Go do my own work? You’re the dang expert you should have troves of examples 6 months post rip by now. Never trust anyone that tells you this is guaranteed to work long term and when asked for proof tells you to google it.
Ripping out live rock
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Never trust anyone without work threads that allow the non lazy to do their own work on demand
If you were here to contribute, you'd lift up the thread vs weigh on it
Something like an earnest effort reading some sand rinse thread post jobs, then sending them a message to follow up
Seeing what they tell you, before you offer unsolicited opinions.
you have work to do both if you want to learn and if you want to be a constant skeptic, the minute you meet someone who tries to help others with reef tank challenges (and logs the results)
If you're not here to learn tank control tricks and you're not here with examples of your own solutions, that's an unhelpful presence.
What if I demanded that you run an outbound tank correction to completion, would you do that on demand? I don't recall meeting or interacting with you before, your urgency expectation ranks low in my opinion
Let's say you earnestly wanted to know because you were thinking on taking on some work
Then my answer to a sincere party would be: why, in addition to not providing any better counter examples, have you tasked me with someone else's entire subsequent reefing choice set
If someone owns an invaded reef tank eight months later after they just demonstrated an ability to not own one, they need choice making help not reefing help. I recommend the uninvaded condition, however you want to get there.
If you were here to contribute, you'd lift up the thread vs weigh on it
Something like an earnest effort reading some sand rinse thread post jobs, then sending them a message to follow up
Seeing what they tell you, before you offer unsolicited opinions.
you have work to do both if you want to learn and if you want to be a constant skeptic, the minute you meet someone who tries to help others with reef tank challenges (and logs the results)
If you're not here to learn tank control tricks and you're not here with examples of your own solutions, that's an unhelpful presence.
What if I demanded that you run an outbound tank correction to completion, would you do that on demand? I don't recall meeting or interacting with you before, your urgency expectation ranks low in my opinion
Let's say you earnestly wanted to know because you were thinking on taking on some work
Then my answer to a sincere party would be: why, in addition to not providing any better counter examples, have you tasked me with someone else's entire subsequent reefing choice set
If someone owns an invaded reef tank eight months later after they just demonstrated an ability to not own one, they need choice making help not reefing help. I recommend the uninvaded condition, however you want to get there.
The entire point of reefing is to try and do it without rip cleans, but don't own a wrecked tank if you can't.
See how the fundamental responsibility for the after pic sustenance is on the reefer, not me? I keep my tank clean, it's eighteen years running and spotless. I could have let it go any number of months back, and picked something to blame it on
I just didn't, for eighteen years.
Even if I provide my own examples, people in it for the argument vs the science still won't relent.
There's a certain a method of saving reef tanks, I deserve the ability to ply that trade in work threads
Make your own best rescue threads, let's compare results.
You mow your lawn as often as you have to so you can avoid being the neighborhood jerk
It's possible to never be invaded in reefing with that attitude.
See how the fundamental responsibility for the after pic sustenance is on the reefer, not me? I keep my tank clean, it's eighteen years running and spotless. I could have let it go any number of months back, and picked something to blame it on
I just didn't, for eighteen years.
Even if I provide my own examples, people in it for the argument vs the science still won't relent.
There's a certain a method of saving reef tanks, I deserve the ability to ply that trade in work threads
Make your own best rescue threads, let's compare results.
You mow your lawn as often as you have to so you can avoid being the neighborhood jerk
It's possible to never be invaded in reefing with that attitude.
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Any reader here: go research old tank syndrome away from this forum
Do your own reading, link us back here what you find.
If you find ways that these systems have been corrected without rip cleaning, post that
Be a contributer here with specific ways to fix this tank. Anyone who repeat posts here without specific steps to take is bringing down the thread. This isn't our thread to be arguing in, I provided links for the job at hand its as simple as that.
Philip send me results in message I may miss updates here.
Do your own reading, link us back here what you find.
If you find ways that these systems have been corrected without rip cleaning, post that
Be a contributer here with specific ways to fix this tank. Anyone who repeat posts here without specific steps to take is bringing down the thread. This isn't our thread to be arguing in, I provided links for the job at hand its as simple as that.
Philip send me results in message I may miss updates here.
WHERE ARE THE RESULTS? and don't post the day after.
Surely you have a ONE pic of someone's setup even 3 months after rip clean??
philip.aasen
Community Member
philip.aasen
Community Member
Yes. Could you point me too a thread without all the trolls?
lol asking for long term results from someone selling a quick fix is not trolling. I spent enough time today searching google for long term results and I haven't found anything other than the day after pics and one thread where someone had sand dwelling dinos that a rip clean did not fix, which is totally unsurprising.
If I were you I would approach your cleaning at one rock at a time and I would not use any chemical and only mechanical removal, but you will have to address what caused this or it will just come back. There is no reason to sterilize the sand other than removing parts of the sand where algae has attached and getting back to general maintenance with siphoning sand during water changes.
If you can find something similar to API AlgaeFix over there it has shown to be useful against bubble algae at a certain dose and regimen. This could help beat what is left after mechanical removal without nuking the rocks with acid.
Also, at this point with that little coral, I would ditch what is left in there. Give it away or sell it. Reduce/turn off your lights to help get a leg up after bulk removal.
If I were you I would approach your cleaning at one rock at a time and I would not use any chemical and only mechanical removal, but you will have to address what caused this or it will just come back. There is no reason to sterilize the sand other than removing parts of the sand where algae has attached and getting back to general maintenance with siphoning sand during water changes.
If you can find something similar to API AlgaeFix over there it has shown to be useful against bubble algae at a certain dose and regimen. This could help beat what is left after mechanical removal without nuking the rocks with acid.
Also, at this point with that little coral, I would ditch what is left in there. Give it away or sell it. Reduce/turn off your lights to help get a leg up after bulk removal.
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It is a public forum.
They are not ‘invasions’. It is the natural progression of unwanted algae due to lack of controls. It is there because it is in the ocean.
The term was coined by Mike Paletta in 2006 - It generally describes a condition where long term neglect finally reaches a tipping point and the accumulation of nutrients and other slowly deteriorating conditions form the perfect storm. Your reef tank becomes extremely unhealthy and declines rapidly. I wrote an article regarding my own "old tank syndrome" experience in 2010 or so.
MY reef is now over 20 years old and it has never been "rip cleaned". It has spent time in the past overgrown with "nuisance" algae due to poor husbandry, over feeding, massive coral die off due to overheating, etc. I do not currently have a nuisance algae problem. I simply don't overfeed and I utilize snails, an urchin and simple mechanical removal if needed. So "corrected" without a rip clean.
PaulB's tank is twice that plus some and was never "rip cleaned" until he recently removed his rock and srubbed it to remove invasive sponge that he fought a losing battle to for decades.
"rip clean" is not a long term strategy, it is a drastic and invasive reset. It is certainly an effective means of QUICK results and carries plenty of risk. However, if the conditions that preempted its need are not removed, then the "rip clean" will just become a regular and VERY disruptive maintenance task.
Most of us strive to grow a mature aquarium in continuum , not tear it down and start over every 12-18. months.
There is no issue with advising it in some case, but please stop advertising it as a "fix all" with no risk or side effects - Snake Oil was outlawed in 1906 with the Pure Food and Drug act, don't be a snake oil salesman.
You rail about authors making stuff up... but did you just say that algae blocks the "live rock" from working as expected and that in the real ocean this doesn't happen because of "wave action" keep the rocks clean? Care to cite the source of your information? It wouldn't be one of those "lazy authors" that don't do "work threads" would it?
No sir, your relentless tirades and insistence that all advice not proven in your work threads should be ignored is what brings down threads. You continue to rant and rave and attack everyone that doesn't give advice that you approve of.
As for the OP - I am sure his "rip clean" will result in clean rock, but if he does not remove the issues that caused it, then he will be right back here in the same state in months. Is "rip clean" the only effective means, of course not but given that there is really nothing else in that tank, why not? That doesn't make it magic or permanent.
Good luck OP... get your mess cleaned up, fix the issues that caused it and you will have a better chance at a thriving reef. I would (one way or the other) invest in some snails and revisit feeding and filtration.
The term always has sucked and I wonder if Mike regretted every saying it - I have never asked him.
Old tank is a lazy and uninformed idea that somehow people had nothing to do with the demise of their tanks and that there is nothing that you can do about it. It was the answer to every problem kinda like "feed your coral - your no3 and po4 are too low" is now - also not likely helpful or true for many. It was the go-to for people on the earlier internet to try and help or feel important. My colt coral looks bad - old tank syndrome. My tang got ich - old tank syndrome. Zoas are melting - old tank syndrome. My car ran out of gas - old tank syndrome.
Neither the "hobbyist is absolved of blame" nor "you cannot do anything about it" is true, as you seem to know starting out the paragraph with neglect - many do not know. Most of it breaks down to people not understanding that their sandbed (often deeper back then) was binding po4 to mask the reefer's neglect - eventually the sand could not mask the neglect any more and the po4 levels quickly started to rise in the tank. People thought that the sand was leeching po4, but this is not possible since the po4 binds which has rules and cannot just come off. People thought that there was accumulation of organic matter in the sand that was just now decaying, but what they saw was inert gunk/mulm and small pieces of sand and not truly organic detritus since any real value in organics long have been stripped of any value by all manner of critters from pods to bacteria. The suspected culprit was the brown stuff that collects in people sumps and they just don't care - inches of it sit sometimes... it is inert.
In the end, I am glad that the term and the concept of a catch-all lack of knowledge has died down and the actual root causes addressed. I think that more folks now know that po4 binds to aragonite - the bare bottom tanks have since had po4 problems too helped to change this lazy narrative that it was the sand, although some untruths about sand still persist.
There were some old-tank syndrome systems that started to fail after many years of no water changes. These were not like the no water change tanks of today where nearly all do some water changes, just not regularly, and do not seem to know how words work between "none," "regular" and "sometimes." These tanks were truly setup with salt and the salinity went down as skimmer cups got emptied over 4 or 5 years until they just failed with buildups of who knows what, traces all gone and major elements very low.
Nobody ever needed to shut down or restart their tank to get past this. Then, or now. It might have been easier for some, however.
My tank going since late 1990s. Never had to any sort of reset. Ever. I do keep up on my maintenance.
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I don't disagree, other than sometimes it is not laziness, but a chain of events with latent consequences. In my case it was a combination of laziness (lack of maintenance), overfeeding and a die off due to an overheating event.
Yes - it was a catch all term for everything from poor husbandry to user induced DSB crashes (from too much fiddling with them) to bad source water accumulating silicates over time, etc.
If you remember, the great RC blowup was this very topic, with Dr. Ron, Borneman, Calfo, Bomber, and various others involved that culminated in a mushroom cloud.
I mean I have not done one in easily 5 maybe going on 7 years
My "old tank syndrome" issue predated that and is what led to to just letting it run, but it is exactly where I ended up. ZERO skimming, water changes, media, dosing, etc. for over 5 years. No food either (maybe 4 times a year). Fat health Tang and Coral Beauty and a Hawfish (died of old age). Some LPS and a brain made it all that time, lots of mushrooms and blueridge and leather. Lots of algae.
Just about a year ago I decided to clean it up and get back into SPS. I put on a skimmer, added 50 snails and an tuxedo urchin, ran a bit of chemipure elite (easy way for me to get carbon in there) and manually plucked the bulk of the algae with the rocks still in the tank. It took maybe 10-15 mins half a dozen times over a week or two. Done...
I feed less now, maintain my skimmer and dosing. SPS is living and growing and fish are happy. No "rip clean" - though I have a mushroom issue that may require drastic measures. If it comes to that I will upgrade the display, as I have wanted an excuse to do for 15 years.
So no "reset" here as much as a change in my husbandry to match expectations.
I have a filter set up so I don't see any replies or anything from a few users. You were talking to brandon above, right? I just don't have time for big floppy shoes, red nose and face paint, but I kinda feel bad for the people who choose to listen to him. Most come back and want other help later which he never talks about and ignores all the while demanding things of you that he himself will not provide.
If I were to guess, he has asked people to take discussions into private conversation, right? This is predator behavior - I will help you, but nobody else can know since the public will let you know that I am a problem. You might as well have a windowless van and bag of candy, right? How close did I get?
In any case, I might suggest that you stop talking to him and focus your replies to the other people who might hear your words of balance, experience and actually trying to help and not just making it about you (like he does). This was suggested to me by some of the smarter people on the board and it has worked well since he lacks the awareness to understand what he is and what he is doing.
Off topic, but I got a CB asfur a long time ago that as it got larger would rip discoma off of the rocks and destroy them. Risky in tanks with other corals - it was a beast. Good luck with those things...
flashsmith
Valuable Member
Umm... I just came here to say. Always check the simple things first. A few emerald crabs will knock out that bubble algae in a week. I will also concur with the above statement by jda. Clown shoes face paint and all.
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fish farmer
2500 Club Member
Yep....pretty much how I took control of my "OTS" swamp...it takes some time but for me routine maintenance got my tank to growing LPS corals again.I don't disagree, other than sometimes it is not laziness, but a chain of events with latent consequences. In my case it was a combination of laziness (lack of maintenance), overfeeding and a die off due to an overheating event.
Yes - it was a catch all term for everything from poor husbandry to user induced DSB crashes (from too much fiddling with them) to bad source water accumulating silicates over time, etc.
If you remember, the great RC blowup was this very topic, with Dr. Ron, Borneman, Calfo, Bomber, and various others involved that culminated in a mushroom cloud.
I mean I have not done one in easily 5 maybe going on 7 years
My "old tank syndrome" issue predated that and is what led to to just letting it run, but it is exactly where I ended up. ZERO skimming, water changes, media, dosing, etc. for over 5 years. No food either (maybe 4 times a year). Fat health Tang and Coral Beauty and a Hawfish (died of old age). Some LPS and a brain made it all that time, lots of mushrooms and blueridge and leather. Lots of algae.
Just about a year ago I decided to clean it up and get back into SPS. I put on a skimmer, added 50 snails and an tuxedo urchin, ran a bit of chemipure elite (easy way for me to get carbon in there) and manually plucked the bulk of the algae with the rocks still in the tank. It took maybe 10-15 mins half a dozen times over a week or two. Done...
I feed less now, maintain my skimmer and dosing. SPS is living and growing and fish are happy. No "rip clean" - though I have a mushroom issue that may require drastic measures. If it comes to that I will upgrade the display, as I have wanted an excuse to do for 15 years.
So no "reset" here as much as a change in my husbandry to match expectations.
I know a rip clean would probably help with a quick reset, but would likely cause my pair of mature egg laying clowns to kill each other as well as totally trash my LPS corals.
But since my tank is an outlier on this forum, my solo experience lacks credentials.
I think any person should utilize what they can. My friend Maritza the vase reef on YouTube has been testing no rip clean pico reefing and they have a pico vase that's on year 12 using the original sand, never exported or stirred. The exact opposite of what I use to age out nano reefs also works to age them out.
The reason I use rip cleans is because it aligns variables across tanks to prevent crashes. It's better than having no recourse that's for sure. Before rip cleans, reefing entrants would throw their stuff out and start over
I'm guilty of that, once. I now just force my stack of rocks to comply. Needs tuning every 24 mos. That's not too much work for me.
The reason I use rip cleans is because it aligns variables across tanks to prevent crashes. It's better than having no recourse that's for sure. Before rip cleans, reefing entrants would throw their stuff out and start over
I'm guilty of that, once. I now just force my stack of rocks to comply. Needs tuning every 24 mos. That's not too much work for me.
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Huh? - You did not invent cleaning rocks and sand or prevent massive rock abandonment. People have been vacuuming sand (in place our fully out to replace) and cleaning (dipping, scrubbing, chisseling, "cooking" and swishing, power heading) rocks for as long as I have been in the hobby. Most sane or reasonable people did not throw perfectly good (but algea or phosphate laden) rock in the trash. This is the rhetoric that further diminished your credibility.
BTW: The constant terminology coinage and wordsmithing is mind numbing, it doesn't make things more true, more scientific or more readable...
"reefing entrants"
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