Be forewarned!

[Grant W]

I probably should have stated this from the start but my reason for the rebuild of my reef was Too many invasive animals. By this I mean too many aggresive items in the tank. This is due to one very big mistake I made. When I decided to start the changeover to SPS I did not remove things like the ricordia yumas, button polyps, rhodactis mushrooms, star polyps and such. Whithin an LPS system the other corals can defend themselves from these guys but SPS are basicallya defenseless and it has been a real battle to keep them at bay. Finally I conceded defeat and decided to rectify the situation. The only way to do this was a complete cleanout of the entire system. Other reasons are the original aquascape was too large and high for SPS and I'm sure after that much time the system needed a refreshing to purge built up toxins. Grant

 

[Grant W]

Thursday Update, Ken was nice enough to come over with his bandsaw and give me a hand cutting and reshaping some of the corals that were starting to receed or were beat up from continuous stinging from the Ricordias and other nasties. The big tabling Rosegarden Acro was receeding pretty badly in its center so we had to chunk up that big beast, Borealis looked like crap from cutting bad areas away so that one got cut and trimmed into 2 good sized colonies, Bali Tri Color was starting to go so it had to be cut up also, Setosa still looked pretty good but had a lot of damage again from the Recordias so we cut about 2" off the entire rim and made a number of large frags with the undamaged pieces of the rim. I was still left with a hand sized colony that had a more regular shape to grow out from. We trimmed a number of other pieces but not so drastically and mounted all cut pieces on plugs for easier handling. Big thanks to Ken for all the assistance.
The last pieces of rock are out of the saltwater curing vat and are back in the tank. They are in a pile at this point. Two of them were way too big and very solid( 10-15 pounders) I was able, with my masons chisels, to score and break them each into two really nicely shaped pieces.

In the next few days the corals will all get dipped for the third time and then I will begin remounting them. That is if I can get the aquascape the way I want it Thats it for now guys.

 

[Reef Bass]

He cuts rock with the same ease with which he cuts frags. Go chisel master Grant!

Your tank rejuvenation is in the home stretch. Years of coraline encrustation removed. Rock almost done being cleaned and restored. Sand bed sucked. Corals tidied up. Fish population adjusted. Fresh bulbs.

Way to hang in there through a long and tedious process. I'm betting the results with be well worth the effort and you will be rewarded with outstanding color, rapid growth and ridonkulous polyp extension.

 

[Grant W]

One can only hope. The rocks are now starting to turn varying shades of brown, green and purple. Lets hope the purple(corraline) wins the race.

 

[lokii_37]

Go purple! Go purple! Woot woot.

 

[eldiablosrt8]

WOW, just saw this for the first time. this looks crazy fun ( for a shop owner). Hope the purple wins the race grant.

 

[Grant W]

Thx guys

 

[NeonFish]

Nice upgrade. What did you do with the wrasse?

 

[Grant W]

Thx, I turned the Pink Beastie into the fish store.

 

[AMAYEU]

Grant. Chomping at the bit to see the new scape. FTS?

 

[Reef Bass]

The filter on capital letter entry is annoying.

FTS! FTS! FTS!

 

[Grant W]

Finally forced myself to take some pics of the new reef. Hers the left side.

Full tank shot

Canyon shot

The colors are better than the pics show but you guys know I stink with the camera.

Thats enough for now. The corals are improving more quickly than I had expected showing improved color and polyp extension. They have also healed over most of the cut or damaged areas. Some are light shocked still after having been in the flat under T-5'S for so long but I expect them to come back from that in due time also. I'll post more as the corals improve.

 

[AMAYEU]

Thanks for sharing Grant!

Wow, your sps are a lot lower from the waterline than before. More room for growth?

The canyons is a cool new feature and the overhanging shelf on the left. Look those Zoa colonies!

Is that the purple turaki on leftmost piece on the sandbed?

Looks well worth all the hard work.

 

[Dragonvale]

Wow, Beautiful I still need to come by to see this masterpiece! Great job.

 

[Grant W]

Personally I think it looks like hell but these guys will grow out again soon enough and the rock will turn purple again. I guess I still remember what it used to look like.

More like this

Or this. LoL

 

[Dragonvale]

LOL, Okay when comparing it to your previous setup it doesn't look so good. But it still does look good to me still

 

[zeroinverse]

Awesome job!
I can't believe the sizes of those pieces. Only my Miyagi tort is getting to a "decent size".

 

[Reef Bass]

Awesome job +1!!!

I've seen his new arrangement in person and I think it's excellent. Those aren't rock piles, but carefully placed rocks which create a "parking garage" like structure underneath (with huge amounts of open space, lots of flow and room for fishes to swim) and a roof top coral garden. The enormous worm (cucumber) is frolicking about like a kid on a new playground climbing structure.

Each coral has been meticulously trimmed and placed with an excellent eye for future growth and popping color contrast.

While I agree the original FTS is impressive with the sheer volume of coral, this new setup is exquisite, and when grown out some, will be even more outstanding.

Plus one of the largest things which is not apparent when comparing the original and newest fts's, is that there are NO invasive organisms overgrowing the rocks stinging the crap out of all the lovely acros from underneath.

And then there's the water chemistry benefit of having removed years and years of settled detritus from the sandbed and rocks.

Another testament to the careful and well though out job Grant did here is how excellent the corals still look despite having been through an entire tank teardown and rebuild. While as expected there was some browning, losses were small and I have seen how quickly color is returning. To top it off, there isn't a complete takeover of the tank by nuisance algaes.

Really well done Grant.

Hey, that looks like a new piscine resident in fts shots 2 and 3!

 

[woodnaquanut]

Looks great. The 'before' was spectacular, the 'after' is not there yet but I'm sure it will be soon.

 

[Grant W]

Thx Guys for the generous comments.

Ken, I couldnt have done it without the loan of your equipment, loads of ro water when I fell behind with my smaller filter system,(I've now replaced it with a 5 stage 90 gallon system) and help cutting, mounting and shaping the most beat up pieces to get the best shape when grown out again. Most importantly thx to Ken for his continual moral support/ abuse when I was whining during this whole process.

I'm still not totally happy with the rockwork and will be adding some height to at least the rear of the left hand structure but that will evolve as the corals start to grow again.

After having gone through about 350 gallons of salt water during this process at least one positive has come from this, a regular water change is really no big deal anymore. LoL

I'll try to take some pics as things start to encrust and grow again.