Oldude's Recycled & Refreshed 400
I thought I would start a new thread since I have essentially done a "do over" with my old 400 gal originally set up in late 08'. If interested here is a link to my previous build thread -(long read, sorry)
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1459184
Things started to go downhill in the summer of 2010 and never fully recovered - things would get looking ok for a while then go south again. I dealt with plenty of issues: AEFW, Montipora Eating Nudibranchs, mojano & mini carpet anemone infestations and other problems stemming from something toxic that I think may have been inside my rock because there was an SPS killing substance in the tank I couldn't test for. I also had several fish issues such as previously well behaved fish turning rogue after several years of being model citizens and start eating corals & clams to the tune of several $K. I also ended up with velvet in Dec 2011/Jan 2012 which killed about 50 of the fish in the system.
I tried nursing the tank back to health several times but as stated it just would never fully recover and would then go downhill again. During this time I was able to keep my prop tanks going because luckily I had switched them over to an independent system so most of the issues were avoided.
In the summer of 2013 I decided to do the inevitable and started to prepare for a rebuild & picked up a 130 gal tank to house the transition - new rock, new sand, etc.
I also wanted to take out the closed loop, seal the holes & clean up some plumbing.
I mixed about 350 lbs. of dry rock; Pukani, shelf & branching together with about 50 lbs. of clean live rock from my system & about 30 lbs of new live Fiji rock into the transition tank which had been running for a couple of months with used water from my prop system (dumped the water from my weekly water changes into the 130 to get a bacteria jump start). This made the "œcooking" process go much faster and considerably reduced the tank cycle time over all.
I emptied out the old rock & sand, (although I kept about 10 lbs. of live sand to seed the new sand bed which seems to have worked pretty well so far) and vacuumed and cleaned the display.
Once the tank was empty I sealed up the closed loop holes and let that cure & dry for about 10 days while we went on vacation.
Upon our return I mixed up about 300 gallons of new water and pumped the water from the 130 into the display and proceeded to set up the aquascape. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted it to look like which in truth is not all that different from what it used to be but which more open spaces, etc. Once that was done I moved the fish back in and threw in a few test corals. This all went well and over the course of the next month or so I continued to add in the rest of the corals. My prop tanks went from "œbursting at the seams" full to having not much left in there and a couple of weeks later I noticed the corals in the frag tanks weren't looking so hot when it dawned on me I had forgotten to adjust my dosers down so it had been dosing at the same rate as when the tanks were full. I tested and found my alk was at a whopping 18 DKH so I was surprised at how well the contents were actually doing. I immediately made adjustments and water changes and brought the levels back down to normal over the next 10 days or so and surprisingly lost very little in the process, although the colors sure took a big hit "“ but brown & white are colors too, right? Anyway, things have been doing much better and are on the mend in that system.
The display has been doing very well and slowly coloring up and things are growing at a noticeable rate.
Sorry for the long diatribe, I will now attempt to tell the new display story with some pictures.
I thought I would start a new thread since I have essentially done a "do over" with my old 400 gal originally set up in late 08'. If interested here is a link to my previous build thread -(long read, sorry)
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1459184
Things started to go downhill in the summer of 2010 and never fully recovered - things would get looking ok for a while then go south again. I dealt with plenty of issues: AEFW, Montipora Eating Nudibranchs, mojano & mini carpet anemone infestations and other problems stemming from something toxic that I think may have been inside my rock because there was an SPS killing substance in the tank I couldn't test for. I also had several fish issues such as previously well behaved fish turning rogue after several years of being model citizens and start eating corals & clams to the tune of several $K. I also ended up with velvet in Dec 2011/Jan 2012 which killed about 50 of the fish in the system.
I tried nursing the tank back to health several times but as stated it just would never fully recover and would then go downhill again. During this time I was able to keep my prop tanks going because luckily I had switched them over to an independent system so most of the issues were avoided.
In the summer of 2013 I decided to do the inevitable and started to prepare for a rebuild & picked up a 130 gal tank to house the transition - new rock, new sand, etc.
I also wanted to take out the closed loop, seal the holes & clean up some plumbing.
I mixed about 350 lbs. of dry rock; Pukani, shelf & branching together with about 50 lbs. of clean live rock from my system & about 30 lbs of new live Fiji rock into the transition tank which had been running for a couple of months with used water from my prop system (dumped the water from my weekly water changes into the 130 to get a bacteria jump start). This made the "œcooking" process go much faster and considerably reduced the tank cycle time over all.
I emptied out the old rock & sand, (although I kept about 10 lbs. of live sand to seed the new sand bed which seems to have worked pretty well so far) and vacuumed and cleaned the display.
Once the tank was empty I sealed up the closed loop holes and let that cure & dry for about 10 days while we went on vacation.
Upon our return I mixed up about 300 gallons of new water and pumped the water from the 130 into the display and proceeded to set up the aquascape. I had a pretty good idea of what I wanted it to look like which in truth is not all that different from what it used to be but which more open spaces, etc. Once that was done I moved the fish back in and threw in a few test corals. This all went well and over the course of the next month or so I continued to add in the rest of the corals. My prop tanks went from "œbursting at the seams" full to having not much left in there and a couple of weeks later I noticed the corals in the frag tanks weren't looking so hot when it dawned on me I had forgotten to adjust my dosers down so it had been dosing at the same rate as when the tanks were full. I tested and found my alk was at a whopping 18 DKH so I was surprised at how well the contents were actually doing. I immediately made adjustments and water changes and brought the levels back down to normal over the next 10 days or so and surprisingly lost very little in the process, although the colors sure took a big hit "“ but brown & white are colors too, right? Anyway, things have been doing much better and are on the mend in that system.
The display has been doing very well and slowly coloring up and things are growing at a noticeable rate.
Sorry for the long diatribe, I will now attempt to tell the new display story with some pictures.
