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How high for nitrate?


sadie

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I am fighting a few algaes right now GHA and cyano.  My nutrients dropped down to 0.  I have my phos back up to .09-.12 (adding NeoPhos).  I got my nitrates up to 5 (adding NeoNitro and MicroBacter7).  At first I thought it was dinos, but when I looked back at my pic of dinos a few yrs ago, it doesn't look like that.  It's red and kinda dusty on the sand bed, red and fuzzy on the rocks.

 

Do I want my nitrate higher then 5 while I am fighting cyano?

Other levels: Hanna phos checker for Phos, Salifert for all other tests (not expired)

Salinity- 1.025

KH- 10

Cal- 490

Mag- 1305

 

Tanks is an established 16 gal BioCube,

cyano 3.16.22.JPG

cyanos 3.16.22.JPG

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Your reef needs a rip clean to be fixed. If you don’t, then when dosers and param guesses possibly reduce the cyano, after weeks and weeks of trial and error, it’s dying mass + all the clouding in the sandbed will translate to gha on the rocks for months on end. Your tank is going eutrophic, if you want to fix your reef it takes three hours and it will look brand new, nitrate has nothing to do with your issue whatsoever. Reefs that run 160 ppm for thirty years don’t look like that, it’s simple compound eutrophication that’s expressing. Paul B’s oldest home reef tank is the one that runs 160 ppm at times and isn’t invaded, your issue isn’t parameters it’s complete retention vs export, and the small reef is at a tipping point.

 

 

rip clean threads don’t involve the authors personal testimony about one tank, their own. rip clean threads are logs of what worked in others tanks consistently, you can’t find a thread on the internet where an author cured sixty straight pages of invasion by describing what worked once in their reef.

 

 

recall when you had dinos and added pods and it went away, it didn’t really go away. The mass sinked into your rocks and sand as waste, compounding vs export, and now a new invasion has began. If that hands off mode continues, big time gha is coming which will last all through summer.

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The nitrate kit you are using to base approximate levels on would simply read up to 100ppm different on another brand, same water sample, the majority of nitrate comparison threads shows. You wouldn’t want to react to non digital test readings or things will turn into dinos and or GHA. Inaction causes this condition above, and action will have it fixed by this afternoon, it’s an easy choice since the reef is so small. These nanos can’t run hands off with fish + feed and no cleaning of the sandbed (evidenced by reaching in and grabbing a handful of sand, dropping it, and the whole tank clouds out and things can die)

 

don’t do that test, but that’s what would happen if you did run it for verification. After a rip clean, you can reach in five times and drop sand and it falls like a clean snowglobe. You need export, not further packing in of dead cyano in the crevices within the system.

 

nearly all owners of invaded nanos want to remain that way, they’re willing to lose animals and tolerate the condition months on end if it saves three hours of marked work. Only a scant 2% are ready to be fixed by the afternoon, and those are among the 300+ entrants in our rip clean threads. Owning an invaded nano reef is a matter of choice and will, it has nothing to do with any parameter nitrate or phosphate.

 

 

an additional benefit of reading a rip clean thread is you can send a message to the posters 1-2 years after the event and ask them how well it helped. The action is verifiable up down sideways left and right lol yet 98% will ride that invasion into the ground, they’d never simply force a win. Murph’s rip clean thread here on nr ran last month is a fine example to read, you can see how your tank would look by 3pm today in reading only pages 27-29 of his thread. A rip clean protects all your animals, and dosers + param guessing reaction puts them in jeopardy via chemical souping.

 

 

shadow_k on reef2reef before rip clean, just like your tank:

BEEE4DFE-9DDB-4372-84A4-A7DE57818B7A.thumb.jpeg.3c5541c6594ace313690de0319d13879.jpeg
 

 

and then four hours later. It’s running this clean still today months later, send him a message to verify 

 

BB4A8B14-8021-417C-9886-39E3A5D25D86.thumb.jpeg.d237d47a945d16fc25f02a4c78950618.jpeg
 

 

notice how the tank was hazy and corals were retracted before the deep clean. They’re wide open now, in all rip cleans, because rip cleaning doesn’t chemically soup the tank.  Look at his sandbed cross section before and after, that’s how your tank would be fixed, exactly that bright and shiny. No doser can attain this, no adjustment of N and P can attain this, only human resolve to win can attain those ends.

 

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I have read through several of the rip clean threads, they have amazing results.  And you're right, it wouldn't be much to do a small 16 gal. 

 

I basically did that 4 yrs ago when I upgraded to my 16 gal.  I rinsed all the sand out (well, my husband did) and added a fresh bag to it. (I started my tank 22 yrs ago.  The LR and LS are that old).  I had no coral attached to rocks so they were easy to clean, I did give them a good scrubbing and rinse in fresh clean water, then a final rinse in fresh salt water.

 

Within a year, not even, I started having problems.

 

I use to run my tank (22 yrs ago) with 0 ammonia, nitrites and nitrates.  All my coral did great, they grew had babies etc.  Then when I joined here and started having problems with algae, everyone told me I had to have nitrates and phosphates.  I tried getting my #s up and wasn't having any luck and got frustrated and said forget it!  I'm just going to do like I did 22 yrs ago and run a 0 tank, old school style.  But it didn't work.  My coral kept dying and I kept getting algae outbreaks.  I think the coral NOW are used to having "dirty water".  

 

Long story short, phosphates and nitrates HAVE to have something to do with it.  Macroll helped my get my phosphates up and my algae went away and my coral did better. When they dropped back down to 0, algae came back (I caught it quick and my coral were not effected this time).  If you look at my tank a year ago (when I finally got my phos and trates up) my tank looked great again.  Coral were growing and color was great.  But every  time life gets crazy and the phos and trates go to 0- ugly tank.

 

I hear what you are saying about all the dead stuff in the rocks and the sand etc over years just sitting there.  I'm thinking it has to be a balance of both

 

I have on a couple occasions taken EVERYTHING out of my tank and scrubbed it down.  A few years ago I had GHA I took EVERYTHING out and scrubbed with 50/50 peroxide and water (that worked really well).    But on both occasion I did NOT clean the sand bed.

 

I would like to take everything out and really clean my sand bed, but I just took all my rocks and coral out a few weeks ago and scrubbed and rinsed them.  I don't want to stress them out again so soon.

 

I think I will work on keeping my levels up and then clean my sand bed next month.  

 

Will you help me then?  though I have read through a bunch of the rip threads, help would still be greatly appreciated.  ☺️

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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100% yes that's amazing my lead in didn't offend you. I *sell* rip cleans (free o charge lol) not just mention them

 

I am happy to be any part of your reef journey. If you ask for an opinion on something I'll relay the outcome % likelihood garnered from years of web post outcomes and you can select what might be the perfect balance. 

 

When the time comes for a deep clean if we need that bail out, we never brush off rocks they're picked clean with the tip of a steak knife/ never brushes. Some do brushes anyway but those remove in large swaths the micro life attached to the outside of the rock. A knife tip is precision, and hits only the target, exactly like a dentists scraper point can hit the fine zones right in the gumline/ rocks will be rinsed only in saltwater and precision rasped.

 

 

The sand would be harshed so bad it would be R rated for graphic violence in tap water lol meaning everyone fears sandbed rinsing the most of all reef actions, but it harms nothing. It energizes vs stresses 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 3/25/2022 at 5:32 PM, brandon429 said:

100% yes that's amazing my lead in didn't offend you. I *sell* rip cleans (free o charge lol) not just mention them

 

I am happy to be any part of your reef journey. If you ask for an opinion on something I'll relay the outcome % likelihood garnered from years of web post outcomes and you can select what might be the perfect balance. 

 

When the time comes for a deep clean if we need that bail out, we never brush off rocks they're picked clean with the tip of a steak knife/ never brushes. Some do brushes anyway but those remove in large swaths the micro life attached to the outside of the rock. A knife tip is precision, and hits only the target, exactly like a dentists scraper point can hit the fine zones right in the gumline/ rocks will be rinsed only in saltwater and precision rasped.

 

 

The sand would be harshed so bad it would be R rated for graphic violence in tap water lol meaning everyone fears sandbed rinsing the most of all reef actions, but it harms nothing. It energizes vs stresses 

 

 

Is there a place I can look to see EXACTLY what is involved in a rip clean, each step I need to do so I know what I will be getting into?  

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That thread shows total resolve to rinse and commanded outcome pics. You get to have a clean system on the date of reassembly. 

 

 

for large tankers who can’t just disassembly clean a 500 gallon reef, then it becomes biology and chemistry, but for nano owners they can skip the wait and get the tank cleaned up with action. 

 

nano owners are spoiled rotten with easy access, there's no benefit in allowing an invasion to persist. 

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I'm pretty close to doing a " rip-clean " on my 10 gallon.  I've hit the wall on my DINO.  It' different than my prior one and I can't put a finger on why it came up.  

 

I have long hairlike dinos that come from sandbed and every surface in the tank.  I can have none at night and a foot long brown stringy thing the next morning.  When I remove I did a quick sniff test out of curiosity.  Smells  of ahorrid rotty scent. 

 

My corals have not been happy since this stuff came around either. 

 

I enjoy my reef tank very much when everything is going well, but not as committed to the reef=hobby to where I want to drive myself nuts figuring this out when things go sideways or backwards. 

 

May do a rip-clean - may go fOWLR for a while, may go back to FW - I'm in the pondering options state at the moment.  Inertia keeps me in the hobby for now though.

 

 

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We value getting to see how closely a single rip clean can get to a cure for dinos

 

Most often folks have simple strand management a few weeks after cleanup, meaning the toughest invasion in reefing requires follow up siphon removal of re-offending mass as a few light strands regrow and wisp off the rocks... we'd insert a siphon hose and change a simple gallon or two of water while removing those masses

 

We wouldn't rip clean once, refuse future expected strand removal, the benefit is that the rip clean tank won't have to be disassembled again for quite a while and strand guidance will be fast and easy then that mass regroup effect will exhaust and cease

 

*I would enjoy a verified dinos rip clean with perfect pics to include there in posts with no pics, in the thread above. I'd rewrite that area of the thread and include the link to your work at nano-reef.com

 

There's no reason to delay, ten new gallons of water is easy to acquire instantly and that's the cost of a rip clean, securing all new water

It would be awesome if you ran one within three days to show resolve to hammer it into compliance... contemplation time is now pushing two months yep

 

Other methods of control in a nano are far inferior to repaired- by- Wednesday heh

 

If you'd take clear white light before and after pics and rinse the sand as clean and top- notch as we've been doing there, your tank would make a great addition to the best of the best rip clean thread. The benefit is we'd get to track out how many repeat cleanings it will take to beat the scourge of reefing with only a rip clean + light expected follow up... like when a weed- invaded lot brought back to neighborhood spec and then some dandelions still popped up next week. We'd pull those as they arise vs allow the lot to creep back to eyesore. 

 

Lastly, the growths are harming fish by constant irritating allelopathy and reducing filtration ability of the tank by capping off core surface area, oxygenation is reduced in the eutrophic condition as well. The oligotrophic condition, which is post-rip clean, is the highest oxygenation state the tank will ever reach until it fills back up with waste again cyclically

 

 

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I think I am ready to do the rip clean.  I was getting over covid last week and couldn't do any algae maintenance so now I see I def need to do a rip clean.  My only concern is I am getting a delivery of snails tomorrow.  Now I am thinking they will all starve after the clean.  Maybe if I feed those sinking pellets they can live on that till some algae starts to grow back?

 

From reading all the links I think this is what I need for supplies:

* Make up 14 gal of SW (I am assuming that is what my 16 gal will hold after sand and LR).

* Have 4 gal of RODI on hand for final sand rinse. (I am assuming at this point there is NO cloudiness so it's just to rinse out tap water)

* I have my 12 gal JBJ I can set up with heater and pump to store my fish, snails, coral etc.

* I will have my tweezers, knife, and picks handy for algae removal from LR

* 5 gal bucket for LR

 

This is my plan:

* Siphon water from my 16 gal to 12 gal.  Put all livestock in 12 gal

* Siphon rest of the water from tank into bucket and place all LR in there

* take sand out of tank and rinse till totally cloudless

* I think I read something about using vinegar on the glass to clean the inside?

* clean and rinse tank, put clean sand back in tank and add some fresh made SW

* I'm not exactly sure the process for cleaning off the algae, but I know it involves a knife and picks and tweezers.  I'm sure I will figure it out, NO brushing w/ toothbrush, then using peroxide on clean rock where there is no coraline.

* Rinse the LR in SW and place back in tank

* Put back all critters then clean up the mess

 

Did I miss anything?  I'm planning to do this on Sun.

 

I have one concern:  I can remove all my coral from the LR no problem, but I have 5 RFA on one of my main rocks.  Not sure what to do about them.  I have taken the rock out before and scrubbed it and put it back in my tank, but it wasn't out long.  I have a feeling the way I am going to be removing the algae this time is way different and it will take a lot longer and I'm not sure how the RFA will do.

 

Here is my tank 2 weeks ago and my tank now:

 

 

FTS 4,5,22.JPG

FTS 4,13,22.JPG

FTS 4.13.22.JPG

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No the brush pestles algae fragments into the rock it’s better to do this before the rip clean as practice:

 

as the tank sits now reach in and get one rock and lift out, set on a clean counter in the air. If any corals are attached you have an easy 25 mins in the air (my personal record is draining my entire tank 33 mins down to air it’s on video and could have done an hour I bet, no recycle) to work the rasping.

 

take that target rock and a steak knife and score using the sharp tip into the crevices and dig out the algae scraping back towards you and dislodging it, the algae will come loose and stick to the rock because everything is wet. But it’ll be dislodged without being pounded into the rock crevices. Be rinsing the adherents off with saltwater right down the sink, pour over the rocks, rub off other areas 

 

once debrided and clean, exactly like a reef dentist would take plaque off a giant molar tooth, funny but accurate analogy, you take peroxide and dab from a wet paper towel or any other means and put it on the areas that once held algae anchors, this is burning the remaining cells we can’t see. Algae is going on clean zones, not invaded zones those were rasped clean. Let sit burning in perx for about five mins, rinse, set the tooth back in and check it out tomorrow it’ll shine compared to the other non treated rocks. Do all rocks this way it allows you to precision work around non target corals or areas of coralline. The rock will be set clean on your counter, dabbed in peroxide, sitting in the air about five minutes cooking then rinsed off and simply set back in the tank 

 

 

the sand we know how to just simply rip saw it with tap water then RO when it’s pristine clean per the thread.

 

for the back wall, you see we’ve been taking these tanks 100% apart then putting back up. When that tank is empty lean it on its back and if that’s a glass background just just a razor blade from automotive store to angle scrape the whole thing clean and rinse it all away, the glass will look brand new. If that’s some type of plastic background/ I can’t tell/ then when laying on its back all empty, lay some wet paper towels in vinegar on the area and let sit acid etching 20 mins while you’re working rocks and that coralline + algae zones will easily rub right off with a wash cloth 

 

 

***if you have back areas that are not algae but that bright nice coralline, keep it! It looks great, you’d simply dropper or dribble saltwater onto the keep coralline zones so they don’t dry out, then when you set it all back up you’ll have glass only tank, spotty good coralline areas still purple. Rinsed sand, rasped rocks, not one drop of bottle bacteria needed as even the peroxide and rasping isn’t uncycling rocks (cycles are this locked in for us) and you will love the redone reef, you can then feed each coral wonderfully and they’ll gain mass and you won’t have to clean glass for a long time you’ll see. Perhaps if there’s dinos you may need to spend a gallon or two a week siphoning up strands to prevent regrowth, but I bet you won’t need another takedown run for a year or so depending on variables.

 

those are striking before pics of a quality reef, if you’ll spend about 2-3 hours rinsing sand to utter perfection while your coral and fish are in holding totes (covered, no jumpers) you have the potential to produce a stellar rip example for others ive been waiting on someone to do a job like Murph’s so I can back edit yours and his runs into that example thread on RTR with full referral credit and also write a new stand alone article on rip cleans using y’all’s two examples so that nano reef now has its own example set and we won’t need reef2reef for every job as a guide. Both sites will benefit if you will dig deep, and hammer the reef into total compliance lol. No coaxing, it’s battle time and the reef will yield to your demands.

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Lastly 

 

 

I do not think one iota you have bad parameters. It’s not the cause.

 

 

If you went to Fiji, best reefs in the world where there’s zones of no visible algae and six million types of grazers on a perfect reef, you could set a weighted metal mesh box cover over a reef section that blocks out fish, urchins (beak raspers we mimic) and turtles and snails and in two weeks that boxed blocked section will look exactly like your problem pic. It’s not params, it’s a million animals large and small that continually work the reef that are missing from our nanos and the rip clean is simply hand forcing that same compliance using metal. Yes feeding snails sinking pellets is perfect 

 

even though all those anemones can go 25 + mins in air, if concerned simply keep them wet with saltwater while sitting on the counter, have a dropper or mister bottle handy and they could do ten hours on the counter lol

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The lysmata shrimp is the most peroxide sensitive animal in reefing. He w be fine just rinse all rocks off well in old tank water or new saltwater after the 5 minute bake. If he wasn’t in there we could skip the rinse off and just set the peroxide rocks back into the tank nothing else would mind but he would 

 

hey that one anemone potentially anchored downlow, keep him lol that’s neat. Leave him hanging attached as you flip the empty tank around to scrape off the algae areas. Work around him. Leave him attached he’ll poke back up through rinsed sand just fine I haven’t seen that before but they’re free to attach anywhere they want just bury him right back up with sand then when refilled, put a stick in and pull back some sand off to the side to give him a stretch channel lol neato 

 

 

the reef is now in a eutrophic condition (high nutrient, plant and monera dominant state of lower surface area) and after a rip clean it’s high surface area oligotrophic settings, the polar opposite of eutrophic. As time goes by, the shift down begins again this is what’s happening to worldwide reefs in some areas and it takes millennia for some areas to naturally fix since we can’t rip clean full real reefs

 

 

but a nano we can simply cheat like weighted dice in vegas

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okay, I think I've got it.  I will be posting pictures on my journal when I start.  I am excited and want to start now, but I have to get more water first.  Luckily I just got a new bucket of salt so I have plenty of salt. :happydance:

 

I was disappointed when that RFA jumped off the rock and into the sand bed, but my husband said it looked really cool and he liked it so I left him.  Though I don't know how I would have got him off the glass anyway.

 

I'm excited and a little nervous, but I know my tank will look awesome when all is said and done.

Thanks again!!

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You'll think this is totally crazy after 2 hours and the sand still isn't clear lol it's hard to believe. You'll wonder why we store up so much waste 

 

All pods regenerate from the rocks, even with rasping, sitting on the counter, we collect pics aplenty of pods on glass two weeks later 

 

Rocks retain all bac and pods we need. The sand bacteria we've been taught incorrectly: it's tolerated sludge bioload it's not actually beneficial. It competes for oxygen against your fish

 

during a power outage, having a sandbed reduces your tanks lifespan until circulation is restored- a bare bottom system will live longer in a stress state. 

 

Sandbed bacteria are hyperconcentrated aerobes in a stagnant zone of mud you'll see; there is not high pass flow throw like the surfaces of rock jutting up into the water. The bacteria being washed away removed toxic compounds it's why the corals pop so brightly two days later every time... we have literally been taught backwards to the truth regarding sandbed biology. 

 

I'm not saying 1% attempts can't actually reduce nitrate, but 99% won't and they'll produce it by retaining half rotten proteins that aren't getting skimmed out or removed during water changes. What you're about to do is exactly a mix of CPR and dentistry to a reef in every measurable way. If you had an orp meter hooked up now, the reading will raise after the rip clean we've documented. If you had a seneye monitor to measure ammonia conversion it gets more efficient after the rip clean even though you've removed bacteria... because restoring surface area by unplugging it from blanketing magnifies the fine degree of bacteria left on surfaces even after this storm of a rinse coming. Hope this helps to offset how strange it's going to feel to be rinsing for hours, all those bacteria we were trained to love lol

 

Behind the dolphin exhibit at any zoo is a vehicle- sized filter of high surface area. The longer it goes unflushed the less surface area it has to offer incoming waste water and the more toxins it pumps out. 

 

The maintenance staff do backflushing; they run it in reverse 2x speed and blast out all the waste from opposite the flow path, ejecting what a rip clean ejects from a nano. Fascinating analogy and very fitting to what we do

 

Shorten your light photo period by three hours less on the day you turn lights on after the rip clean, next day can be full length. This guides the coral back to power much better: a rip clean even restores greater light scatter around the tank because there are less mats to absorb it and more reflective hard surfaces exposed. It prevents sunburn/ bleaching to re ramp the current lighting power and duration. 

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RaymondNoodles

This is very interesting. I am anxiously awaiting updates and results. @sadie - best of luck to you. @brandon429 Everything you are saying makes sense and is eye opening. It's just so strange to think all those precious bacteria living in our sandbeds are actually detrimental to our success. It makes sense that when the sandbed gets clogged up with detritus, it starves the system of oxygen.

 

I have some algae issues that have recently begun escalating and are now become concerning; GHA and what appears to be red turf with a side of cyano and stringy bubbles that might be the start of dinos, mostly growing on the sandbed and surfaces void of healthy corals/coralline. I have done a thorough vacuum of the majority of the sandbed over the last couple weeks. Chasing parameters has only confused me more. Going to keep this info in mind if needed in the future. Thanks for sharing

 

Best of luck @sadie

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I changed my light schedule a bit ago when I did a blackout to get rid of the cyano.  After 2 days of blackout I had my white lights on for only 3 or 4 hrs a day and I haven't switched it back yet.  I guess I will put it back the day after I do the rip clean. 

 

I just ran to the store tonight to get all the water.  As I'm loading it into my Jeep, I'm wondering how I'm going to mix all this water.  I think I will start mixing it tomorrow and put it back in the gallon jugs to store till I'm ready.  Then I was wondering if I had to heat it up before putting it back in my tank.  Does the LR and LS NEED heated water?  I was planning to put the clean sand and clean LR back in the tank and run it until it came up to temp, then put all my livestock back in.  But I also have the main rock with all those RFAs on it.  I guess I could put that one in my 12 gal JBJ with my fish until the water was up to temp in my 16 gal.

 

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2 minutes ago, RaymondNoodles said:

This is very interesting. I am anxiously awaiting updates and results. @sadie - best of luck to you. @brandon429 Everything you are saying makes sense and is eye opening. It's just so strange to think all those precious bacteria living in our sandbeds are actually detrimental to our success. It makes sense that when the sandbed gets clogged up with detritus, it starves the system of oxygen.

 

I have some algae issues that have recently begun escalating and are now become concerning; GHA and what appears to be red turf with a side of cyano and stringy bubbles that might be the start of dinos, mostly growing on the sandbed and surfaces void of healthy corals/coralline. I have done a thorough vacuum of the majority of the sandbed over the last couple weeks. Chasing parameters has only confused me more. Going to keep this info in mind if needed in the future. Thanks for sharing

 

Best of luck @sadie

Thanks, I have been having algae problems for quite a while now. GHA, then dinos, then cyano and more GHA.   It goes away for a bit, but comes right back.  I got all  my parameters where people told me to put them, thinking NOW my algae will go away and nope!  So I thought why not try this.  I will post all my set up and progress on my journal if you want to follow along.

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oh, Brandon429, I did have another question about the back chambers.  Do I do anything to them?  Scrub them or rinse them with anything?  They don't have any algae, but a lot of those tiny white spiral, tuby things.  I did vacuum out the chambers a couple weeks ago when I put my chiller back in.

 

I also soaked all my pumps and tubes in citric acid to clean them.

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All the media in back chambers can be replaced or cleaned just like the sand, total clean for the sponge or bio balls that may be there, new carbon if you're using some. Those little worms are spirorbidae and are harmless its OK to leave them or scrape them off, they'll be back either way. If you leave them and just clean out the media they'll survive a while in the air too withheld in their shells. They're micro fanworms

 

The live sand needs no warm water as we're blasting it rinsed for hours in tap water, final rinse ro water to evacuate the tap, it'll be pure calcium carbonate grains with nothing in between to need warm support. For any live rock with animals attached yes try and have warmer water to hold so they won't get mad but look below how tolerant reef animals are; this is my 33 min reef drain posted below

 

All I did was take out all my rocks and corals and set them on a dinner plate for half an hour lol while I razor scraped the glass. They looked totally dry but I knew they really weren't

 

I didn't rinse sand here but easily could have,  this was made to show how bacteria don't die when exposed to air- true drying to kill them would take hours and hours on end continually 

 

For the new tank prep water 100% water change: is better to use 2x blue drinking water bottles or standard clean and new home depot 5 gallon buckets x2. You mix up the ro di water with salt and to quick warm without a heater to bring up to 78 ish I simply lift the bucket and set in a hot sink of water around it for ten minutes then that water is warmed quickly. May take longer time in some settings but that's average wait. Be circulating the water very well before final use so it's oxygenated and the only params that need to match your current tank water are temp and salinity. 

 

Have the water at least mixed up to your matching salinity and temp 1 day prior so it can aerate and fully dissolve, let it sit open topped not capped off overnight to keep aerated and it can sit still no pumps needed.

 

 

Then the day of the rip clean an hour before begin set the two containers in the hot water sink a while and verify temp and salinity are matched 78-80 degrees, lift them out when ready and begin the takedown steps 

 

You may need extra beyond ten gallons prepped for holding totes too; one extra bucket of prep saltwater could easily hold all your stuff as you lift it out of the tank. The rocks can go on a pile on the counter and you dribble saltwater on the anemones as you're rasping and peroxide detailing, the fish and animals can go into a clean water holding bucket along with any loose corals be mindful of jumpers. This now leaves the tank, the old water and the sand and you'd complete disassembly and begin sand rinsing. 

 

Don't forget when you think you're done tap rinsing sand take a large amount, put in large glass and roughly fill with tap water while holding to light to verify cloudless. If it isn't keep rinsing over and over. If it is, then do a final rinse in ro water to clear out the sand of tap water and just set it like a lump back in the laser clean tank it'll pile right on the bottom awaiting reassembly. 

 

Smooth out the rinse prepped sand, sit the prep rocks back in your scape formation, refill with the 100% new matched 78-80 degrees prep water, lastly add back in corals shrimp and fish and its done. Re ramp the lights from a short photo period back to normal over a day or two- it'll run perfectly. 
 

Below I’d purposely quit caring for the reefbowl for two months to let it go eutrophic and to show how to bring it back 

the drain and scrape for 33 mins nothing held in water:


 

and then next day fully open and happy 

 

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1 hour ago, brandon429 said:

All the media in back chambers can be replaced or cleaned just like the sand, total clean for the sponge or bio balls that may be there, new carbon if you're using some. Those little worms are spirorbidae and are harmless its OK to leave them or scrape them off, they'll be back either way. If you leave them and just clean out the media they'll survive a while in the air too withheld in their shells. They're micro fanworms

 

The live sand needs no warm water as we're blasting it rinsed for hours in tap water, final rinse ro water to evacuate the tap, it'll be pure calcium carbonate grains with nothing in between to need warm support. For any live rock with animals attached yes try and have warmer water to hold so they won't get mad but look below how tolerant reef animals are; this is my 33 min reef drain posted below

 

All I did was take out all my rocks and corals and set them on a dinner plate for half an hour lol while I razor scraped the glass. They looked totally dry but I knew they really weren't

 

I didn't rinse sand here but easily could have,  this was made to show how bacteria don't die when exposed to air- true drying to kill them would take hours and hours on end continually 

 

For the new tank prep water 100% water change: is better to use 2x blue drinking water bottles or standard clean and new home depot 5 gallon buckets x2. You mix up the ro di water with salt and to quick warm without a heater to bring up to 78 ish I simply lift the bucket and set in a hot sink of water around it for ten minutes then that water is warmed quickly. May take longer time in some settings but that's average wait. Be circulating the water very well before final use so it's oxygenated and the only params that need to match your current tank water are temp and salinity. 

 

Have the water at least mixed up to your matching salinity and temp 1 day prior so it can aerate and fully dissolve, let it sit open topped not capped off overnight to keep aerated and it can sit still no pumps needed.

 

 

Then the day of the rip clean an hour before begin set the two containers in the hot water sink a while and verify temp and salinity are matched 78-80 degrees, lift them out when ready and begin the takedown steps 

 

You may need extra beyond ten gallons prepped for holding totes too; one extra bucket of prep saltwater could easily hold all your stuff as you lift it out of the tank. The rocks can go on a pile on the counter and you dribble saltwater on the anemones as you're rasping and peroxide detailing, the fish and animals can go into a clean water holding bucket along with any loose corals be mindful of jumpers. This now leaves the tank, the old water and the sand and you'd complete disassembly and begin sand rinsing. 

 

Don't forget when you think you're done tap rinsing sand take a large amount, put in large glass and roughly fill with tap water while holding to light to verify cloudless. If it isn't keep rinsing over and over. If it is, then do a final rinse in ro water to clear out the sand of tap water and just set it like a lump back in the laser clean tank it'll pile right on the bottom awaiting reassembly. 

 

Smooth out the rinse prepped sand, sit the prep rocks back in your scape formation, refill with the 100% new matched 78-80 degrees prep water, lastly add back in corals shrimp and fish and its done. Re ramp the lights from a short photo period back to normal over a day or two- it'll run perfectly. 
 

Below I’d purposely quit caring for the reefbowl for two months to let it go eutrophic and to show how to bring it back 

the drain and scrape for 33 mins nothing held in water:


 

and then next day fully open and happy 

 

 

I'm confused as to What is with the magnets in the Reef bowl?  Never seen that.  Did you glue magnets to something - and what?   any harmful effects in the saltwater?

 

Thanks

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2 hours ago, brandon429 said:

All the media in back chambers can be replaced or cleaned just like the sand

I recommend this too.  I just cleaned my HOB filter yesterday.  From all the Dino, it was pretty nasty in there.  I ended up running vinegar water through ti for 20 minutes and scraping it out to dump down drain.  All clean. 

 

For an AIO back chamber that's not possible, but you could still scrape and siphon the stuck on gunk of back chambers. 

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