- Location
- Upper West Side
So... I have been at this game a long time and I have met several fellow MR members over the years. Many got to see my 180 when it was in its prime. All of that changed after the big blackout, followed by a attempted reboot, followed by a Con Ed outage on my block that lasted two days.
Well, I restarted my 40. It was doing GREAT. Everything was beautiful, tank was fully stocked with fish, corals and inverts. One day everything starts to die... I can't figure it out, so I perform a 50% water change. Nothing. Two days later I do another 50% water change and I find two half dissolved chemical packets in my overflow box. My little girls decided to feed the fish one morning and accidentally dropped them in the tank.
A few years later I have a tank with cyano, hydroids and all kinds of nastiness sitting in my living room. I figure I would give it another go. Girls are older and responsible, wife has been (kind of) supportive...
I decide to do it right. I take out all of the live rock and nuke it in chlorox overnight. Then I soak it in water overnight and let it dry.
I remove ALL of my old live sand. Put new rock in and let the tank run for a 5 weeks with nothing but the rock in it and no lights.
After 5 weeks I pull the rock out, give it a gentle brushing and put fresh live sand in the tank. Put the rock back in... I buy a new RODI unit and change 10-25% of the water each week.
Great so far. But then the repercussions of nuking the rock hit. Hair algae grows with a vengeance and I spend about 15 minutes every day pulling hair algae.
So, here begins my journey.
I have been taking the rock out and gently scrubbing it the past two days. The algae is barely attached so it is pretty easy to clean, but the real good news is that underneath coralline algae is starting to grow back. Also I have hundreds of amphipods but none of the pests I once had.
My skimmer broke, so while it is being fixed I buy a cheap used one. That one falls apart every few days. Thanks to Lee, I just installed a Reef Octopus. It is working MUCH better than I was expecting.
I will get all of the rock thoroughly scrubbed and will leave it in the rubbermaid box for a few days with strong circulation. Once I get all of the rock cleaned up and back in the tank I will start documenting my reboot again. The frags I currently have are doing quite well and all of my parameters are spot on.
Anyway, the Reef Octopus has the water level not even halfway up the body of the skimmer and it is already putting out nice, dry foam!
Well, I restarted my 40. It was doing GREAT. Everything was beautiful, tank was fully stocked with fish, corals and inverts. One day everything starts to die... I can't figure it out, so I perform a 50% water change. Nothing. Two days later I do another 50% water change and I find two half dissolved chemical packets in my overflow box. My little girls decided to feed the fish one morning and accidentally dropped them in the tank.
A few years later I have a tank with cyano, hydroids and all kinds of nastiness sitting in my living room. I figure I would give it another go. Girls are older and responsible, wife has been (kind of) supportive...
I decide to do it right. I take out all of the live rock and nuke it in chlorox overnight. Then I soak it in water overnight and let it dry.
I remove ALL of my old live sand. Put new rock in and let the tank run for a 5 weeks with nothing but the rock in it and no lights.
After 5 weeks I pull the rock out, give it a gentle brushing and put fresh live sand in the tank. Put the rock back in... I buy a new RODI unit and change 10-25% of the water each week.
Great so far. But then the repercussions of nuking the rock hit. Hair algae grows with a vengeance and I spend about 15 minutes every day pulling hair algae.
So, here begins my journey.
I have been taking the rock out and gently scrubbing it the past two days. The algae is barely attached so it is pretty easy to clean, but the real good news is that underneath coralline algae is starting to grow back. Also I have hundreds of amphipods but none of the pests I once had.
My skimmer broke, so while it is being fixed I buy a cheap used one. That one falls apart every few days. Thanks to Lee, I just installed a Reef Octopus. It is working MUCH better than I was expecting.
I will get all of the rock thoroughly scrubbed and will leave it in the rubbermaid box for a few days with strong circulation. Once I get all of the rock cleaned up and back in the tank I will start documenting my reboot again. The frags I currently have are doing quite well and all of my parameters are spot on.
Anyway, the Reef Octopus has the water level not even halfway up the body of the skimmer and it is already putting out nice, dry foam!