Austin goes Rimless - Dudester's 203g mixed reef

Amidst the disgust of the algae, there remains a few positives. Like, for instance, this sunset monti that has fared very well.

sunsetmonti.jpg


I also have a few more corals to share.

War coral
warcoral-1.jpg


El diablo chalice
eldiablo-1-1.jpg


gorgonian
gorgonian.jpg


Oregon tort (or was it ORA, I can't remember)
Oregantort.jpg


All the corals will go into my office tank when this one is taken down.
 
Hmm, looks like my last post got lost.

Things look 100% better Mike. Glad to see the turnaround.

Did you figure out what caused the HA bloom? I went out of town for a week and my ato didn't work, so the sump level dropped, therefore the skimmer output was nil. I had quite a bloom but everything seems to be back in business.

How's the new house coming along?
 
Nice Dude!

That pesky HA has a way of coming back so what your feeding and light schedule until it's gone - gone.
 
Chrisrush - I read about your ATO woes in your thread, and I'm glad you've got it solved. My theories for the HA bloom include, in descending order of probability: change of salt to RBS, leaching of phosphates from LR, aging T5 lamps, and possibly something I might have done wrong with the Zeovit system. I honestly don't know at this point, but I do know that it's a pain to have to deal with and I know I won't let it get out of hand if it appears in my new tank.

dcmander - Thanks, much appreciated!

Bax - My final method of ridding the GHA will be cooking the rock - that oughta do it, eh?

melev - Well, in the process of trying to sell our house, we had an open house for realtors to come look at the home. Several commented that, get ready for this, the tank equipment looked sloppy and the noise was a distraction. Can you believe it? I mean, I absolutely love looking at my unskinned system. What's prettier than a sump full of Deltecs and RedDragons? But I guess naive homeowners just don't understand, and to them it looks nasty. So in the interest of improving the look of our current home (I shudder to even write that), and to keep the wife happy, I'm going to part with it sooner than I had planned. With the corals transferred to my office tank, and still having the office tank to 'play with,' as well as with the new tank still to continue planning, I think I'll still have plenty of skin in the game.
 
many real estate agents will tell you to get rid of the tank because it can be distracting from the home.....the people that come to your open house will look at your tank instead of the house!

always something to think about! too bad you have to take it down.
 
Either ignore that advice, or make a skirt to wrap around the base of the tank. Even those partitions sold at Ikea or similar that you unfold (3 section) to wrap and hide the tank would work. You could use two to create a faux wall during showings.

Now if you put some energy into making that tank look like a reef, odds are the house would sell. They see all that GHA and think "Geeze, I wonder if the plumbing in this house is okay? :rolleyes: "


:lol:
 
Good points dcmander, duly noted indeed.

Marc, I was going to build a skirt, but ultimately I've decided against it. This isn't a rash decision. I've been dealing with this prospect for some time now, but I was reluctant to accept it until very recently. And it really does make sense to proceed at this time. Sure, I could beat this GHA if I really needed to. I would get a sea hare or two, more snails, change my RO membrane and bleach all of the canisters, change all 10 T5 lamps, do a massive water change and buy TMPro salt, gradually remove/replace the sandbed, etc. etc., but that's a bigger time and financial committment than I'm really interested in at this point. All the while knowing that I'd just be buying time until the tank ultimately has to come down. So while I'll thoroughly miss having a tank in my home, I'll still have the office tank to enjoy, and I'll be able to devote more time to planning out the next system. But thanks for all of your suggestions, I do appreciate it.
 
It's official, one week from today I will no longer have a tank at home. Clint (fishypets) and I are going to take it down next Saturday and set it up in his house. I'm going to transfer the livestock to my office tank. Now we're going to have to figure out something to put along the wall that the tank currently occupies, as it will be quite bare. Hey, I know, how 'bout a fish tank? :D

Since Tonga rock has become so difficult to come by recently, I'm going to keep my LR for the next tank. I was going to cook the rock to rid it of algae, but since I won't be using it for a minimum of 6 months, why don't I just scrub the heck out of it and then leave it out in the sun instead and let it cook naturally? Of course it will be dead rock when I'm ready to use it, but it will become seeded with bacteria from the new LR. I figure I'll give it a good cooking a few weeks before putting it into the new tank to remove detritus and eliminate any bound phosphates. How does that sound?

Does anyone know where I can find the definitive recipe on cooking rock?

Psst, Marc, that sounds like a good article for RK Magazine!

Also, when storing my pH probes for future use, can they be capped off with a little pH calibration solution inside the cap to keep them moist?
 
That does sound like a good article, thanks for the suggestion.

I wouldn't put it in the sun to bake. I would put it in barrels that are dark (trashcan with lid inverted) and add a few powerheads to create circulation. Change the water every couple of weeks, moving the rock from the 'dirty used)' barrel to the new one full of clean water. All that algae will die and be left behind, especially in that six month period.

Here's the info I point people to for rock cooking:
http://www.dfwmas.org/Forums/viewtopic.php?p=109759#109759

Just go with what works for your schedule. You have so much time on your hands for this one that I wouldn't do a lot of physical labor. Darkness will be the best tool and make it essentially hands free. If you can swap from one barrel to the next every two weeks, that would be great. Monthly might not be good enough, but no matter what it would help.

Probes: Sure, that would work.
 
Hop did a nice write-up about a modified rock cooking method that makes a lot of sense. If you let it bake in the Sun, the PO4 will stay locked in. If you don't mind it dying off, I would suggest you do like Marc suggests but use RO/DI instead. Using purified water will accellerate the leaching process and not add any potential nutrients.

Then you can test the water and make water changes as needed.
 
Thanks for the great suggestions everybody. After considering it further, I think it would be smart to keep the bacteria alive while killing off the algae, so I'll probably go with melev's suggestion and use salt water. Now I need to get some cheap salt.
 
i used io to cook my rock... and will be using tunze in the display. hopefully rock is not that sensitive to the salt used. but man my rock is so clean after cooking it, you're gonna love it.
 
Mike - I never use ZEOvit or FM to start up a new aqaurium. The reason is because algae can be found in one form or another in every aquarium whether you notice it or not. The main thing is that we can influence which kind of algae is dominant within our aquariums.

The process for algae is successive growth spurts and reproducing until the system is no longer able to support their population. The thing to remember is that macroalgae is easier to control than microalgae, so during stat-up it is best to introduce macroalgae.

The stages of algae within the aqaurium if not controlled

. diatoms
. blue-green (cyano)
. filamentous green algae (hair algae)
. calcareous red algae
 
skey44 - Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I'm considering even cooking the new LR that will go into the new tank as well when the time comes. I have a feeling I'm going to be really happy with the result.


reef / aholic - Nice to see you here again! Your comments are very timely, as I have already decided to begin my next tank with more traditional husbandry, and I'm going to add Zeovit after several months gradually.

Why do you recommend starting out by introducing macroalgae?
 
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