that I misted on the RFA and toad stool every 10-15 minutes to keep them moist.

 

good luck, if you have any more questions, feel free to ask.  I am sooooo happy with my tank after the rip clean.  Everything is doing great.  I love it.

 

Thank you for the response.

 

My tank is hella cranky and corals are closing, some are bleaching. I hope this helps. (13 gallon tank)

 

[sadie]

that's almost exactly what my tank looked like, except I let mine get way worse than that.  It was a mix of cyano, maybe some dinos, briopsis, GHA it was terrible.  In March I took all my coral out and scrubbed the algae off with a toothbrush dipped in peroxide.  It was gone for a few days but came right back with a vengeance.  It wasn't until I did the rip clean that I finally got it under control.  The algae comes back, but now it's in small patches I can manage.  It was overwhelming before and I couldn't clean it as fast as it would come.

 

Nice tank by the way, I like your rock work.  Nice corals.  

[DannoOMG]

This is what it looked like before it went to hell.

 

Even with the GHA at least the corals were kind of happy.

[sadie]

It will look like that again, don't give up!

[brandon429]

 Danno any rocks you can lift out, and practice rasp surgery on them before the actual job will help, it’s less to do on the big day. It would be possible to even have all rock detailing done + peroxide after treatment before the rip clean. It will free up that day greatly to not have rock surgery worked in. You could just power rinse them in saltwater on that date vs surgery plus rinse plus peroxide  

 

 

 

the rip clean would then remove fuel for algae from the sandbed, the waste clouding. For sure light levels need brought down the current bleaching indicates it was slightly too strong so far. Blue, less intensity sustained a few months 

 

a decent drop in intensity, it’s not going to hurt the corals. 

[sadie]

It's strange how things change.  When I had a bad day or had to deal with something really hard, it was my tank that got pushed aside and neglected.  Today I had to put down my 11 year old German Shepherd.  It was the hardest thing I have had to do in so long.  I found solace and comfort in my tank today even while scraping and cleaning...it's strange.

 

2 MONTH RIP CLEAN UPDATE:

 

I just realized I haven't been taking pictures BEFORE I do my weekly cleaning.  I did today.  There is barely any cyano left, just a bit at the border of the bottom of one rock and maybe a hint on the side floor.  There is a bit of algae on my main rocks so I decided that for my 2 month mark, I would pull my main rock out and scrape, peroxide and rinse.  While I had the rocks out I stirred the sand and cleaned the glass where the sand touches it.

 

It is getting easier to see where the algae is on the wet rocks and I am getting faster at scraping. I was holding the knife so tight, my hand would cramp after a while, but now I don't.  To do everything I did took me about 40 minutes and that's counting clean up in  my kitchen and bathroom and wiping down the tank and stand, and cleaning all my rags and cloths I used.  I would say the tank cleaning itself took about 1/2 an hour.

 

Here is a picture of my dog Sadie,  I will post tank pictures later of before and after.

 

 

[kimdawg]

Really sorry for your loss.  I have experienced that and it is not easy.  My pup is my service animal and is nine years old now.  It makes you wish they could live for ever.

[brandon429]

Sadie somehow I’d missed the post detail about losing your very long term buddy my goodness I’m so sorry. When Kim posted that and I went back to read I was shocked 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Very sorry for your loss. We had to put down our first dog, Snow, in 2013 due to mammary cancer. Years later and we still think of her. Stay strong, Sadie. 🌺

[sadie]

12 hours ago, kimdawg said:

Really sorry for your loss.  I have experienced that and it is not easy.  My pup is my service animal and is nine years old now.  It makes you wish they could live for ever.

Thank you.  It would be so nice if they lived as long as we did. It's a shame that we're lucky if we get 10m yrs.  My husband had a German Shepherd that lived 15 yrs.

8 hours ago, brandon429 said:

Sadie somehow I’d missed the post detail about losing your very long term buddy my goodness I’m so sorry. When Kim posted that and I went back to read I was shocked 

no problem, Brandon, I do stuff like that all the time. Thanks

[sadie]

7 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Very sorry for your loss. We had to put down our first dog, Snow, in 2013 due to mammary cancer. Years later and we still think of her. Stay strong, Sadie. 🌺

Thank you,

[sadie]

Here is the before and after of my tank.  It took me about 45 minutes of cleaning.  

You can see the patches of GHA on the main rock and the line of cyano in front where the sand meets the glass, and a little cyano at the base of my left rock.

 

I noticed I am getting this orange coraline algae that looks really cool under my blue lights.  I have always had orange algae, but it never glowed before, not even under the blue lights. 

 

[DannoOMG]

My rip clean:

* I scraped rocks prior to the day of the rip clean.

* Vinegar bath for tank and all equipment.

* Rinsed sand for over an hour.

 

Rock scraping before and after pics. I struggled seeing algae when these things were out of the tank. I was also a bit of a sissy getting algae out between my zoas. I did my best. I noticed one one of the rocks the sand underneath it was rock solid. I assume this is from my dosing of calcium or me being dumb using "purple up" in the past. I was able to knock it off the structure. I ended up removing full chunks of rocks with wire cutters due to frustration with scraping. On the day of the rip clean I put peroxide on those scraped spots for 5 minutes out of the water, then rinsed them in old tank water.

 

 

Heated up new tank water in a 10 gallon bucket the night before the rip clean:

 

[DannoOMG]

Day of the rip clean. I put the critters/rocks/corals in another 10 gallon bucket. Filled it half ways and put in a pump and heater to keep them happy. Then I put the remaining water in another bucket for rock and coral rinsing.

 

I then removed the sand from the tank in another bucket. It took me over and hour to rinse it. I dumped 4 gallons of RO water in the sand for the final rinse.

 

Before:

 

End of rinse:

 

 

I then gave the equipment and tank a vinegar bath. I used a spray bottle to spray the entire tank. It was quite filthy. I also scrubbed the tank with a sponge that is used for scrubbing dishes.

 

 

I also used paper towels soaked in vinegar to try and clean the back wall. Not easy to clean that with out making gouges to get the coraline algae off.

 

 

I rinsed the tank out a lot. I let it dry in the sun when it was done.

 

Once I was done I brought the tank back in the house and put the sand back in it.

 

 

[brandon429]

heart emoji for tank surgery 

[DannoOMG]

I then put the new tank water back in the tank. Salinity was the same as the old tank water. I had redone the scape so nothing was touching the sides of the tank for hopefully better flow.

 

Before tank pictures:

 

After pictures :

 

Day 1:

 

Day 3:

 

Day 2 video :

 

https://imgur.com/a/q3AFXv9

 

I started the rip clean at 8:30 am and ended around 3:00 pm. If I didn't work on the rocks before it would have taken me a lot longer.

 

Now I am trying to maintain properly. Hope it works.

 

 

Me feeding the little buggers. Sorry for the goofy camera angle:

 

https://i.imgur.com/NtRQ7UZ.mp4

[sadie]

It looks AMAZING!!  It is hard to see the algae out of the water.  I struggled with that too.  then when you put them back int he tank, you see all you missed.  I do pull the rocks back out from time to time and scrape them and peroxide them again.  I am getting pretty good at seeing the algae now and i am getting quicker at scraping.

 

It is so much easier doing maintenance on a clean tank rather then trying to catch up on a messy tank.  It amazes me how quickly everything opens back up after all that work, but they do.

 

It looks great!!

[brandon429]

I’m going 3/3 🙂

 

 

Just now I sent a pm to a new rtr help post showing them page twelve here and advising them to read to the end. They have a small 30 gallon reef full of dinos.

 

We will see if this reader has as much resolve to win as you and Danno. The psychology of invasion is just too much for 99% to bear: they get their procedural options solely from large tank threads, they don’t know nano reefs have a different option set due to easy access. Hands off months wrecked is for large tankers only.

 

There isn’t anything in the allowed procedure rule books that permits us to be fixed overnite, that’s just not reefing as we know it. Reefing as we know it is a monthslong toil of loss, doses, purchases and excuses given to all viewers as to why a tank is wrecked. There isn’t a paradigm available to justify being invaded on a Wednesday and uninvaded on a Thursday, so most won’t even attempt.

 

 

good thing there’s two clear wins on file here, maybe we will get 3/3 time will tell. Davis, bro I invite you to be uninvaded 

 

 

you’ve tried literally everything in the commoners toolkit since March and it’s all 100% not working, neither will your silicate - let’s fix that nano reef right up. Look what Sadie does in her work examples, copy it exactly.

 

Davis, notice on Dannos reef we didn’t ID his cells. We didn’t post params, we ripped it clean, so simple. So opposite of hesitation, delay, months of red blanketing all over the tank.

[DannoOMG]

I would like to mention that my GHA algae was annoying but before this disastrous dino outbreak it didn't completely hurt my enjoyment of the tank. Corals were still open and things were moving along. Once (whatever this was) happened and the tank suddenly started going to hell is when I was about to throw in the towel. So rather pulling the ejector seat and giving all my stuff away I figured I should try to do this rip clean.

 

Now almost all of my corals are opened now. My torch has never been this open, my acans look healthy. Even my half dead digitata is showing signs of regrowth. Ya some stupid GHA is coming back in some spots but I have want to try something with a specific CUC critter next week to hit all the nooks and crannies as well as scraping rocks. But the point is I don't hate my tank anymore. Even my cocoworm is growing back new heads and to be honest I am surprised it has survived this long.

 

 

P.S

 

Something else I noticed is the GHA/Low tide smell is gone from the tank.

[brandon429]

Those are deep shock update pics

 

I can state on record Danno has the most ideal nano reef feeding I’ve seen and I plan on ordering some of the stuff he has, especially live pods. My bowl needs some added back. 
 

 

Danno isn’t it right you’re feeding reef energy a and b

 

and mysis or brine, whichever is available

 

and pro phytoplankton…not just seachem from a bottle phyto - with preservatives, Danno’s got isolated culture reef feed phyto from algae barn 

 

and to top it off, he’s adding fresh roti feast. My whole nano runs on roti alone, I haven’t feed reef a and b energy in a while as I ruined a new bottle by leaving it out all weekend.

 

 

so all this food for Danno’s tank in short bursts, timed with water changes set for 6-8 weeks recurring, may just increase some spot algae management work as a tradeoff.
 

 

What it’s doing for corals will be worth it. I predict a series of small, surgical and tactical precision gardening runs needed on Danno’s tank to keep it keeled the right direction 

 

 

and then with cpr pumps of feed + water change, feed + water change the reef will pop large by late august. The caloric expenditure Dan makes in feeding + water change over and over is driving mass directly into corals. He’s shooting food into the corals mouths as pipette feeding a couple times a week, Arnold Schwarzenegger corals are coming.

 

 

 

[brandon429]

@sadie this picture here u posted 

 

It has the classic empty water look, clean as air inside, that’s the cleanest possible see-through water picture one could ask for in a nano reef I enjoyed seeing that.

[sadie]

 

 

2 hours ago, DannoOMG said:

Now almost all of my corals are opened now. My torch has never been this open, my acans look healthy. Even my half dead digitata is showing signs of regrowth. Ya some stupid GHA is coming back in some spots but I have want to try something with a specific CUC critter next week to hit all the nooks and crannies as well as scraping rocks. But the point is I don't hate my tank anymore

Danno, your tank looks even better!!   I hated looking at my tank for a while, now I LOVE it again.  It's so nice.  Just keep up on the cleanings, that's the nice thing about having the nano.  I have 3 main rocks.  It's so easy to just pull one out every now and then and scrape it.   I still only clean 1x a week. 

 

1 hour ago, brandon429 said:

It has the classic empty water look, clean as air inside, that’s the cleanest possible see-through water picture one could ask for in a nano reef I enjoyed seeing that.

Thanks Brandon.  It is doing really well.  Everything is growing.  I can't believe how big my RFAs are getting.  I think my monti is even getting bigger.  I'll have to post a pic of that one soon.  I thought it was a gonner a bit ago.