Turtle's Deep Blue Sea

Scurvy · Apr 30, 2018

Robin Haselden said:
We are going to order one today. Just need to figure out which one... I think the basic BRS 24" frame with 1/8" screen with extra corners to go around the light mounts will be sufficient.

The extra corners you would get for the regular BRS screen kit have to be flipped over and snipped for them to work around light mounts. Kinda hard to explain until you see it. It can work but I found it made the screen weeker. The Red Sea kits have extra corners that work better around light mounts. A little pricier of course but long term you'll be happier i think.

Brew12 · Apr 30, 2018

Robin Haselden said:
Cool, I just filled a 10ml beaker with sand and dried it in the sun in an old Rubbermade bowl. Let me know and I'll send it over...

I honestly think I'm going to switch to the Hawaiian black sand tho. After stirring that sand up my corals got worse.

Its not as fine grain as I like, but everyone who tries to tell me black sand isn't the problem, has the Hawaiian. They will argue with me until their gills are blue and as soon as I show them the picture of the bag they're like 'oh, I don't have that sand.'

I just talked to our lab tech. He is excited to get this testing done, so send the sample! I'm just one of many geeks that work here. ;Bookworm

He has a 1/3" disk that he will stick the sand to and check the grains under an ESM.

najer · Apr 30, 2018

Scurvy said:
The extra corners you would get for the regular BRS screen kit have to be flipped over and snipped for them to work around light mounts. Kinda hard to explain until you see it. It can work but I found it made the screen weeker. The Red Sea kits have extra corners that work better around light mounts. A little pricier of course but long term you'll be happier i think.

England calling, my lfs stocks the red sea double corners, very easy to use and cut out fiddling.

SashimiTurtle · Apr 30, 2018

Brew12 said:
I just talked to our lab tech. He is excited to get this testing done, so send the sample! I'm just one of many geeks that work here. ;Bookworm

He has a 1/3" disk that he will stick the sand to and check the grains under an ESM.

Was that amount good enough? I have a little bit more I can send...

Brew12 · Apr 30, 2018

Robin Haselden said:
Was that amount good enough? I have a little bit more I can send...

View attachment 734388

that little baggie would be more than enough. It won't take much to put under the scope. If you need to send less to fit in a standard envelope you can.

SashimiTurtle · Apr 30, 2018

Well, we decided to go ahead and remove all the black sand.

Yep, it's all gone... all but about the same amount that we couldn't scoop up with the net and wouldn't siphon out.

Maui was trying to figure out what was going on and where his rock went.

Bonnie and Clyde got evicted. They would not stop harassing the coral beauty, so they are in the 40b.

We made up about 15-20 gallons of water to fill the tank back up... that was all the salt we had. We rescaped the rocks to create a little overhang for the fish. Maui has already claimed the underside of a rock as his.

You're probably wondering what sand we went with... it's the Hawaiian black. It's actually not as magnetic as the Tahitian Moon. Very few particles stuck, if any at all when I did a quick test. I'm still going to be careful with the flipper. A LFS near me has an anemone tank with hawaiian black sand, and I've seen SPS dominant tanks on here that use the same sand.

Brew12 · Apr 30, 2018

Robin Haselden said:
Bonnie and Clyde got evicted. They would not stop harassing the coral beauty, so they are in the 40b.

You name them Bonnie and Clyde and you expect them NOT to harass other fish?

You should have named them Saint Patrick and Mother Teresa if you wanted them to be friendly!

Robin Haselden said:
You're probably wondering what sand we went with... it's the Hawaiian black.

If you haven't already sent the other sample, you can put some of this with it and I can get it tested, too.

Zack K · Apr 30, 2018

[emoji102]

SashimiTurtle · Apr 30, 2018

Brew12 said:
You name them Bonnie and Clyde and you expect them NOT to harass other fish? You should have named them Saint Patrick and Mother Teresa if you wanted them to be friendly!

Well, they were named that when they terrorized everyone in the 75g. Then they just went mellow in Deep Blue until I added another coral beauty. Flipped the switch and they had to make sure it wasn't allowed out of the rocks. The good thing is Bonnie loves me again. No more biting. I've wanted an anemone and clown tank for a while, that'll be my next build.

Brew12 said:
If you haven't already sent the other sample, you can put some of this with it and I can get it tested, too.

10-4 boss, gonna try and get Mom to take it by the post office tomorrow. Back to work for me... ;Facepalm

SashimiTurtle · Apr 30, 2018

Zack Klabunde said:
View attachment 734487
[emoji102]

SashimiTurtle · Apr 30, 2018

Check this out...

Hawaiian sand, collected from tank and dried.

Jebao magnet used to dig thru Tahitian sand. Set on top of Hawaiian sand.

Jebao magnet picked straight up and flipped over.

I'm not saying none of it is magnetic, because I've heard people say it is... but I'm shocked.

Scurvy · Apr 30, 2018

Well ill be the guinea pig on the Tahitian until we see the results of the analysis.... i actually got that tank looking pretty good here in the past few days so it may not get torn down as quickly as Id planned. Turbo snails demolish hair algae like nothing ive seen. This was structure was covered as of Thursday when i dropped 4 of them in there.

SashimiTurtle · Apr 30, 2018

Scurvy said:
Well ill be the guinea pig on the Tahitian until we see the results of the analysis.... i actually got that tank looking pretty good here in the past few days so it may not get torn down as quickly as Id planned. Turbo snails demolish hair algae like nothing ive seen. This was structure was covered as of Thursday when i dropped 4 of them in there.

View attachment 734583 View attachment 734586

I really hope you have better results.... and I really hope switching sand solves my issues. Turbo snails are algae destroyers. Crazy how fast they work.

The tank actually looks good withthe new sand. It isn't shiny and reflective, but it looks good. I need to figure out what to do with those acans before the conch Chuck Norris roundhouse kicks them.

Fudsey · Apr 30, 2018

I have Hawaiian black and it is somewhat magnetic. I still pick up pieces if I get my glass mag in it. Still got to be careful not to scratch the glass. But it is good to hear that it is not as magnetic as the Tahitian black.

Brew12 · Apr 30, 2018

My personal thoughts are that I wouldn't run any magnetic sand without having a large amount of macro algae growing.

SashimiTurtle · Apr 30, 2018

Brew12 said:
My personal thoughts are that I wouldn't run any magnetic sand without having a large amount of macro algae growing.

Exactly how large are we talking?

Scurvy · Apr 30, 2018

That hawaiin looks good! I had stayed away from it because people complained of white sand mixed in. I dont see any.

SashimiTurtle · Apr 30, 2018

Scurvy said:
That hawaiin looks good! I had stayed away from it because people complained of white sand mixed in. I dont see any.

There is just a little fine white sand mixed in. Not bad at all.

Brew12 · Apr 30, 2018

Robin Haselden said:
Exactly how large are we talking?

View attachment 734628

As much as it will grow. Not only will it help consume any iron released into the tank but it will also absorb other possible toxins released. I have to dose iron in my system to get the chaeto to grow some times so I don't mind a little iron in the tank. Just worry about too much. Macro algae is probably the best way to remove it.