Cook's 105 Planet Aquariums Crystaline Reef

[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 total capacity.

 

[Cook]

The water did cloud a little as evidenced by the images but cleared up within 24 hours once I got the skimmer and carbon reactor back online. 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. Clearly, this isn't for everyone, but it can be done without nuking a tank.

 

[civics14]

The water did cloud a little as evidenced by the images but cleared up within 24 hours once I got the skimmer and carbon reactor back online. 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. Clearly, this isn't for everyone, but it can be done without nuking a tank.

I rinsed sand one time... never again. I'll stick to just buying new sand. It takes forever and it seems like it never gets cleaned enough. Looking good on setting it back up tho. That is some serious amount of work put into that.

 

[Cook]

This is an image of the tank, two days after the clean out.

 

[Cook]

I removed a total of 11 Rainbow Bubble Tips during this process. I kept one, and I'm torn on whether I should take it out as well. For now, I'm going to keep an eye on it and be more proactive in removing RBTA's when they multiply. I do like them.

The alkalinity demand of this tank has tripled since the clean out. It really started to take off this week. I need to get my Avast calcium reactor online to keep up with the demand. 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 and if I wait too long I'm sure my other parameters, like calcium and magnesium, will start to get out of balance more quickly than I would like. I'm going to do a 15% water change and test all parameters to see where they are. I was able to show someone the tank this week and it was a great feeling not to be looking at a sea of GHA.

 

[90gDreams]

Looks great. Love the candy cane colony. I'm a total candy cane fanatic despite not having any in the new tank yet.

 

[Cook]

Some pictures from earlier this week.

 

[Cook]

With the new furniture, I needed to clean up the cords that were previously stuffed behind the old one. I went with an IKEA Eket cabinet for my electronics cabinet and CO2 tank storage. It’s a little tight, but it’s works. I 3D printed a hinge mount for my GHL mini so that the display is visible when the door is open.

 

[Cook]

I finally got my Avast Seabones reactor online as well. Between the cabinet, GHL install, and the reactor, it’s been about a month of planning, ordering parts, waiting on parts, and making installation adjustments. I have had some trouble keeping the reactor from leaking for the top seal. I greased the o-ring and I think I stopped it, but only time will tell. This is an interesting design and uses a micro pump for flow control. I have some upgrades for it, but I am using it stock while the warranty is still valid.

 

[ichthyoid]

Nice looking system!

Do you happen to know if IKEA has a cabinet that fits the Basic Aquarium Controller Board? Looks like there are a lot of designs is why I asked.
It’s dimensions are 15"L x 25.25"H x 3.5"W

Standard Aquarium Controller Board - Adaptive Reef

Get rid of the rat's nest of wires around your tank! Keep all of your aquarium equipment safe and organized with the Adaptive Reef Controller Board! Most of us have a scary tangle of cords coming out of our controllers and running behind the aquarium. Not only is this a nightmare for...

www.bulkreefsupply.com

 

[Cook]

Products

Browse our full range of products from dressing tables to complete modern kitchens. Click here to find the right IKEA product for you. Browse online and in-store today!

www.ikea.com

This one? It was too big for the space I had available.

 

[ichthyoid]

You’re killin me smalls! All my cabinets are black. What is the depth dimension?

 

[civics14]

With the new furniture, I needed to clean up the cords that were previously stuffed behind the old one. I went with an IKEA Eket cabinet for my electronics cabinet and CO2 tank storage. It’s a little tight, but it’s works. I 3D printed a hinge mount for my GHL mini so that the display is visible when the door is open.
View attachment 40780View attachment 40781
View attachment 40774

Thats a good looking set up. Matches perfectly!

 

[Cook]

So it's time for some catch up. I was so happy with the results of the rip clean that I was over confident and I did not replenish my clean up crew quickly enough to keep the GHA at bay. The algae came right back and found more places to accumulate on the live rock that had not previously been exposed to light.

These images are from April 30th.

 

[Cook]

I started treating the tank with Flux Rx, Fluconazole, on May 2nd utilizing 150% of the recommended dosage. After 5 weeks, I was seeing some progress. I did three 20% water changes a couple of days apart in preparation for moving to a lower dosage for several more weeks and I ordered a full clean up crew from Reef Cleaners that arrived May 27th.

These are images from June 2nd. Essentially, the GHA was rebounding and the clean up crew was making slow progress.

 

[Cook]

I waited until June 11th before I decided to redose the tank again with Fluconazole as in theory, with my water changes, I should have maintained about 90% of the original dosage though I am sure this medication degrades over time. I added 50% of the recommended treatment on June 11th to ensure no harmful effects were seen with the CC. I waited a week and added 100% more of the recommended dosage on the 18th. During the week of June 21st, there just really wasn't any progress, so I began to consider more extreme measures. What I am saying is that the GHA was still firmly attached to the rock work and manually trying to pull it off the rocks was very difficult.

Since the original rip clean and tank deconstruction, my rock work was not as stable as before and the Kenya Tree that I had moved near one of the gyres had gone from a model citizen to a branch dropping warmonger which was going to get out of control. Not to mention I was losing all my GHA progress I had made, so I was frustrated.

Instead of repeating the rip clean as I did it before, I took two buckets of salt water from the tank to use as a rinse bath and I removed 1/3 of the live rock from the tank, one rock at a time and took them outside. I then used a power washer to blast off all the GHA I could find and immediately after each rinse, I placed the rock back into the salt water bath which I hoped would minimize any die off and allow me to make sure there was no residual GHA. This took me maybe an hour of time total.

I reconstructed my rock work and waited two weeks to see what happened. There were no negative consequences to my drastic measures. During this time, I also turned off my refugium light to try to kill off the GHA down there.

 

[Cook]

The image below is from July 5th where you can see the left half of the tank rock work is clear of GHA, while the right side has dieback on the GHA, but it's still there. This is also with 9 weeks total of 80-150% dosage of Reef Rx. Encouraged by this, I pulled the rest of the rocks, one at a time as before, and power washed all those as well. A couple rocks with mounted corals I could only scrub manually and use Hydrogen Peroxide with a toothbrush where necessary.

I have been only sparingly feeding this tank the entire time. I also moved to TDO small pellets to reduce the phosphate input versus Hikari Marine Carnivore pellets.

I have only had this tank running for 2 and a half years, but the live rock is more than 8 years aged at this point, so I'm wondering if it is leaching phosphate. My frag tank also had a GHA problem and the clean up crew addition has wiped that tank completely clean and gotten the GHA under control during this same time frame. @90gDreams you were right about the turbo's!

I did a 20% water change for this work, I used half for the live rock rinsing and I added another 50% of the recommended dosage of Reef Rx to the replacement water. I've been reading about dosing phyto to outcompete GHA. I'm going to use Purigen in two weeks to remove what's left of the fluconazole and see what results. There is some cyano that is appearing that I need to watch carefully.

 

[Cook]

I power washed the other half of the rocks with zero ill effects. Just like before, I washed them off and then immediately placed them back into in a saltwater bath. The cyano has continued to be a problem and it was spreading despite water changes, sand cleaning, and brushing it off the rockwork while siphoning. I just completed a 3 day blackout as of this morning, so we will see what things look like tonight. I added a dose of Dr. Tim's Eco Balance last week and I am dosing live phyto every other day to try to course correct after the extended period that this tank was treated with fluconazole, 14 weeks total between the two extended treatments I tried. I also fragged my splatter hammer colony down to a much smaller size to make room for some frogspawn.

Lights on this morning:

 

[sharis100]

Coral snow from KZ - calcium carbonate, as a floculant can help remove cyano in the water column keep the skimmer going during use.

 

[Cook]

Coral snow from KZ - calcium carbonate, as a floculant can help remove cyano in the water column keep the skimmer going during use.

Can that be found locally?