Cook's 105 Planet Aquariums Crystaline Reef - 48x20

[Cook]

Thanks for the information it a good summary for reference without having to read through the big post. I couldn't read you replies though, I was too busy taking the tank apart. I didn't just go for it first thing, I had tested the GHA removal method several months with good results. The problem was that many rocks could not be removed. I had my reasons for going ahead with the plan though it was probably a little too cavalier of me. I've been thinking about doing this and reading for the last 6 months. Also, the tank was a little cloudy this morning, but it is clearing now that I have the skimmer back online.

I did target just the GHA spots that were attached to the rock though I can't say I did it with surgical precision, all I had was a tooth brush. Yes it's also a big reduction in the overall bioload that needs to be watched for. I did the same to my sump a month or so earlier and there is already plenty of regrowth down there in addition to some chaeto I added. I didn't think to mist the coralline, hopefully some of it will pull through. I only scraped the parts of the wall that had GHA attached. I also removed about 15 pounds of rock, which was two rocks in total, I forgot how big some of these old pieces were. I didn't want to, but didn't have the room for them and they are just too heavy and bulky to not be 100% secure.

I'll explain what I did, what I learned, and provide some images in the next post.

 

[Cook]

I separated the fish, live rock, and corals. I have to say that all the rock was pretty clean with not much detritus until I got to the bottom. The sand was a different story, it was pretty bad.

 

[brandon429]

yes that is surgical separation so you can get to the uglies part how wonderful is this prep and exec

so nice to see for sure I'll link back in our example threads so folks with similar tanks have a nice roadmap now, that's truly well done thanks tons for posting that

 

[Cook]

I needed to supplement the existing sand, so I was able to rinse the new bag ahead of time which made me over confident. The sand when new is relatively easy to rinse. However, no matter how much I rinsed, I was never able to make the water run perfectly clear, just a slight haze remaining with each rinse that stopped diminishing. However, the substrate granules dropped without any clouding as described in the instruction thread. I did about 1/3 of a 20 pound bag at a time. Within the tank, once I got down to the sand, it was pretty filthy. Set aside several hours for the rinsing, I did not plan enough time for this step so I was outside still rinsing sand at 2am. I used two buckets and rinsed approximately 2-3 pounds at a time using a hose to really stir the sand up. While one bucket was draining, I was rinsing the other one.

 

[Cook]

This is the tank once I started reassembling and then approximately 12 hours later. I made a mistake in that I was planning to use the water out of the trough that contained the live rock since I planned to rinse the rock separately. This didn't happen in practice and it was easier to return the live rock to the same container after cleaning to reinspect later. The result is that the water got a little cloudy and I used only what I had to out of it. This was about 25 gallons of water that I didn't have a replacement for until several hours later. I did reuse the water the fish were stored in once the rock was back in place. The corals I saved for last, so I did not use the 10 gallons or so I had in that container. All told this was about a 40-50% water change out of 105 gallon capacity.

 

[brandon429]

Cook it’s going to work out fine that’s just a huge effort job my gosh, and you have sufficient dilution in that big tank to ha minor initial clouding not a problem, powerful details in prep w help others


the window of doom in any rip clean is first few hours of reassembly, not days. So when we get lights on today (dimmed lights not full strength for first photo day after rip clean) and the water is clear it means skip cycle complete. If it gets progressively cloudy tonite and then cloud tomorrow we can take cycle arrest measures but it won’t happen/ feeling certain.

t minus a few hours till lights on this one will go well. It’s all in the water clarity tracking for sure.

 

[Cook]

This is an image of lights on this morning. The tank is continuing to clear up.

 

[brandon429]

Cook is that a C. Jardenai coral in the center/left

Its open polyps and the torch and the fish position and water clarity are absolute done deal surgery complete. you just commanded over two grand + in materials to do exactly what you wanted, no bottle bac, Im doing the carlton dance off camera currently because that's a high detail/procedural move with no room for error yet its laid out here in succession, clean for others to repeat and be helped by.

lets make this #1 view in the sand rinse thread post 1 for a long time. after the scary threads obviously, we have to scare them into rinsing. yours w be the first light beacon heh

 

[Cook]

Cook is that a C. Jardenai coral in the center/left

That is a blue tipped Australian torch. The SPS's pictured are pretty hardy, a WWC Slimeball and Garf bonsai. The water was clear this evening when I got home. If anyone wanted an idea of total time, it was about 16 hours including prep, takedown, cleaning, reassembly, and cleanup. I think just the sand rinsing was 4 hours. I did 11 hours in one shot, kept the heaters running and pumps going for about 6-8 hours before completing everything since I needed more salt water than I had prepared.

 

[brandon429]

Cook I’m sure you can see in your research that a solid rip clean won’t keep our algae at bay off one run permanently, but it will align every control variable in your favor for sure


you have cleaned out food stores / waste stores for algae, its reinforcements, so if you notice it coming back and need to use fluconazole or vibrant or whatever to avoid the big takedown then they have a much better chance at working in the low mass condition

so do grazers

you specifically lowered / stopped the risk of cyano and compounding invasions by removing the pent up waste in the system cracks and crevices so if the time comes you have to dose something internally to help edge the algae then when it dies off it won’t be added to a huge mix of waste down low in the bed. It’s fun to make forecasts off patterns this is how I see it

 

[Cook]

I was tired of watching the algae win and for the last 4 months I had given up. Thanks for the help.

I had used pretty much all the algae reduction tips without success.

Performing a rip clean was a major course correction to get this tank back on track, remove unwanted nuisance corals, reassess my cleanup crew, and correct past mistakes.

 

[Cook]

I’m surprised by how good the corals are looking just a few days later. I’m going to check parameters tomorrow.

 

[brandon429]

And they're hungry for direct feeding

a positive mass hypertrophy phase just like working out

spaces are cleared, can circulate more feed than normal within reason and really get a boost.

 

[Cook]

The alkalinity demand of this tank has tripled since the clean out. I need to get the calcium reactor online this weekend to keep up with it. I was manually adding Red Sea Alkalinity at a rate of 20ml every two days, now I have to add 20ml every day to maintain 7.5 dKh.

 

[brandon429]

Fascinating input i will need that to relay one day on a big job and I’ll credit you for finding, since i reef without testing we have learned the light dropping makes up for variables that cause bleaching but we never bothered to test to see what that might be. Alk non compliance up or down but light never off full burn mode certainly makes sense as a link

i figured it might have been all the phosphates we were robbing out along with the organics. Only guessed though never measured

 

[brandon429]

Hey C
do you mind if I use your before and after pics with full name credit to show posters on thereeftank how the rip clean worked on your large reef

a summary of the method / steps you used to effect that safe move.

we needed some boost for their threads with living examples. our methods seem ludicrous without work examples, so far nobody has agreed to begin sand work there and your clear work would give a strong reference boost. trt is a rtr-friendly site...they allow links to us. repaying them with a little energy boost

I will link you the thread itself so you can see if your details get copied and posted by them. cool cross-site work share exchange program
b

 

[Cook]

@brandon429. Sure, it's no problem for you to share.

 

[brandon429]

Ok great this will be fun thanks tons. W link back when all set

 

[brandon429]

Cook hey how is the fine detail on algae growback on rocks

i could understand if a few tiny whiskers came back, any?

 

[Cook]

I haven”t gotten home in time the last few days to see the tank under white light, but there is remarkably little algae growth that I have been able to see so far. I’ll post some images over the weekend for an update.