150 G breakdown.
by
, 09-27-2011 at 09:44 AM (1724 Views)
Couple of weeks ago it was time to break down the 150G in my parents place and move the fish and some of the rocks to my sump...
Was shocked to see the amount of detritus my sand and rocks trapped despite 50x tank volume flow.
Another shock was to not find a single bristleworm or critter in my DSB. Could this be the cause of my nitrates struggle lately? tank was only moved (sand cleaned 1.5 years ago)
Found 1 10 inches long Eunicid (sp?) worm in a big rock which could explain the multiple clams deaths.Decided to wash the sand with freshwater for a clean start in the 390 and placed the LR in a barrel with circulation after washing the rocks with aged tank water. Apprecicate any thoughts on this to prevent this from happening in the 390. I keep no CUC except for snails. And prefer not to have to stock hermits which tear up LPS and eat snails. Could that have caused this accumultaion of detritus?
Was a sad day to take this tank down althouh It only ran since 2008 when I upgraded from my 8 years old 80 G and was moved again in 2009 so never had the chance to really mature.
The Start in 2008:
at its best around Jan 2011:
As of one week ago:
Filled up my sump and the Waterchange tank connected to it and placed some LR and a Turbofloater 100multi SL (should be replacing it with my hurricone Cat 1 after it's cleaned) and a Carbon reactor and some pumps for flow.
only 1/3 was new water and used the rest from my frag tank and a friends tank water for more bacteria diversity...
Watching the slow fill gave me nightmares of the the full tank fill to come
And all the fish went in. So far they look fine, had some aggression between the 2 yellow tangs so separated them in two partitions. Should replace them together once I add some more LR.
And a better picture of the plumbing with the Waterchange tank now connected to the sump.