Tank moved, new journal

[danny zubot]

Well, due to the tank going down hill I had to overhaul it before it was too late.

I was experiencing extreme hair algae and detritus, probably do to the overwhelming bio load the tank was under. and my corals were starting to die. I had a regal tang, bi-color angel, gold striped maroon clown, YWG with pistol shrimp, 4 green chromis, a dragon goby, a red cheek anthias and recently a lawnmower blennie. For cleaners I only had like 6 hermits, 3 snails and a cleaner shrimp. that was most likely because of my bully pistol shrimp.

So this past week I tore it down, took out all of the corals, LR and fish. Scrubbed the live rock of all hair algae and took a few fish to the LFS. The only fish I kept were the tang, angel, clown, YWG and the lawn mower blennie. In trade for the fish the LFS gave me a whole lot of hermits and snails. Now with no pistol shrimp preying on my cleaners, I imagine that they'll stick around for a while longer than before. I think by the end of the overhaul I had changed out about 50% of the water.

So some of my SPS are a bit faded because of the ordeal, but I think they will bounce back. My LPS on the other hand will take a bit longer.

Before: You can see hair algae, and the water looks green.


After: The rock scaping leaves a bit more to be desired than before IMO, but its only for a few months until I get the 110 set up.

[michika]

The tank looks great! I hope scrubbing off the GHA works for you!

[christyf5]

How the heck do you get your caps to plate like that? Mine form "cups" and then whorl out from there but they don't plate very flat Is it a flow thing?

Oh and the tank looks great by the way. Makes me want to do an "all cap" tank

[Chaloupa]

The caps are gorgeous!!! I hope mine does that.......looks good!

[Mik_101]

That tank is stunning. I relay like the Monti cap(green) on the top right hand corner so eye popping.

[danny zubot]

Thanks everyone, I hope the GHA stays away too.

As for the caps; they have all been fragged and broken and abused, thats why they looks the way they do. Every fracture will form a new "pedal" so to speak. It will also help to have them grow up the side of rocks or even the tank wall.

I have always tried to keep them up high and in high flow for maximum color.

[danny zubot]

I've been reding that PO4- can restrict calcium uptake in corals. So I went out and bought some phosban media, and put it into a bag in the sump. we'll see if it also helps indirectly with keeping my water cleaner, as well as my growth.

GHA has come back a bit, but my new lawnmower blennie seems to be keeping it trimmed back. Oh ya, I've also upgraded my skimmer from my old SS-125 to an ASM-G3. What a difference that made alone!