Good plan
I'm thinking about firing up some tubs to cure new-to-me rock and start over

7 hours. Overall, hair algae is almost gone, rock is looking cleaner, and it may turn out ok. Gonna chemiclean it one of these days to clear up the cyano. Adding back my Tunze 6095s and adding a larger return pump this weekend. Need more turn over through sump and better flow on the rock.

And what's your actinics ?

I wouldn't do "new to me" rock. Get over to J&L and buy a box.

And that 7 hours is 2 x 400watts ?

Sorry, I forget

Ya, that's gonna take a lot of frags to pay for ...

8am to 11pm

Correct

It's $300, think of the grief you'd save. I have never, in all my years, ever had problems using fresh live rock. The bit of money saved going dry or dead just isn't worth it. That's my take anyway.

Also, I can't help but notice I'm missing a large anthias. Pretty sure that's not helping :)

Wow
I really have to re-think my light timers
You have way more light than I, but I can't keep my corals from bleaching if I do what you do

Maybe if I slowly ramp up my timers the corals will out-compete my GHA issue (wishful thinking)

Anyway, enough about me

Your tank is looking great so far (cyano aside)

Hope you don't need to change the rock :smile:

i never have issues with it , even on my new build its all dry pukani and i am having no nutrient issues or po4 issues. quick diatom bloom but thats about it:)

i used hundred of pounds of it in our 500g tank and that too went fine with no curing, added in sept fish in after a few weeks later:)

I dunno Denny, I read so many threads where people have issues, then comments like yours. So I said screw it, and used dead because of the pieces I had access to. But for me, it has been a problem. Where anytime I've used fresh rock, no issues ever.
Then you read threads about the 12 years worth of curing you need to do, and I question why go through all that when real rock is just a bit more, especially for sub 100g tanks. For me, time is money and I would rather spend an extra 100 bucks or so and just enjoy watching my reef, not trying to fit my lawn mower in it :)

I'm looking at about $400 for 50lbs, give or take

Nothing like added waste/rot to mess with your new tank
Hope you find it sometime

I had a wrasse go missing last month, but I expected it
Found him the next day, and it was like something from a piranha movie - all bones and such

Nailed

Ya, the Anthias was old and on it's last legs, er, fins, and I knew it would be going soon, Just kinda forgot about it tho, and now notice it's missing. Pretty sure I won't find any of it. Mixing 50g of new water, going to dose chemiclean and do a 50% water change.

50lb x 5.95/lb is 297 plus tax.

White sand is boring anyway. The cyano adds colour.

i agree , nothing beats liverock thats for sure. i hear all the time of people who run into issues with the dry rock....maybe the way i do it is just different lol no curing, no acid, no bleach just add water and walk away lol if it helps any i start carbon dosing right out the gate.i run gfo for the first bit until the bacteria can take the load.

every rock is diff though some are saturated in dried up sponges, crab claws etc.

i didnt go with liverock this time around even though i had some lying around as we dry scaped and worked on the tank all summer;)

stay tuned for tank journal!!

good luck with it buddy, youll pull through just fine:)

I'll have to negotiate that price here ....

I used all dry rock and it's just getting colour to it now. The dry rock really seemed void of micro fauna and once I added some nice clean live rock the dry really woke up..

Oh, NM, I see they've dropped their prices

I did use about 20% live, so that helped, but it's still a PITA :)

Quick update, getting kinda done with this nonsense.

Currently the fish I could catch are in treatment tank, suffering from who knows what. Looks almost like velvet, but been fighting it longer than fish would last with velvet.
Achilles is dead, 3 Bartletts, a Lyretail and my male Mandarin.

Not enjoying my "hobby" right now :(

Sorry to read this, Brad. Haven't kept up with your whole tank rebuild, but from what I have seen, you are having a few challenges. Hope you get it all worked out, and get back to the glory days,... where you couldn't do any wrong. You had some pretty impressive coral displays.

Thanks! :) I'm sure it will all come together by next year. Just a challenge with this build that I haven't had to deal with in the past. I'm guessing this is a bad outbreak of ich, and hopefully what's left makes it through treatment. Corals are doing well, despite high PO4.
This is just becoming more work than I really want to put into a tank! And losing my favorite fish sucks big time...

Yeah,... you've had such a great tank for so long, you're just out of practice with dealing with all the mundane problems the rest of us have... But I'm sure you will figure it out...

Well, I read all the threads with those problems, so I have a head start :) Algae issues are gone, just dealing with my bad decision to use this rock.

I'm also not as impressed with my zeo system as I used to be, might toss it and try something else. And I'm close to a reset with real rock, just not eager to undo what I've done so far..

Yeah, I still remember when I added dry rock to my tanks a couple years ago. Despite cycling it in my QT for a couple months, with lots of rinsing, I still had a little P04 spike after adding it to my display tanks. However, it was well mixed with my existing live rock (50:50), so didn't take too long to stabilize in the tank. But it took quite a while longer before coralline finally covered it, and it ceased trapping detritus (which the GHA loves).

I don't know how the guys that start with only dry rock do it. Must take a long time before it becomes fully live the same as regular live rock.

Sorry about the problems Brad. Hope it turns around

Agreed, I don't know how they deal with the issues. I guess some don't. I'd never do this again though, just not worth the grief I'm dealing with. This is supposed to be relaxing :)

Thanks Doug. I'm sure it will, just needs some extra coaxing -lol

I found it easy to use , our new setup has no live what so ever as well I encountered no algae blooms or readable nitrates or phosphates and Still don't:)

I did start carbon dosing vinegar the day water was filled and tank is running with all kinds of corals and fish......guess I got lucky:)

No acid wash , bleach , 3 mths in the dark etc. Just plain old husbandry and a little bacteria help .

No water changes yet since initial fill and still on my first batch of gfo

I do read of issues all the time though with it so there must be some merit to it for sure:)

Your vinegar dosing from day 1 probably helped. And what "bacteria help" did you use? You also probably had a good skimmer, so P04 didn't have a chance to form in the water.

Sorry to hear about the losses Brad.

The natural bacteria the system grew :)

It did and the skimmers rated prob double , the key was staying on top from the beginning as well while the tank has fish their bioload I'd consider small as they are small fish:)

Other than that it's a normal running reef:)

I'm thinking of vodka dosing, and maybe vinegar in the tank. I've stayed on top of things as best I can with all the other stuff going on, and overall I've done well. I had lots of GHA, and that's all gone, and the rock is mostly bare. I have feather dusters growing, and sponges in the sump, so it's getting there, and I'm sure if I'm patient enough, things will work out.
Dosing foz down again, as stopping saw PO4 rise again, so I'll probably keep that going for another few months. NO3 is less than 3ppm, so manageable, and I'm reducing my water changes to 25% bi-weekly going forward. Give things a chance to settle in.
Just trying to keep fish alive for now, tank is overall nice, and maybe I need Wayne to take some close ups :) PO4 is inhibiting growth I suspect, but things are growing.

Argh
Sorry to hear I'm not the only one with issues

Sorry to hear about your troubles Brad. I know of lots of people having trouble with dry rock from all sorts of different sources. Some of my clients have dry rock in their tanks too, and the tanks are terrible to maintain. It seems like it takes 8-12 months just for it to look half decent. I'm with you - I'd rather just pay more and enjoy the tank now. Looking at that last pic you posted and the age of the tank, I'm guessing you have at least another 3 months battle ahead. At least you have real lights over it! ;)

I have some old, old live rock that's been cooking in vats for years - some of it like 6 years. Sometimes the barrel is only half filled with (very salty) water. It has a MaxiJet, no heater. Over the years I have added this to my tanks, removed it from tanks, it's like the rotating rock bin. Even using this old, lifeless, white rock is so much better than the dry rock. Probably because instead of being "dead" it is "sterilized". Haha!

Mindy, ya, I would guess another 3 - 6 months. However, I've now lost all my fish and am considering not doing this anymore