Christy's 180 build

MitchM · #1 10-14-2010, 09:42 AM

Definitely looking good....

Mitch

Lance · #2 10-31-2010, 12:38 AM

Christy, have you been conducting more pest eradication with the sodium hydroxide?

christyf5 · #3 10-31-2010, 02:49 AM

No actually I've been incredibly lazy lately and haven't even done a waterchange in the past couple of weeks (or since I did the last NaOH testing). I do need to get my act together though. Some of the rocks were removable so I just yarded them out and removed them manually, a couple of other rocks were just coral bases so I popped the corals off of them, chucked the bases and re-epoxied them down. Others on non-removable rock have been plotting against me and reproducing at will. The plan is to go after the rest or a goodly portion of the rest of the majanos on Monday if I'm feeling up to it.

I did check the rocks that I treated a few weeks ago. One rock is completely clean and the other had one majano out of 4 come back (I think because I didn't get it quick enough before it sucked itself into the hole, either that or a new one grew in its place (it had several growing next to the ones I nailed but I was worried about the number of majanos I was nuking and the first time using the NaOH.)

Lance · #4 10-31-2010, 03:02 AM

Let me know how the second nuking goes. I'm getting annoyed at those little bastards myself, and may give it a try. Where do you get it from?

christyf5 · #5 10-31-2010, 03:17 AM

I, um, "appropriated" it from work

Lance · #6 10-31-2010, 03:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by christyf5

I, um, "appropriated" it from work

christyf5 · #7 11-04-2010, 03:24 AM

Ok so second nuking was Monday. I hit all the majanos I could see (at the time, I see more today that I didn't hit). I think I had about a 60-75% success rate. Those majanos that are facing upwards are much easier to nail than the sideways ones. I did miss a large patch in the back forty (at least I think I did) and one rock I actually took out of the tank and nuked as almost all of the majanos on it were sticking out the side of the rock (and frankly the rock was small and easier to take out). I nuked a couple of aiptasia which I have a 100% success rate for so far. I thought I tested a mushroom but sadly I can't remember where the damned thing was, it was a single mushroom and I can't find any singles anywhere nor any leftover bits so we can maybe call that one a tentative success. I also hit a few odd shaped polyps that are like a cross between a short tentacled majano and a rust colored zoanthid. Easy peasy, they're gonzo and so is the algae they were mixed in with on one of my powerhead brackets

I'm not sure I'd be so worried about doing a water change right afterwards, although I'm sure its a good idea. I turkey basted up the precipitate after each "treatment". The waterchange (20%) did perk up the tank though, everything is looking fabulous a few days later.

I'm also happy to report that nothing croaked that wasn't supposed to during the treatment. There were a couple of close calls as you can see the sodium hydroxide in the water column sort of like you can see a hypersaline solution in regular water or lower salinity (kind of looks like a heat wave under water) and you really need to give that a quick stir so it precipitates before it hits anything. At one point I thought it landed on one of my acans but it precipitated at the last second and all was ok. Its definitely soemthing you need to be careful with or you could end up with dead spots on any corals that are underneath treatment areas.