Reef Surgery

[sumpfinfishe]

Well after talking with Anthony Calfo last weeekend I had come to the conclusion that I needed to tear down the entire reef before my small population of about 8 patches of Hyroid worms started taking over the SPS corals. I also sent Charles Delbeek a second opinion email regarding Hydroids and his reply was the same as Anthony's-Manualremoval Charles also said there are a few variety's of Nudi's that eat hydroids but he said getting the specfic one shipped in would be like finding a needle in a haystack.

I thought it would be best to eradicate them before they got a serious foothold on more area's of my live rock. So at 10am this morning I started a full rip down of my entire reef. I had a spare 15gl (with heater and airstone) which I used to house all my corals and fish, then all the LR went into 5 different buckets depending on size and color. After all the rock was out I then had to cherry pick all the snails and crabs from the sandbed, after that I decided that I was going to reduce my sandbed from 2" down to 1". I used a small tupperware container to then scoop out about 10lbs of LS. Since there was nothing left except 1" of sand and a few more inches of water I decided to give the new sandbed a thorough clean by rinsing it and then quickly sipohoning out the dirty water.

I then began the teedious job of inspecting all the LR piece by piece with a a small screwdriver in hand. Before each piece was placed back into the tank I removed any patches of hydroids, button polyps, and algae. After about 2 hrs of carfully removing these tiny pests I was ready to rebuild the reef. After all the rock was in place, I started to glue new and old corals back onto my live rock, paying close attention to turkey baste any corals that were exposed to the air, as I only had 6" of water in the tank. After everything was glued or fitted back in place it was time to bring up the water level with 3 pails of water before I could begin to add the fish and inverts. I then let everything settle down before making some final adjustments for the night. Here are a few pics of the day, and the paper towel that I used for the nasty's was covered completly by the time I was done.

Moral of this story: never asume anything, a year ago I thought these nasty little worms were just a small variety of feather dusters-if I had only done the research that day

I did however get to aquascape for more flow which allowed me to add a second MX1200, so now my fish can all go whitewater rafting

[Nemo]

sorry to hear that. That sounds like far too much work

[christyf5]

Sounds like my day a couple of weeks ago

Looks good but your lights are too blue

Christy

[vanreefer]

please keep us (me) updated on how everything settles in, as I am going to do a similar thing next week... not for hydroids... but to change my stand and add a sump... plus I have a wicked cyano problem... and figure cleaning all the rock and thoroughly cleaning the sand bed should help.

I am just worried about a nitrate or ammonia spike.

It sounds like you did this all in one day ... do you think cleaning the sand bed then letting it sit for a day would be better or worse for the ammonia/ nitrate issue?... would it be better to clean the sandbed more than once, ie just keep doing it till the water was clear?

I am planning to move everything (rock, inverts and coral) into a 54 gal (which will eventually become my sump) while I clean the sandbed, plumb the return, and change the stand... so time isnt really an issue.
Whoa long post
Thanks for your opinions

[hockey nut]

WOW


Tank looks no worse for wear.

You better come over and have a beer after all that work!!!!!!!!

Talk to you soon

Callum

[Beverly]

Rich,

Do you happen to have pics of your hydroid worms? I'd like to see what they look like in case they appear in my tanks.

[Doug]

Sheez, big job Rich. And some heavy weight advice.

[whaase]

I was thinking the same.

Walter

Originally Posted by Beverly

Rich,

Do you happen to have pics of your hydroid worms? I'd like to see what they look like in case they appear in my tanks.

[marie]

Please tell me they didn't look like this

[sumpfinfishe]

Ouch, I hate to say this Marie but those look like the little buggers
The ones in my tank were a little browner in color but hydroids just the same.
They can give off a powerful sting, which eventually can kill sps
corals. I had two areas of rock where the hydroids were actually
matting underneath two sps bases that were about 4 inches in diameter.
I was advised to remove them if the growth patches were small and confinned,
if they are spread throughout the entire tank I would
probably take a more drastic approach and get new rock