I don't know how many times I've regurgitated my story, but this time, this is the end of the war.
I was trying to use a mosquito to kill a tank.
Now, I used a nuclear bomb, and I think I got it all...
I had some reef friends help I spent 8 hours with 3 of us tearing down my 125g. We drained the water, kept some in waste containers. Moved corals to one bucketand fish to a 29 g aquarium I had.
Took all the rock. Immersed it in a high concentration of muriatic acid.
Removed all the sand completely.
Then we scrubbed down each of the corals with a tooth brush. The rubber made tub we used to scrub the corals in, well, the water turned a putrid diahrea color. It was breen / black after about halfway through all the corals. When I dumped the water, there was close to a half inch or more layer of hair algae covering the entire bottom of the tub. That's just hair algae from the corals!!!! Not the Rocks!!!
Another friend of mine after the acid bath, scrubbed down each and every rock for 2-3 hours. Scrubbing all the algae off, rinsing each rock, sterilizing it as much as possible.
I then, stuck the rock back in a tub and put in a power head and poured some bleach in the water.
Left it for 24 hours.
Then, did a 95% water change, added more bleach freshwater and let it sit for another 24 hours with a powerhead.
Then, Drained it 100%. (All water it soaked in was 0TDS RODI water).
Then, filled it with more RODI water and dumped half a bottle of amquel in to absorb the chlorine from the bleach in the rocks.
Changed out the water 24 hours later.
Refilled, with new RODI water. The other half of the amquel bottle for another 24 hours.
Then, drained 100%.
Filled with RODI Salt water (at around 1.019).
Put power head in.
Then 24 hours later, dumped in half a bottle of 100% phosphate free pure Ammonia.
It's been a week with the ammonia in the water and the water still stinks of ammonia... LOL. Oops. (a little too much.
The tank is running with fish and corals. I didn't touch the sand and a rock or two int he sump. There's a DSB in the sump. Small one, but one none the less. So, I'm hoping the sump DSB, skimmer, and the few rocks that had corals on them, can handle the filtration of 4 small fish in a 125g. So far, after 1 week, there's been no fish deaths and no coral losses.
Everything looks a lot healthier, even my clam seems much more perky.. (It was covered in hair algae and probably wasn't getting much light... It's HA free now!!)
I had a small algae cycle on the glass. Some green film alge. I filled the tank with 50% new fresh salt water and 50% old water (none that was used for scrubbing was reused).
It's bare bottom for now... Once I get the rocks back in, I'll wait a couple weeks then add around 40-80lbs of brand new sand.
I'm also vodka dosing. I'm up to the full dose of 1.3 ml per day. Next week I'll up the dosage to start hopefully limit any algae outbreaks in the display.
So, far there's some tufts of HA left over that we didn't get removed, but, nothing overly visible or obvious.
If the HA algae returns after all this. I give up. I have no clue what to do next.
Yes, Obviously, I'll have to maintain water changes, parameters, etc.
But, other than that, I'm at a loss if the HA comes back despite religious maintenance.
One question. With vodka dosing, how often does one do water changes? I was thinking a monthly 30 gallon schedule. But, will that negatively impact vodka dosing?
Also, do freeze dried foods contain as much phosphates as flake or frozen? I started feeding freeze dried mysis. It's pretty neat how it works and the fish love it. I don't know if there's any nutrients left in the shrimp or not, but, the fish go nuts for it.
p.s. how long do I need to wait for the rock to cycle in the highly concentrated ammonia salt water? I was thinking of slowly adding one or two pieces at a time to the display each week. Allowing the display to adapt to the rocks, plus gives me time to carefully squasquape things the way I want them. I was planning on waiting a full 3 weeks before considering moving anything to the display? Do I need to wait longer?
I'm just feeding the equivalent of around a cube per day for 4 fish.
I was trying to use a mosquito to kill a tank.
Now, I used a nuclear bomb, and I think I got it all...
I had some reef friends help I spent 8 hours with 3 of us tearing down my 125g. We drained the water, kept some in waste containers. Moved corals to one bucketand fish to a 29 g aquarium I had.
Took all the rock. Immersed it in a high concentration of muriatic acid.
Removed all the sand completely.
Then we scrubbed down each of the corals with a tooth brush. The rubber made tub we used to scrub the corals in, well, the water turned a putrid diahrea color. It was breen / black after about halfway through all the corals. When I dumped the water, there was close to a half inch or more layer of hair algae covering the entire bottom of the tub. That's just hair algae from the corals!!!! Not the Rocks!!!
Another friend of mine after the acid bath, scrubbed down each and every rock for 2-3 hours. Scrubbing all the algae off, rinsing each rock, sterilizing it as much as possible.
I then, stuck the rock back in a tub and put in a power head and poured some bleach in the water.
Left it for 24 hours.
Then, did a 95% water change, added more bleach freshwater and let it sit for another 24 hours with a powerhead.
Then, Drained it 100%. (All water it soaked in was 0TDS RODI water).
Then, filled it with more RODI water and dumped half a bottle of amquel in to absorb the chlorine from the bleach in the rocks.
Changed out the water 24 hours later.
Refilled, with new RODI water. The other half of the amquel bottle for another 24 hours.
Then, drained 100%.
Filled with RODI Salt water (at around 1.019).
Put power head in.
Then 24 hours later, dumped in half a bottle of 100% phosphate free pure Ammonia.
It's been a week with the ammonia in the water and the water still stinks of ammonia... LOL. Oops. (a little too much.
The tank is running with fish and corals. I didn't touch the sand and a rock or two int he sump. There's a DSB in the sump. Small one, but one none the less. So, I'm hoping the sump DSB, skimmer, and the few rocks that had corals on them, can handle the filtration of 4 small fish in a 125g. So far, after 1 week, there's been no fish deaths and no coral losses.
Everything looks a lot healthier, even my clam seems much more perky.. (It was covered in hair algae and probably wasn't getting much light... It's HA free now!!)
I had a small algae cycle on the glass. Some green film alge. I filled the tank with 50% new fresh salt water and 50% old water (none that was used for scrubbing was reused).
It's bare bottom for now... Once I get the rocks back in, I'll wait a couple weeks then add around 40-80lbs of brand new sand.
I'm also vodka dosing. I'm up to the full dose of 1.3 ml per day. Next week I'll up the dosage to start hopefully limit any algae outbreaks in the display.
So, far there's some tufts of HA left over that we didn't get removed, but, nothing overly visible or obvious.
If the HA algae returns after all this. I give up. I have no clue what to do next.
Yes, Obviously, I'll have to maintain water changes, parameters, etc.
But, other than that, I'm at a loss if the HA comes back despite religious maintenance.
One question. With vodka dosing, how often does one do water changes? I was thinking a monthly 30 gallon schedule. But, will that negatively impact vodka dosing?
Also, do freeze dried foods contain as much phosphates as flake or frozen? I started feeding freeze dried mysis. It's pretty neat how it works and the fish love it. I don't know if there's any nutrients left in the shrimp or not, but, the fish go nuts for it.
p.s. how long do I need to wait for the rock to cycle in the highly concentrated ammonia salt water? I was thinking of slowly adding one or two pieces at a time to the display each week. Allowing the display to adapt to the rocks, plus gives me time to carefully squasquape things the way I want them. I was planning on waiting a full 3 weeks before considering moving anything to the display? Do I need to wait longer?
I'm just feeding the equivalent of around a cube per day for 4 fish.
