SkiCat's Dream Build: [Saving The] Planet 180 - The Making Of An Epic Aquacultured Mixed Reef

[SkiCatTX]

ok i just read the whole 37 pages and great thread, got me some ideas for my upgrade, the only thing missing now is some pictures,

Yeah, I need to get on that...not much to look at atm...though

 

[SkiCatTX]

After recent discussions, I decided to take a stab at getting the tank cleaned up. I'm also expecting a bunch of new QT'd fish next week (delayed from last year, and more due to shipping issues and weather).

The first step was to clean up the sand. Since I set up the tank the sand has been covered by a coat of green algae. Nothing seems to affect it. My rock is fine, the fish, snails, and urchins keep it pretty clean. the sand, however, always has about 1/2" or a cm or two of green algae covering it. Everyone that sees it thinks of it as a nice green lawn, but to me, it's an eyesore...

I have tried Vibrant, vacuuming, more sand-dwelling snails, a sea of tangs, changing the light schedule...nothing seems to have any effect.

This time I had an idea, I first vacuumed it thoroughly into a filter sock in the sump, with a big acrylic tube and hose. This got out a lot of it, I just dumped the sucked up sand after picking out a few snails. What remained was cleaner sand with a decent amount of algae still in it.

I then piled it up into a few large piles and aimed the 350s at it. This gradually ate at the piles and moved them slowly, but also caused the algae-covered sand particles to circulate and many of them, or the algae to be sent down the overflow. It took 12-24 hours or so to move a pile, then I just moved it back, or moved the power heads. After about 2 weeks of this, most of the algae is gone, though enough remains to see it mixed in.

During that time I have also been adding Vibrant (despite some of the recent news that it actually does contain algicide, rather than bacteria like the manufacturer claims...I have used it in the past and it seems to work a bit, if slowly, and I have a large bottle of it that I want to use up.

I also changed my lights to only blues. The XR30 Blues I turned off all white, red, and green channels, and the T5s I just run the two blue tubes. I have read this can help, I'm watching the corals closely, but after two weeks I don't see any difference in them. It does make taking pictures difficult, at least with my iPhone.

One other concern was the Nitrate and Phosphate levels, though at first they weren't affected at all, though toward the last few days They were getting a bit high, Nitrate at 20 this morning, and Phosphate at 0.12. I suspect this is due to the algae no longer processing as much of it, and the light changes mean less photosynthesis. I'll have to feed a bit less for a few days and see how that goes.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Looking nice!!

 

[SkiCatTX]

Looking nice!!

Working on it!

 

[SkiCatTX]

I took a few random pictures with my phone and a yellow and orange lens. Didn't bother with the tripod, lights, and turning off the pumps...so they're a bit blurry. Quite a few have died since last year, but a few others are doing well, always hard to know which are going to be which...

Monti

Longnose Hawkfish and cleaner shrimp

Blue Stylo

Green Stylo

Candy Cane, Acro, Yellow/Green Bird's Nest

Pieces of those that I knocked off cleaning...and the Powder Blue, and parts of several other tangs.

It's actually quite difficult to get pics of the corals these days, it's all fish all the time. There was a time when you couldn't get a picture of any fish to save your life...they would always go hide...now they expect to be fed and follow any person around the room like puppies...

When people come in the room to look, a ball of tangs follows them around essentially pointing the direction to the nearest human...

 

[SkiCatTX]

Anticipating some new arrivals this week so I added some egg crate on the overflow to help keep the fish in the display.

 

[powers2001]

@SkiCatTX can we get an update?