Great to hear!
Wait tree limbs or your body’s limbs?
so I am cycling a new 10g tank with dry rock and what used to be live rock but was left in the attic for over 2 winter. I used aquarium safe silicone sealant to aqua scape them together, but the I dumped water on the silicone to try and make the silicone seal faster. Seemed to produce and acetic vinegar smell and also only took a couple seconds of holding the sealant silicone in place before they were able to hold themselves up on their own. At this point I filled the aquarium and started to cycle it. It has been maybe about two weeks of cycling. In that time I added some copepods, macroalgae and the hair algae attached from my 3 gallon reef tank and a red ogo looking macroalgae that is red and some really nice branching tree like patterns. I have started my 30g filter to the 10g tank and added a Nano protein skimmer, turning the protein skimmer on to start the break in process. I’ve been adding Microbacter from brightwell aquatics (40 drops a day mixed into DI/RO water about the volume of the Apocalypse Pods live copepods (1500 copepods 50-2000 microns) jar they came in produced by Algae Barn at an average rate of about 40 drops for the Microbacter solution. I have noticed that some gas particles seem to have been coming off this silicone sealant for about a week after it was submerged. The sealant also has held the structural integrity of the aquascape I built with the sealant (photograph attached). Spots that were likely some species of worm or stationary snail on the dead live rock seem to be covered with this coat of white slime that looks like a bacterial culture. Plan on checking parameters tonight to see if it is suitable to start adding inverts/fish/ other macroalgaes tomorrow or soon after. Is the silicone cured underwater now or is it still poisonous to sealife. If it is poisonous, when would it be safe to start adding more complex marine life than pods and macroalgae?
I also used this same silicone sealant to attach a frag to my existing 7month old live rock 3 g tank with a cartridge filter that contains a chemi-pure blue nano bag of activated carbon along with ion-exchange resins. In the same filter cartridge as the chemi pure bags there is Poly-Filter sponge.
Anyways in this tank I refilled the tank with water the second I got the frag sealed down to the rock, which I attempted to do by dumping water on the sealing silicone seal. Only thing I noticed in my tank after this is that the new Stoney pipe coral frag that I used silicone to seal the frag’s plug to the damp live rock in the 3g aquarium seemed to loose a lot of its skin around its core and its polyps would open up if there was light and little water movement for the first couple days. After that the whole frag began to decline and my tuxedo urchin and Scarlett/blue-legged hermits seemed to be attracted to it (and have been slowly eating off the polyps) the rest of my corals have been doing decent, but can tell the tank is still not ideal conditions. I have noticed a huge improvement in water quality sense I have added chemical filtration to my tank in addition to biological and chemical filtration to my tank. I have improved water circulation in the tank by directing the flow of the power head upwards towards the base of the filter intake. Do you think the silicone sealant not being cured caused the coral attached to the frag plug that the silicone sealant was used on to do so poorly in the tank? None of my other corals/other seal life seem to have been affected by this silicone. Should I do the same thing with the silicone sealant that I did with the pipe coral’s frag plug to all of the frag plugs in the tank and to connect some live rock together while the water is drained for cleaning algae? If water is added to speed up sealing process of the silicone and then that silicone seal is submerged once it can hold the weight of the rock structures it is binding together? How toxic will the uncured / partially cured silicone be underwater and will it ever fully cure underwater? How toxic for how long will partially cured silicone be underwater to a reef tank with inverts+coral?
The silicone seal holding the aquascape together has been underwater since I first filled the tank. Does this mean the silicone sealant will never cure underwater and always be toxic so I have to drain the tank water and so all the sealant can be exposed to air and dry out for like a week?
So if I drained the tank so all the silicone sealant would be above water so it could dry out and fully cure (how long will that take?) and then refilled the aquarium once the silicone is fully cured? Would it be safe for to put inverts, fish, and corals after the tank cycles?
Once it's cured its safe, above water go by how long it says plus some. If you had silicone in there for a half year already chances are its cured. It will cure under water, or above.
Well I just did the aquascaping inside the 10 gallon tank that I filled up with water immediately after about 2 weeks ago. I tried to attach the frag plug to the rock in the first attached pic in my 3g tank I’ve been running for 7 months about 3 weeks ago. No sealants used to make the 3g live rock aquascape (2nd pic). I want (need in the case of the pipe stone coral) to safely glue these to the live rock tonight (3rd pic). Are there any stores open at 1:22 am central time that would sell this safe frag plug glue?
I edited it just a couple second ago. Do the 3 pics of the smaller tank show up now?
