Replacing all rock and keeping live stock?

[m0jjen]

Hi!

During the 4 years i've been in the hobby i've had a hard time with many to only problems, losing corals and livestock.

Eventho my values are in line according to about 10 - 15 triton tests i dont seem to keep my tank succsessfull. The only common ground my 3 tanks has had is the live rock which is bought second hand, meaning i have no clue what typ of rock it is or whats been done to it.

The only problem with replacing rock piece by piece is an ongoing invasion of aiptasia, discosoma, palythoa which i simply wanto get rid of completely. Hence replacing and restarting with new rock.

My problem is now that i wanto keep all my corals and other live stock i've collected over the years.

The rock im planing on replacing my current with is marco rock which is a dead rock, ill seed it with a new piece or two of quarantained live rock.

I dont know if this is even possible to do without selling all my current live stock or setting upp an additional aquarium which isnt an option at the moment due to space and other factors.

Ideas?

 

[tdileo]

Okay, take out A LITTLE at a time. Put the new rock in your sump. It will slowly build up the bacteria. Get rid of some more rock, add new base to the sump. Preferably take out the pieces of rock that are heavily infested with aiptasia. Discosoma and palythoa can be dealt with much easier. Keep doing this. Off possible move all of your current live rock to one side so you can put some kind of mesh wall up that will let water and bacteria pass but not aiptasia or the corals. Then keep adding some new dead rock to the empty side and take out a piece of your current rock. Depending on your tank size this could take months. But it's probably the only way to do it withour losing your livestock. I hope somebody else can think of a better way but thats what I would do

 

[m0jjen]

Well, not cleaning the system completely before restarting is a no go due to dino and such :/

 

[Tahoe61]

What about using a rubber maid or similar plastic container to move all the corals and fish over to, remove rock, clean, add new rock and move everything back the next day.

 

[m0jjen]

What about using a rubber maid or similar plastic container to move all the corals and fish over to, remove rock, clean, add new rock and move everything back the next day.

The problem with this is the fact that im planing on using dead rock, which will be quite the process anyway, but yes. That would be a way to seed the rock and then do a switch, requiring two large pastic container.

 

[Tahoe61]

You're cycling the dry rock first though right?
It will be daunting if you really want to prevent any of the tank pest from moving back in. If you do it in steps the you prevent the introduction of corals to the rock but you'll surely see aiptasia again.
Corals can live without light for a day or two, all you need is a swallow container with flow and heat if applicable.

 

[m0jjen]

You're cycling the dry rock first though right?
It will be daunting if you really want to prevent any of the tank pest from moving back in. If you do it in steps the you prevent the introduction of corals to the rock but you'll surely see aiptasia again.
Corals can live without light for a day or two, all you need is a swallow container with flow and heat if applicable.

I would cycle it indeed. At the moment im just concidering the option over removing and selling all my livestock and starting from scratch.

 

[brandon429]

2 options imo

1. fix the rock, I did and its a giant pain. at least you don't have copper issues you have topical anemone issues and rasping them off will cure all of it. its reef surgery. I have a long thread on doing it to my tank I had over 200 red mushrooms in a pico reef not joking heh. hard work, and I kept my live rock that was years old and quite purple. your marcos w be bone white until 2020, tough long road to re calcification.

2. do a skip cycle rebuild, we have threads on that. we can make your marco rocks instantly replace all your live rock all at once, like they do at large convention setups, and you can keep all your animals and not recycle. ( all you do is cycle the marcos in a bin to the side of the current tank, then swap using skip cycle techniques which also clean up the cruddy sandbed all at once as a typical requirement)
When people set up tanks at MACNA reef conventions, they don't show up 30 days early to cycle they skip the cycle, and you can too. which do you want to do ill post the thread

they set up whole tanks as skip cycle setups at MACNA or every pico reef ever kept and you can wield it the same way too, skip cycle biology is specific and repeatable, that's how the show Tanked does their work too though its debatable for other reasons. the ability to add fish and have no free ammonia due to relocation of cycled materials is solid science, aquaculture food production farms must use it as well. pure science.

to begin prep for option number two, get rocks and a brute can and fill it w sw and an airstone or some powerhead doesn't matter. make the water move, whether you heat it doesn't matter.

add liquid ammonia per online calcs to 2 ppm

then add dr tims bacteria and do nothing for two weeks.

in two weeks repeat the exact steps, wait two more, then do the switch they'll be reading in 30 days to fully replace your current filtration base. if im not mistaken Marco rocks are of particular concern as they require po4 curing before you even consider the biological curing part

 

[reeferfoxx]

if im not mistaken Marco rocks are of particular concern as they require po4 curing before you even consider the biological curing part

+1

You could skip the PO4 cure and deal with the elements as they present themselves. Tank will be ugly for a year but your fish will be alive

 

[brandon429]

that post on the tank parameters of the masters sure did not concern over some measures of phosphate.

 

[reeferfoxx]

that post on the tank parameters of the masters sure did not concern over some measures of phosphate.

I'm sure most of the masters use live ocean rock, though. In which case, high po4 and tank maturity issues never see each other. Comparably dry rock on the other hand will go through the diatom, calothrix, chrysophytes, cyano, hair algae, turf algae and whatever else I might have missed.

 

[m0jjen]

2 options imo

1. fix the rock, I did and its a giant pain. at least you don't have copper issues you have topical anemone issues and rasping them off will cure all of it. its reef surgery. I have a long thread on doing it to my tank I had over 200 red mushrooms in a pico reef not joking heh. hard work, and I kept my live rock that was years old and quite purple. your marcos w be bone white until 2020, tough long road to re calcification.

2. do a skip cycle rebuild, we have threads on that. we can make your marco rocks instantly replace all your live rock all at once, like they do at large convention setups, and you can keep all your animals and not recycle. ( all you do is cycle the marcos in a bin to the side of the current tank, then swap using skip cycle techniques which also clean up the cruddy sandbed all at once as a typical requirement)
When people set up tanks at MACNA reef conventions, they don't show up 30 days early to cycle they skip the cycle, and you can too. which do you want to do ill post the thread

they set up whole tanks as skip cycle setups at MACNA or every pico reef ever kept and you can wield it the same way too, skip cycle biology is specific and repeatable, that's how the show Tanked does their work too though its debatable for other reasons. the ability to add fish and have no free ammonia due to relocation of cycled materials is solid science, aquaculture food production farms must use it as well. pure science.

to begin prep for option number two, get rocks and a brute can and fill it w sw and an airstone or some powerhead doesn't matter. make the water move, whether you heat it doesn't matter.

add liquid ammonia per online calcs to 2 ppm

then add dr tims bacteria and do nothing for two weeks.

in two weeks repeat the exact steps, wait two more, then do the switch they'll be reading in 30 days to fully replace your current filtration base. if im not mistaken Marco rocks are of particular concern as they require po4 curing before you even consider the biological curing part

I guess i could do half and half with option number two. Since my reef is a "two island typ of reef" i can change 1 part at a time.

Or I could just take the bull by the horns and clean my rock that i have, buy some new LR to complement my old and refresh the tank.

that post on the tank parameters of the masters sure did not concern over some measures of phosphate.

Same here