The rock is starting to look cleaner on a plus side. How high are po4 levels

Ya, the rock isn't bad, just not as clean as it could be. PO4, last hanna check was 0.21. Probably a bit lower now, I've been using fozdown. With a Elos test, it's blue :) I can never tell where exactly it sits with those kits.

I used cerith snails for the diatom bloom, they mowed through it pretty fast.
Don't have a hanna checker nut found salifert pretty good. I'm willing to bet buy the end of your 3 months it will look supreme.

I have some conches, and a bunch of large sand burrowing snails, they move stuff around pretty good. It's getting better, so not worried. Just need the rock to build enough internal bacteria to denitrify the NO3. And stop feeding green algae :)

The good - NO3 down to below 1ppm. PO4 down to about 0.1ppm. Algae vanishing. Corals coloring up well, mostly.

The bad - FFS, looking at a frag last night thinking it's looking pretty rough. Almost like the mother colony did when it was infested with AEFW.....well ya, there ya go. Took it out and dipped it, and infested. FRACK!

Oh well, sh1t happens, right?

Plan A. Do nothing. See what happens.
Plan B. Natural control, add a wrasse or 4 and some peppermint shrimp.
Plan C. Create a full SPS system with no acropora. This has potential, and I've never seen it before. Could be cool.

Omg how can that possibly happen? I would get a wrasse yes :sad:

No idea. All frags were bare tissue and well dipped. Nothing wet transferred over except the clam. Maybe that was it. A couple frags from a shop added, but dipped and some FW removed. No other anythings from any tank added. Weird, eh?
Oh well....

Man that sucks. All that work.
I vote for plan B and C

I have four yellow coris if you want to try one :idea:

Japarto has one waiting for me, but thanks.

Ok good

I'm voting A :) But I'll add a wrasse for now, and watch. No other pieces look affected, but who knows. These things don't show until it's bad.

Oh that sucks. I'd Def go with wrasse and shrimp first. Was it just one frag or multiple

Just one for now, but I'm sure they're elsewhere too. I baste everything often, so I'm sure I've blown some into the water column.

Don't dragon pipefish eat AEFWs? Pretty cool addition regardless and I'd think they'd be pretty effective at getting in the tight spots.

I think flow might be an issue, they seem to like lagoon style environments. I think.

It's red bugs they eat I've never heard of them eating aefw but who knows:)

They can handle flow they don't actually swim much Snappy has then in his sps tank, kien did too:)

I think they would compete with mandarins as well, so probably not a good choice.

I've read about people basting rock and acros 2/3x a day and being able to disrupt the fw cycle

lol :) Ya, not gonna happen. Wrasse and shrimp can do their thing, or I live with it.

Holee, sucks to be you right now
But you don't have my issues, so we're even :razz:

Why shrimps ... ? For what purpose I mean ... ?

So you're leaning towards plan A for now ?
I'd go either;
Plan B with a Yellow Coris and/or Melanurus or ...
Plan C as you mentioned something about a Mandarin ?

I have both wrasses, plus a Scooter and Hector's
The Hector's is doing fine (over a year all fish together), but the Scooter is looking a tad thin right now
I don't know if he'll make it, but the wifey won't let me sell him, so I'm trying my best to fatten him back up

So, my point is, if you already have your mind set on a Mandarin, go with plan C and turf those AEFWs now in whatever cruel way you deem fitting

And BTW, I'm baaack
I went straight from XPPro to a shiny new 8.1 system. So I can now play on the web again :smile:

I already have a pair of mandarins, so that's that :)

I'll add a yellow coris, see what that does, and some peps if I can find any. Not overly concerned about it. If I have to move to a non acro SPS tank, I think that could look really cool. So if it goes that way, so be it. Not gonna stress over it. Just a tank. I have more important things to occupy my stress -lol

Peppermints will eat fw

Interesting

That's what I was told anyway, but always cool to have shrimps running around, eating bits of food

Or rather, hang around waiting for you to feed the fish, and then steal food from your corals :rolleyes:
I have a peppermint, cleaner and fire
All they do is sit around waiting for something to happen. Mind you, the peppermint did eat the aptaisia ... and the cleaner does a good job of freaking out the fish when he tries to clean them LOL

I don't feed corals, so they better not rely on that to eat! No aiptaisa either, so if they want food, eat flatworms!

Mine are ornamental and are surviving just fine on whatever is leftover/floating by

aiptaisa??

???

Yes, I had Aiptasia (sic)
The peppermint cleared it all ( that I can see anyway ) in the first 2 days

Why do you ask ?

no, I thought you meant your aiptasia were ornamental. nvm :)

:doh:

But I do have a lot of ornamental GHA

Option D borrow the wrasse from Wayne, he has too many anyway. Leopard will probably live longer in your tank.

I would have to kill Wayne to get a wrasse from him :) I have a leopard anyway, it doesn't go near the corals.
I have a yellow coris and secretive reserved. Just need to find peppermint shrimp.

Well.. If you have to kill Wayne and save the life of many wrasse? Do it

Another month down, decided to start growing out some cyano, lots available, free shipping with any order -lol

Growth is slower than I'd like, likely due to PO4 levels higher than optimum. Colors are good on some pieces, lacking on others, some pieces got tossed. Overall, just waiting another 4 - 8 weeks, if I'm not happy with it I'll get a box of real rock.
Seriously regret using dead rock, most difficult tank build I've ever done.

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/d...ps841240b0.jpg

4-8 weeks more and your rock will be real!:mrgreen:

I hear ya

My only tank but still regret it

What's your MH photoperiod ? I'm gonna change my T5 schedule to emulate MH intensity

That's what everyone tells me, so I'll wait until the end of November to make any decisions, but my gut instinct is that no, it will still be dirty sludgy rock full of decay.
I've built a lot of tanks over the years, and I thought I knew better, but went with popular opinion and used cheap dead rock. That was a mistake. It may clean up, but I'm budgeting for a box of rock now :)