It's been awhile and there's been a lot going on.
I have been dealing with the biggest hair algae outbreak I have ever seen in my life. Despite nutrient export, cutting feedings to visually nothing and increasing water changes I have not been able to make a dent. I would spend 1-2 hours with manual removal every water change, ripping and removing algae from the rocks. It inevitably came back every time.
I tried Snails, urchins and tangs in an attempt to combat it. Every time I added snails they died. The urchins would last until I did a water change then would mysteriously die afterwards. I ran a ICP on my water change bucket and found some heavy metals but nothing crazy that would lead me to believe that it would kill with water changes. I checked my RO/DI via ICP to see if that was an issue but It also did not show anything too crazy.
Heres what I was dealing with. This is after a weeks vacation, after trimming and water changing prior to leaving mind you. I have to clean the pumps at least once a week and they still look like that the next day. The algae clogs up the overflow weir, the stand pipes, the fleece filter, everything. I sadly had an ice outbreak as well. Im assuming it was in my tank and didn't show until I added the hippo Tang. I lost my Copperband that I have had for about 2 years.
This prompted me to set up a 75 gallon QT / hospital tank and treat the fish as well as restart this tank. Finally I had time to get things started. I set up the QT and added a sponge I had in my display for about 1-2 months in hopes of seeding it. I let it run for 2 days to make sure the temp stayed well and added some MB7.
This evening I started the tear down process. I removed all the rock and dumped it into the garbage. I plan on using dry rock and starting clean. This is unfortunate as the TB saltwater rock I had is now pretty much trashed.
Rocks gone, Fish chase commenced.
Drained the water, Removed the sand.
Polished it up and sanitized it with bleach. Rinse and repeat.
I removed all the plumbing, skimmer, return pump and various equipment and stuck it in a large vat of Citric acid and hot water. Plan to let that soak overnight and remove and clean it. I removed the sump and started to clean that out however I didn't have a tool to get into the smaller baffle areas so it will have to wait till the weekend when I am off from work.
Seeing the tank clean makes me a little happier as I feel it is again a blank slate. It sucks to have to restart after almost a year but I feel like I learned a lot and hopefully can learn from my mistakes.
