kien's 150g Room Divider Mixed Reef & Stuff

[fishytime]

Sounds like a fun way to spend an afternoon ....looks like you just drove her off the lot tho

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by fishytime

....looks like you just drove her off the lot tho

Almost inspires me to clean mine! Almost....

[mike31154]

Interesting. The idea of the chunk of styrofoam holding what I assume to be probes is nifty! Not sure about the whole cleaning thing though. So now you're removed all of these nasty feather dusters & tube worms that were presumably consuming some amount of nutrients or whatever in your system. Are you not somewhat apprehensive about how that may affect it short term? Might be a bit of a shock removing all that matter at once? Something else in your system now has to take up the nutrient consuming duties all these little critters were performing? Sorry, tons of questions, but really interested in what your observation & perhaps water parameters will be for the next little while.

I finally pulled a canister filter off line on my system a little while ago (it developed a leak). I don't have a sump & was kind of assuming the canister would operate as a pseudo or mini sump for me so I had been running one since pretty much day one. In the beginning, being a noob, I had all the filter media in there, ceramic, different foam pads, the works. In the end I just ran a bag of carbon. Over the years the media baskets developed the same encrustation of wormy things & I let them be during my cleanings, thinking they were a good thing. I've always had varying amounts of hair algae in my system & don't sweat it too much provided it doesn't encroach some of the coral I have. Didn't notice a huge difference after taking the canister off line. It has receded in some areas, most noticeable in the flow regions where the canister used to return to the tank. However, it still persists in some areas & I need to remove it manually from time to time. The term nitrate factory is used often in discussions about canisters. My theory is, ok, so it may be or may become a nitrate factory. What happens when you remove it? Something else in your system has to take up the slack, like your live rock or sandbed. Otherwise, would not ammonia & nitrite build up to toxic levels? As long as there is livestock that needs to be fed, your system will produce nitrates, with or without a canister. Getting a little off topic, but yeah, some info on the effect of your cleaning efforts would be interesting.

[kien]

Originally Posted by mike31154

Interesting. The idea of the chunk of styrofoam holding what I assume to be probes is nifty!

Ya, it has worked out quite well. Ghetto, but it does the job :-)

Originally Posted by mike31154

Not sure about the whole cleaning thing though. So now you're removed all of these nasty feather dusters & tube worms that were presumably consuming some amount of nutrients or whatever in your system. Are you not somewhat apprehensive about how that may affect it short term?

The thought had crossed my mind as I was harvesting gobs and gobs of tube worms and dusters. No doubt they will probably affect the system in some way. What that affect is remains to be seen (or not). Certainly there is the possibility that my tank will crash. Or maybe it'll just be very very unhappy with the lack of dusters.

Originally Posted by mike31154

Might be a bit of a shock removing all that matter at once? Something else in your system now has to take up the nutrient consuming duties all these little critters were performing?

I'm hoping that will be the skimmer, since the skimmer is really what's competing with the dusters for organic nutrients in the form of particulates, etc. I'm not so sure the worms and dusters directly consume nitrates and/or phosphates. If they do the BioPellets and GFO should be able to pick up the slack.

Originally Posted by mike31154

Sorry, tons of questions, but really interested in what your observation & perhaps water parameters will be for the next little while.

Speaking of parameters, before I performed the deep clean on the sump I did a gamut of tests as I realized I hadn't performed any tests since last August. I was prepared for some crazy bad numbers but it wasn't as bad as I feared.

Nitrates: 0.2 (Salifert)
Phosphates: 0.04 (Hana)
Alk: 7.7 (Hana)
Calc: 450 (Hana)
Mag: Untested (because I hate testing Mag).

It has been almost 24 hours now since the removal so I will do another set of tests after dinner and see if the numbers are any different.

[mike31154]

Hey thanks for the detailed responses. I thought about the skimmer taking up slack of removed critters as well, plus your system is fairly large, so maybe just a little bump in the road until it balances out. There are hobbyists out there that go to some lengths to provide cryptic zones to cultivate all the stuff you removed, so I thought I'd throw my ideas out there.

[Delphinus]

My thinking on removing of the lattice of tubeworms is that it's sort of a paradox having them in there: they might be removing nutrients but they also trap detritus like crazy which probably builds up more nasties. Plus, if they eat, then they poop, so, they may not be all that beneficial in the end. Hard to say.

I know I look at the ones in my sump and think "ugh, need to do something about that" but I never do.

I know in my old tank I would sort of do the sump clean thing every year or two and things would look better for a while afterwards. But it was always a nasty ordeal too that would last all day. No wonder it gets procrastinated on!

[christyf5]

I think those tubewormy things must like the dark (or less light anyways), I have quite a good population living in my overflow box which is shaded. They haven't migrated into my sump as I use a filter sock (yay another thing my filter sock is good for). Your shiny new sump and all its goodies make me want to clean my sump, but then my sump wasn't even that pretty to start with, I think it must be the sexy red skimmer. Gotta get me one of those

[kien]

Originally Posted by Delphinus

I know in my old tank I would sort of do the sump clean thing every year or two and things would look better for a while afterwards. But it was always a nasty ordeal too that would last all day. No wonder it gets procrastinated on!

This is the first time I've done such a herculean cleaning job on my sump and man.. I don't ever want to do that again! I'm hoping that this experience will scare me into keeping a closer eye on the state of the sump and perform smaller cleanings. "Oh look I see a tube worm, MUST DESTORY NOW!!!"

[kien]

With the removal of the tube worms I am at least expecting a slight drop in Alk and Calc uptake :-) Those buggers must have consumed a lot of alk and calc. Damn freeloaders!

So after i cleaned out the sump I finished off my chores with a display tank scrub down. I actually liked scrubbing down the tank because afterwards everything appears as if it is in HD

Full Tank Shots

The South Face


The North Face


The West Face


Not that anyone will notice but I changed up my aquascape a bit. I'm in the middle of battling these brown polyps that are infesting my live rock and are quickly reaching plague proportions. Luckly my rock structures are separated into three distinct structures so I didn't have to destroy my rock work too much. The most affected rock was my terraced zone (for those who have seen my tank in person). I dismounted the corals from those rocks and simply lifted the structure out of the tank and set them outside for a couple of days. After a couple of nights of freezing temperatures I thoroughly rinsed and scrubbed off all the debris that I could off of the rocks and rebuilt the structure in the tank. This area used to have two levels of terraces but after I placed the first level in I really liked the open swimming space above that used to be occupied by another piece of shelf rock with corals on it. My rock work was already pretty open but this openned it up even more and I liked it so I left it.

[fishytime]

Originally Posted by kien

With the removal of the tube worms I am at least expecting a slight drop in Alk and Calc uptake :-) Those buggers must have consumed a lot of alk and calc. Damn freeloaders!

So after the cleaned out the sump I finished off my chores with a display tank scrub down. I actually liked scrubbing down the tank because afterwards everything appears as if it is in HD

Full Tank Shots

The South Face


The North Face


The West Face


Not that anyone will notice but I changed up my aquascape a bit. I'm in the middle of battling these brown polyps that are infesting my live rock and are quickly reaching plague proportions. Luckly my rock structures are separated into three distinct structures so I didn't have to destroy my rock work too much. The most affected rock was my terraced zone (for those who have seen my tank in person). I dismounted the corals from those rocks and simply lifted the structure out of the tank and set them outside for a couple of days. After a couple of nights of freezing temperatures I thoroughly rinsed and scrubbed off all the debris that I could off of the rocks and rebuilt the structure in the tank. This area used to have two levels of terraces but after I placed the first level in I really liked the open swimming space above that used to be occupied by another piece of shelf rock with corals on it. My rock work was already pretty open but this openned it up even more and I liked it so I left it.

opened up the very west end?....isnt that where your sunset monti was?.....whatcha do with the displaced corals?