Ever get to that point where you’ve just had it and want to restore things to a better time? I’m there with my reef. Since my crash in October, 2017 things just haven’t been right. Corals whither and die, algae is growing everywhere. Phosphates are out of control. I’ve tried everything, even things I don’t believe in, to try and get things under control. Algae cures in a bottle, chemicals in reactors, etc. Nothing worked. I had it and I finally said enough is enough.
On March 30, the tank came down. I’m going to do a full reboot and start things over again. I’m going to ditch the black sand and replace it with traditional Fiji pink or some other white sand. I’m going to keep the tank and the equipment in it, but the stand is gonna go. My plan is to cook the rock in a bin for 6 weeks and hopefully I’ll be back to clean (and still live) rock.
Cooking rock doesn’t involve heat or any chemicals. It is just rock kept in salt water with a power head for circulation. I’ll run my skimmer in here to pull the junk out too. The theory is that with no source of nutrients the algae will all die off. I’ll do a water change in here every now and then to bring the phosphates down.
Until the tank is ready to go the fish are temporarily hanging out in my old 24 NanoCube. I used water from my DT to fill the tank and a few pieces of clean rock from my sump for hiding places and biofiltration.
During the tear down I discovered that my stand had water damage and couldn’t be re-used. I now have 6 weeks to plan and build a new stand. Nothing like making a project a little more complex, eh?
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