In our last installment, we went through a cycle because we were late getting the sump plumbed in a house move.
Worse, the delay cooked my excellent live rock to an absolute gooey soup of former life, with a smell that had to be experienced to be believed.
I got the rock into the tank and skimmed like crazy---trying to get the soupy death out of there: it far exceeded the biomass you cycle with. This worked.
So we got sentenced not to the 1 hour switchover of tank I'd planned, but the full couple of weeks of purgatory known as The Cycle.
My lfs boarded my corals, fending off would-be buyers---yes, local friends, I'll frag that gsp soon!---and babysits my fish to this hour.
I got everything back in: the acropora aculeus, the ululata, the candy cane, hammer, frogspawn, fox, maze brain, montipora digitata, the gsp, the millepora, and the crocea clam. We waved hello to our fishes and drove the 20 miles back to our new place. Got a batch of snails and installed them in the midst of the hair algae. And for the rest, I yanked a lot, and tried to put the coral where it won't be bothered---coral doesn't like hair algae, but it doesn't grow over most of my rock, just on a dead coral specimen.
Pix as soon as I get my camera fixed.
Worse, the delay cooked my excellent live rock to an absolute gooey soup of former life, with a smell that had to be experienced to be believed.
I got the rock into the tank and skimmed like crazy---trying to get the soupy death out of there: it far exceeded the biomass you cycle with. This worked.
So we got sentenced not to the 1 hour switchover of tank I'd planned, but the full couple of weeks of purgatory known as The Cycle.
My lfs boarded my corals, fending off would-be buyers---yes, local friends, I'll frag that gsp soon!---and babysits my fish to this hour.
I got everything back in: the acropora aculeus, the ululata, the candy cane, hammer, frogspawn, fox, maze brain, montipora digitata, the gsp, the millepora, and the crocea clam. We waved hello to our fishes and drove the 20 miles back to our new place. Got a batch of snails and installed them in the midst of the hair algae. And for the rest, I yanked a lot, and tried to put the coral where it won't be bothered---coral doesn't like hair algae, but it doesn't grow over most of my rock, just on a dead coral specimen.
Pix as soon as I get my camera fixed.
