Zombie tank, can it be saved

[Sticker shock]

My clowns have gone nuts. Not afraid of my hand one bit. And my arms have been in the tank for the last 5 or 6 days . The bites don’t hurt, but they are sneaky and it makes me jump a lot.

 

[Superd513]

My clowns have gone nuts. Not afraid of my hand one bit. And my arms have been in the tank for the last 5 or 6 days . The bites don’t hurt, but they are sneaky and it makes me jump a lot.

Yep. Lol almost made me knock my blades in the water.

 

[steveschuerger]

This clown loves the Duncan, not sure the coral feels the same in return

Trust me you’d know. My 2 idiot clowns have used duncans, Gonis, Frogspawn, and torches. And an anemone or two briefly. That Duncan still looks happy.

 

[steveschuerger]

Heres

my idiots

 

[Sticker shock]

Getting close to finalizing my new rock work.

 

[Sticker shock]

Anyone able to explain phosphate levels to me in a simple way. Currently my tank is reading .01. I assume it has to be ok since I had all that hair algae I just removed. Should I try to raise phosphate to the typically suggested .03? Or leave it alone since things seem to be growing ok? I’m sure the corals would love a shot of reef roids since they haven’t been target fed in forever.

 

[Sticker shock]

Got my lights today. Also cleaned all the salt spray off the reflectors. Excited to fire them up tomorrow. Also scored a deal from a local reefer on a bubble tip. Couldn’t pass up the deal even though I was trying not to add anything.

 

[Sticker shock]

Another day of scrubbing and removing aiptasia. Got the visible numbers down to the hundreds rather than the thousands I was at. Fish seem happy and corals seem happy. I‘ve been pulling small sections of the sand bed out and blasting them with fresh water…it’s crazy how much gunk is in a sand bed. @brandon429 you are right, there is no way vacuuming can get it all.

Its kind of a weird feeling seeing the tank now, it looks pretty good again, but it used to be so much better. I know if I remain diligent I can get it back to its former self. It’s kind of like going to the gym. Things were going good and your getting into shape, and then you stop going for whatever reason…two years later you start to wonder how good of shape you could have been in if you just kept at it.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Got my lights today. Also cleaned all the salt spray off the reflectors. Excited to fire them up tomorrow. Also scored a deal from a local reefer on a bubble tip. Couldn’t pass up the deal even though I was trying not to add anything.

Lights look great!

 

[brandon429]

Hey I really agree all this is exactly like reef dentistry and reef exercise it directly sure is

 

[brandon429]

Some day an author will use those analogies in an article/ they scraped it from here if so he he

 

[Sticker shock]

Another Rock Flower spawn. That’s 2 in the last few days. If there is a female what’s the likelihood of this resulting in a new batch. I’ve never seen this before, so I’m not sure if this is a first or if this is a regular thing I just missed.

 

[Sticker shock]

The tank looks pretty good. Some coral that had looked just terrible are starting to show the tiniest bit of color peaking out. I’m also getting the itch to add some new colors. I did add the two shrimp and 5 astrea snails. They all appear to be doing ok, so I think I might be good to go.

I set a goal to remove at least 5 aiptasia a day. Pretty easy with how many are still just hanging out on the sand bed.

I did resort to scrubbing a few areas within the tank as there were just so many anemones. There was no way other than soaking to rock in fresh water.

I pulled a huge base rock out as it was completely covered and filled in every crevice.

Here you can see it in the bottom right. It’s so white

 

[reveriesh]

The tank looks pretty good. Some coral that had looked just terrible are starting to show the tiniest bit of color peaking out. I’m also getting the itch to add some new colors. I did add the two shrimp and 5 astrea snails. They all appear to be doing ok, so I think I might be good to go.

I set a goal to remove at least 5 aiptasia a day. Pretty easy with how many are still just hanging out on the sand bed.

I did resort to scrubbing a few areas within the tank as there were just so many anemones. There was no way other than soaking to rock in fresh water.

I pulled a huge base rock out as it was completely covered and filled in every crevice.

Here you can see it in the bottom right. It’s so white

It’s looking great! I’m cheering you on!

 

[calhoun3186]

Not much to add other than glad to hear your daughter is doing better. Hope more things return to normal for you and your family.

 

[Reefing102]

It’s looking fantastic. No personal experience but I’ve heard of a few people on here getting baby rock flowers to live without issue

 

[Sticker shock]

Here’s the morning catch, but I’m so tired of sticking my hands in the tank. I might splurge on an army of peppermints:

 

[KJB32]

Fun to watch the improvement, keep it up!

I’m curious as to your method of removing the aiptasia?

 

[Sticker shock]

Fun to watch the improvement, keep it up!

I’m curious as to your method of removing the aiptasia?

For the back glass I just scraped all the algae they were sitting on, and those came off nice an easy like a pile of slime. Some of the rocks that were massively infested I just pulled and replaced. For rocks that had coral and anemones, I basically just started scrubbing with a tooth brush. And for the small frag rocks I pull those and scrub outside the tank in a small bucket of salt water. And this collection from this morning these guys are just hiding in the sand bed. I gently flick them over with a baster to get them to loosen up on some of the sand and then just suck em up. I still have miles to go before this infestation is cleared up, and I have no idea how much future damage I caused by scaping them off. I guess that's a problem for tomorrow . I also have a couple peppermints, but who knows what if anything those guys are doing.

 

[Rubymoon286]

You're doing great keep it up!