murphs_reef 92G - retired, thanks guys

[Murphs_Reef]

5 hours ago, brandon429 said:

I recommend never, ever allowing a remass

 

step up gardening, refuse dandelions

 

if conditions in your home setting and internal tank setting fosters algae and cyano the physical prevention aspect is what gives you the upper hand. Rip cleans are not insulting in any way, they’re regenerative

 

see 47 pages here, look for harm patterns if any this is a trove of about two million bucks of reefs doing surgery. I estimated the cost of each tank based on before pics to arrive at that guesstimate 

 

look for patterns or outliers, animal losses vs retention, sustainment of the clean condition # of months and we can discern safety vs harm from the patterns 

 

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/official-sand-rinse-and-tank-transfer-thread.230281/

 

when waves crash on a fringing reef in Fiji for ten millennia, that’s a set of well rip cleaned rocks that still grow algae if grazers are removed from the physical control portion.
 

 

 

The reason we rip clean is so that expected follow up work doesn’t spread cloud around the tank, you can lift rocks away to expose the back wall area for cleaning and detritus doesn’t upwell all over the tank, you can attach a razor blade to the end of a common siphon hose and turn off pumps, still the tank, be scraping algae down while the siphon runs which is exporting offending mass, and you could also get another cheap pond sterilizer off Amazon to handle some growback for you by catching it in transition phases when it moves from surface to surface via the water.  I recommend all manner of resolve and absolutely no passiveness when it comes to investment control.

 

the reason I recommend completely opposite of the common thought on invasions: common thought has had twenty years to get control over common invasions and it can’t. Folks who indeed honestly attained a balance by not battling with invasions aren’t able to commute that same outcome to others, it’s a lark when inaction works to resolve tank invasions. Until the calmer methods come with as many pages of outcomes under control my recommend is to ditch the common method and we should cease repeating actions that take our investments away in many cases. I’m not bucking the system just to pick on it, their cure rates are like 2% likely when ran for other’s systems. The advice comes from non acceptance of the current tank loss rates. We literally have the ability to own invasionless systems, everyone does.

 

 

all common methods of control should be applied in the completely uninvaded condition that we caused by hand work. What do the masses do? Allow wreckage, avoid work, and hope with fingers crossed a given method both removes their current invasion and prevents future ones. That way isn’t working in the hobby as a whole but I agree it can work for a minority of keepers who are simply adept and potentially a little lucky at invasion control, in their own tanks

I just did the rip. Clean 2 months ago if you remember? Due to ich.. before that I have no issue with algae... In fact it was perfect. Only did rip clean because I was removing all the rock to get the fish out. 

 

My glass test was bang on perfect. The sand was super clean... But.since then... My tank has mats of cyano and GHA ...

[Murphs_Reef]

7 hours ago, Pjanssen said:

Honestly, I think you just need to be patient. You just did a major reboot and your tank is acting a bit like a new tank. Maybe get a couple of magnetic rocks for your back wall and add some wall hammers or something that way. Just my 2 cents. But seriously, where do you find the time for another redo?

I think your right about the new tank thing penny. 

Yeah I sooo miss my rock wall.. I know some people hate them but it gave me so much pleasure. 

Not into this island thing as it turns out so I will definitely find the time to "fix" it 👍🏼

 

[Pjanssen]

6 hours ago, Murphs_Reef said:

I just did the rip. Clean 2 months ago if you remember? Due to ich.. before that I have no issue with algae... In fact it was perfect. Only did rip clean because I was removing all the rock to get the fish out. 

 

My glass test was bang on perfect. The sand was super clean... But.since then... My tank has mats of cyano and GHA ...

Yes, I remember.

[spectra]

I liked islands in my tanks............... a pile of rocks was just not for me...............  

[Murphs_Reef]

This GHA and cyano thing is not going away. I'm tempted to let the cyano over run the rock work... Though it will kill off the coralline it should also take out the GHA as it did this time last year (course I will blow it off the coral). 

 

There is no sense in doing water changes. Parameters are exactly where I like them as they have been forever. DOC if it ever was an issue should have been significantly reduced due to the rip clean in February. 

 

Skimmer and socks are all clean and running well.. pumps are clean and running well. Fresh carbon every 4 weeks.. 

 

Flow is good, better now I have the larger SOW-15 in fact. 

 

Nothing to do here other than wait it out. Possibly reduce coral feeding but that's never caused me any issues AND why starve animals to try to fix a problem?! 

[Murphs_Reef]

3 hours ago, spectra said:

I liked islands in my tanks............... a pile of rocks was just not for me...............  

Yeah see I look at pictures and love the island.. but I do love a rock wall man.. I might not change anything just yet anyway... Let this GHA run its course then maybe in the winter have a rethink.. the island might grow on me...?!

[brandon429]

I didn't mention any chemical treatments Murph

 

A plan to allow cyano to takeover and beat gha is a guess; it comes from no readable threads someone could find where that worked for fifty random tanks and is opposite of the sixty pages of win that's readable on prior link. It’s refusing even the most minor effort to suck out two gallons of water / 6 mins effort when you first saw the mass/ and take some cyano with it when the strands were first visible. It’s digging in heels for the wrong outcome
 

does your yard stay perpetually free of all stickers and weeds and dandelions? (I’m sure it does for this thread) but did it start that way? You’ve never had to do weed control work? (I’ve never owned a yard like that in my life, they all took seasonal work)

 

If you got off scott free on lawncare work my recommend is don’t expect the same in the costly $ reef tank 

 

 

If anyone reads my prior post and thinks they should sit back and allow a gha or cyano takeover, I'd be amazed at the degree they must want to risk their system and opt instead for confusion to sub in for effort @Pjanssen
 

 

 

It's a very common choice to be confused, by non participants, but you can see nobody in the link on prior post who owned a worked tank chose confusion: they chose action discussion and for fifty straight pages 
 

 

 

 

It's ideal to build the equivalent of the following thread here at nr.com;  in this reference post no invasions on purpose exist so that's why I wanted nr.com rip cleaners to maintain control over their investments and not let the reef tank choose its own invasion duration:

 

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/official-sand-rinse-and-tank-transfer-thread.230281/

 

Everything typed in this thread was typed there, but simply received differently by the tank owners at rtr, that's key. 

 

I'm looking to see if I'd mentioned on page 27 onward here in Murphs thread that one rip clean would make up for the list of ways algae could get in a reef tank and if we'd sit back and do zero follow up work. these are high surface area, high crevice systems where algae is truly never gone...  thought we covered the point of rip cleaning is cloudless access into every area of your tank so that you can future clean and guide and export food waste, removing all growths by hand and never owning a reef able to escape your command.  As you do the required gardening for your reef, unique to each home, you won't be upwelling waste 

 

When you started out feeding well by target feeding after the rip clean, doing zero water changes doesn't count as exporting that new available feed and buildup waste.  You know for a fact that lowering your light intensity and white spectrum might help,  so clean up the tank and try stuff found in large pre existing work threads

 

You brought it to the second rip clean in fine condition, there's no doubt you'll get it back. 

 

 

Once I lost my first pico to red gelidium takeover (resulting from being trained by peers on external locus of control) nobody ever, ever ever had to sell me on the dangers of passivity twice

 

 

I took responsibility for my invasions, I have the ability to never be owned by a reef tank and I chose a workable volume to match the level of effort I could muster: it’s that simple.

 

 

[Murphs_Reef]

13 hours ago, brandon429 said:

I didn't mention any chemical treatments Murph

 

A plan to allow cyano to takeover and beat gha is a guess; it comes from no readable threads someone could find where that worked for fifty random tanks and is opposite of the sixty pages of win that's readable on prior link. It’s refusing even the most minor effort to suck out two gallons of water / 6 mins effort when you first saw the mass/ and take some cyano with it when the strands were first visible. It’s digging in heels for the wrong outcome
 

does your yard stay perpetually free of all stickers and weeds and dandelions? (I’m sure it does for this thread) but did it start that way? You’ve never had to do weed control work? (I’ve never owned a yard like that in my life, they all took seasonal work)

 

If you got off scott free on lawncare work my recommend is don’t expect the same in the costly $ reef tank 

 

 

If anyone reads my prior post and thinks they should sit back and allow a gha or cyano takeover, I'd be amazed at the degree they must want to risk their system and opt instead for confusion to sub in for effort @Pjanssen
 

 

 

It's a very common choice to be confused, by non participants, but you can see nobody in the link on prior post who owned a worked tank chose confusion: they chose action discussion and for fifty straight pages 
 

 

 

 

It's ideal to build the equivalent of the following thread here at nr.com;  in this reference post no invasions on purpose exist so that's why I wanted nr.com rip cleaners to maintain control over their investments and not let the reef tank choose its own invasion duration:

 

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/official-sand-rinse-and-tank-transfer-thread.230281/

 

Everything typed in this thread was typed there, but simply received differently by the tank owners at rtr, that's key. 

 

I'm looking to see if I'd mentioned on page 27 onward here in Murphs thread that one rip clean would make up for the list of ways algae could get in a reef tank and if we'd sit back and do zero follow up work. these are high surface area, high crevice systems where algae is truly never gone...  thought we covered the point of rip cleaning is cloudless access into every area of your tank so that you can future clean and guide and export food waste, removing all growths by hand and never owning a reef able to escape your command.  As you do the required gardening for your reef, unique to each home, you won't be upwelling waste 

 

When you started out feeding well by target feeding after the rip clean, doing zero water changes doesn't count as exporting that new available feed and buildup waste.  You know for a fact that lowering your light intensity and white spectrum might help,  so clean up the tank and try stuff found in large pre existing work threads

 

You brought it to the second rip clean in fine condition, there's no doubt you'll get it back. 

 

 

Once I lost my first pico to red gelidium takeover (resulting from being trained by peers on external locus of control) nobody ever, ever ever had to sell me on the dangers of passivity twice

 

 

I took responsibility for my invasions, I have the ability to never be owned by a reef tank and I chose a workable volume to match the level of effort I could muster: it’s that simple.

 

 

Simply put. The rip clean didn't work short term, nevermind long term... My reef went from established to unbalanced. That was not a direct result of ich.

I have not changed any schedule. I don't dose.. etc. Yet my coralline is dropping off the glass in chunks and I have major cyano and GHA..

 

My tank looks 2 months old..bad news. 

 

[Tamberav]

I rip clean my sand about twice a year but I do it in old tank water because I like my spaghetti worms. I guess that’s different. Nothing really dies. I just sift it through a fine colander like panning for gold. 

[seabass]

13 hours ago, Murphs_Reef said:

My reef went from established to unbalanced...  My tank looks 2 months old.

I currently have four different tanks in different stages.  It's a remarkable difference between a balanced established reef and one that is unbalance and/or not mature.

 

A rip clean has the potential to change the balance and/or the maturity level.  However, I feel that there might be times when it's still the best option.  I also feel if you do it regularly, that your tank can adjust to this new paradigm and establish a balance based on this environment.

 

If I remember correctly, your tank was experiencing some other issues prior to Ich.  Maybe your tank experienced setbacks in certain areas, while the reboot might have helped with other issues.

 

I guess going forward, I would continue to address the algae issues (with manual removal and herbivorous snails) versus letting them take over.  I like the idea of disturbing the sand bed and blowing detritus off of the rocks.  This can beneficial food for coral and other filter feeders (as well as potentially allowing filters to remove excess organics).  Then just let the tank mature again.

[Murphs_Reef]

16 hours ago, seabass said:

If I remember correctly, your tank was experiencing some other issues prior to Ich.  

 No issues since April last year when I moved over to a new tank... 

 

Everything was settled and in good order. But it's fine I don't fully blame the rip clean as such.

Rock that was covered in coralline and other life was taken out of the tank to be cleaned, the put back in, in a different position... Some of it, "white side up" so its going to take time to re-establish... 

 

Should I have put the rock back in as it came out, there likely would have been less opportunity for the problem algae to establish.. 

 

 

[ninjamyst]

I did a rip clean on my nano about same time as your rip clean.  My nano definitely has algae again and a little bit of cyano but it's still in better shape than before the rip clean.  I also reset my 75g at the same time and that tank is now covered by GHA.  However that tank had tons of die off and went from sand to no sand.  I blame the GHA on the die off releasing tons of nutrients back to the tank.  All the coralline on the back and side walls turned white.  Manual removal of GHA has done nothing.  Bare bottom has now been covered by GHA.  

[Murphs_Reef]

8 hours ago, ninjamyst said:

I did a rip clean on my nano about same time as your rip clean.  My nano definitely has algae again and a little bit of cyano but it's still in better shape than before the rip clean.  I also reset my 75g at the same time and that tank is now covered by GHA.  However that tank had tons of die off and went from sand to no sand.  I blame the GHA on the die off releasing tons of nutrients back to the tank.  All the coralline on the back and side walls turned white.  Manual removal of GHA has done nothing.  Bare bottom has now been covered by GHA.  

Wow yeah that's bad news! Very sorry to hear this.. 

 

You know there are no treatments that are free of charge in reefing.. if I had my time again.. I think I would have still rip cleaned but maybe tried to put the rock back in with the dark side up and closer to the scape I had before..

 

Thinking about it. As the Scape has changed, the light and flow has changed as a result of rock work being in different areas and heights.. basically... New tank! 

[seabass]

I agree, I've also seen rip cleans result in large GHA outbreaks.  It often takes a lot of persistence and/or herbivores to control it.  Eventually, as the tank matures, the hair algae will become less of a problem.

 

My 100 gallon tank had a bad case of dinos, so I moved everything (but the sand) into an empty 40 gallon breeder tank.  The 40 gallon is doing great.  I refilled the 100 gallon tank and dosed it with 100 times the recommended dosage of hydrogen peroxide.  It killed a bunch of bristle worms and other small inverts.  However, the dinos survived.  I'm guessing the cysts were protected against the peroxide assault.  So I introduced some macroalgae and let it be.

 

Eventually, GHA took off and covered the majority of the tank.  Since there wasn't anything in this tank that I cared about, I figured I'd let it be and see how it matured.  Just recently (many months later), the hair algae has been receding despite no snails or crabs in the tank.  Now there is no trace of dinos.  I've even been feeding this tank and have a bumper crop of pineapple sponges and bristle worms.  It's interesting watching this tank go through several different stages of maturity.  I'm about ready to transfer everything back into it.

 

Long story short, I'm sure that your tank will mature again.  I'd just wouldn't let pest algae affect your valued livestock.  So do what you can to keep it under control until the tank rebalances itself.

[Murphs_Reef]

Ended up using Flux RX and 6 days later.. no GHA.. win I suppose.. 

 

Anyway! Fish are back in the tank. Whoop!! But ich thinned down to 3 chromis from 5 but still no inward aggression between them, chalk goby died of ich and the Dusky Wrasse got took back to the shop, turned into a right d1ck.. 

 

Neon green Kenya tree put in last week looks ace: 

Mike the mussel died... Not not before putting a few babies out:

The dead, totally gone Monti is now on the up.. despite looking like a coralline rock: 

 

New just in: 

[Murphs_Reef]

Just because my tanks aren't enough of a PITA.. I had the urge to do a DIY project.. and once built it needed residents...

 

 

[Pjanssen]

I'm jealous. I've been trying to get my husband to move somewhere that we can have chickens for the longest time.

[spectra]

On 5/1/2022 at 2:44 PM, Murphs_Reef said:

Just because my tanks aren't enough of a PITA.. I had the urge to do a DIY project.. and once built it needed residents...

 

 

Oh no…….your on for it now those things can live for 10 years or more…….pretty soon your going to have pets  

 

We have had a few over the years and once they quit laying well……there pets then…..and there yard piranhas so look out…….

 

our chicken condo……

 

 

[Pjanssen]

58 minutes ago, spectra said:

love it.

[ECLS Reefer]

Watch out for that new avian flu going around. It’s killing bald eagles left and right over here

[Murphs_Reef]

3 hours ago, spectra said:

Oh no…….your on for it now those things can live for 10 years or more…….pretty soon your going to have pets  

 

We have had a few over the years and once they quit laying well……there pets then…..and there yard piranhas so look out…….

 

our chicken condo……

 

 

That's ace!!!

[Murphs_Reef]

So after a rough year of ich, rip clean, GHA and now mass cyano.. I have almost given up... Killed the GHA with Flux RX and now going to treat the Cyano with RED X... See how we get on.. 

 

In addition I'm going to add back the rock that I pulled when rip cleaning, it's been in the sump so in ok shape... Which will result in a island / rock wall hybrid..

 

[seabass]

I sure hope that you don't give up.  We'd miss the hell out of you.

 

IMO, tank maturity is key.  I respect Brandon, and feel that there is something to be gained from his methods and what he has amassed from numerous other reef keepers; however, I'm currently on the maturity bandwagon, and rip cleaning might set back a tank's maturity.  Still, I feel there are times when this might be the best course of action.

 

We used to bring in a lot of this maturity with live rock taken from the ocean.  Nowadays there are restrictions which have made this less common.  And I feel that the desire to use dry rock as a way to prevent pests, actually creates an environment which is optimized for the invasion of pests.

 

I really need to update my tank threads.  They have basically been left to mature (ugly phases and all).  Being in our basement's utility room allows me to keep them in a state where I can't even see through the glass.  Anyway, I've watched them go through several stages as they matured.  It's quite enlightening (not that I feel that I have unearthed the secret to reef keeping).

 

Long story short, your tank might just need more time.  I wish you the best, and hope that everything works out.  Plus, I'd love to see you work through this current setback.

[jservedio]

Haven't been on the site a lot recently but really sorry you are dealing with problem after problem. If it helps, it's been more than a year for me battling with bryopsis on my new rocks and it's just now finally starting to dissipate. Your new scape looks awesome and it's only a matter of time before the tank settles down even if it's a giant pain in the ass having your tank acting like it's brand new. At least things tend to get back to stable much faster after a rip clean they they take to mature in the first place from a fresh tank. Hang in there and in a year from now you'll totally forget the problems when your tank is back to being amazing.

[ECLS Reefer]

Ugh noooooo!! Don’t give up! My big tank acts this same way, and I have no answers for why either. I’ve just quit putting anything expensive in it and am sticking with the fish that have been our mainstay. So rather than the glorious mixed reef I wanted, it’s maturing more into a softy tank at this time. It turns two years old May 29th I think. I’m crossing my fingers hoping it starts to click like the Evo did at 2. I completely get the frustrations though.