cyano

Could you keep at least half of your existing rock and scrub the crap out of it? Marco rock will need to be cooked for a while to get all the phosphate out to avoid many algae issues. You can probably avoid most of the cycle this way, alaong with using some bacteria to jump start things, like Prodibio line. You can prolly find a cheap 55g to hold your fish temporarily if needed. That is my 2 cents.

He shouldn't have to "cook" his Macro rock. The website says "Reef safe, Pre Cycled". I know someone who might be able to add some more input on that, and I will have them get on and add his 2 cents.

If you're starting a new tank, I think that you could rinse the Marco Rock, soak it in Ro for a week and maybe even soak in some vinegar. I have 50lbs of Marco I rinsed it, soaked it in RO for 2 weeks and cooked it for 11 months in a tote. I kinda went overboard since I didn't have the room in my DT. I put it in my existing tank about 2 months ago with no problems.

Sorry it has been a little while since I have been on here, Life has been busy. I would like to thank everyone for their responses and advice. After reading what you guys have said and doing a little research I have ordered 50 lbs of dry marco key largo rock which as floggin stated is supposed to be "precycled" and according to marco rocks has gone through a 4 step cleaning process and should have no inhospitable organics to worry about. I will also take some of my live rock as well and try to scrub and clean it (as midnight stated) well enough to seed the dry rock but remove things I don't want re-added to the tank again (such as certain corals and potential pests.) I am going to see about getting a loaner 45 gallon breeder from a friend that I can set up as a temporary holding tank just long enough to get my main tank cleaned out, filled back up, re-aquascaped, and ready for inhabitants again. I plan on dosing bacteria to try and curve any potential spikes and unfortunately a lot of my corals are dead so I will try and salvage what I can with them and then basically start all over. When I moved my tank the last time I did not think to rinse the sand or get new sand so I am afraid of reusing it again after this so I will also be changing out my sand and basically starting from as far as the display is concerned. If anyone has any other input please feel free to chime in. Before I take this on I would like to get as many things considered as possible.

Well if you are going to change out the sand bed, My recommendation is the Tropic Eden reef flakes sand. It will tumble and move around with vortechs but it does not create a sand storm. The other brand has a special grade which may act similar. Cyano if you are near Charlotte I have a empty 55 that you could use.

What you are describing correlates to "old tank syndrome" although your system is merely two years old. Usually "OTS" is really lazy reef husbandry, in that you've become so comfortable with the system that you don't keep checking stuff on a regular basis. I'm in that area myself, looking at livestock instead of test tubes.

There's a good chance your sandbed and rock is leaching something into the water, but it could just as well be equipment related. Stray electricity in the water, a split magnet in the skimmer pump, foreign matter that has fallen into the sump unnoticed are all things that happen to us eventually. If you like the type of sand you have now, you can rinse it completely clean, washing away everything vile until all that remains are the sand grains. Those will be safe to use again. You mentioned being fearful of a DSB, but there really isn't a reason to be. If your sandbed is active and live, if you seed it with more life twice a year, if you have conchs, cucumbers, serpent stars and nassarius snails working the sand and if your flow is strong, it'll last for many years. My DSB in the 280g was nearing exactly six years old, and the water quality and coral growth was solid. It may need to be replaced at some point, just like we end up replacing the carpeting in our homes after an extended duration.

If you want to use new rock to replace the coral-infested rock, you can. You can take your old rock and cook it. You can reduce the rock you have now, only adding a little more to fill in where needed. You are the one person that can see what rock is still usable and what needs to be pulled. Smell the rock as you remove it, and look for black areas. If it looks black, often this is where sulfur has collected or spread to.... this is often where the rock and sand touch. The rock should always smell clean like the ocean, no foul stench. Perhaps you could put a couple of rocks in a bucket of circulating / heated tank water and test it for metals to see if there is something leaching out of it?

Unfortunately you've lost corals, but how many fish do you have? If you do the full reset (rinse the sand out, add new rock, and put your livestock in), how big is the bioload in relation to the tank's size? 20%, 50%, or more? Can you scale back the feedings and let the tank equalize again? Over the years, I've done a number of tank resets, transplanting all livestock into a new tank virtually overnight with excellent results. The key is stability, and watching everything very closely to make minor adjustments before it can spiral out of control.

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Originally Posted by Floggin

He shouldn't have to "cook" his Macro rock. The website says "Reef safe, Pre Cycled". I know someone who might be able to add some more input on that, and I will have them get on and add his 2 cents.

i recently purchased 100lbs of marcorocks.com key largo rock and introduced it to my system all i did is hose it off and place it in the tank. this rock comes out of the ground and is completely reef safe and since it was never "alive" it doesnt have organic compounds stored up in it like brs dry fiji live rock for example so there is no need to cook or cure it. however it will take some time before it does your system any good as a biological filter.
over all i am very pleased with the rock i have purchased and my system is running at undetectable "with api test kit" levels of phosphates or nitrates.

Originally Posted by MrReefAddict

If you're starting a new tank, I think that you could rinse the Marco Rock, soak it in Ro for a week and maybe even soak in some vinegar. I have 50lbs of Marco I rinsed it, soaked it in RO for 2 weeks and cooked it for 11 months in a tote. I kinda went overboard since I didn't have the room in my DT. I put it in my existing tank about 2 months ago with no problems.

not sure i would want to soak any rock in vinegar it wouldn't do anything beneficial to the rock and if you mixed it strong enough it would just dissolve the rock.

Although the rock most recently came from the ground, it was once alive. Any old dead coral skeletons can posses nutrients in them. Joeogio, you may have had good results without cooking the rock for a time, others have had bad results and it took months for them to rid the rock of nuisance algae when they started there tank with it, even when there was little to no bioload in the tank. Look at Marc's frag tank, I bet the valonia was feeding off the leaching phosphates from the rock as there was no issues in the main display.

melev- I actually am thinking that my rock is leeching something into the water I have no sound reasoning for my theory but regardless my rock is not very porous, and came as "live" rock from the gulf. I figure it would not be a bad idea to upgrade my current rock to something a lot better quality overall.

The only reason I am afraid of a DSB is because I have heard stories of lots of tanks crashing that have DSB's. Lots of horror stories involving CO2 leaking into the systems, I just figure that could be one less risk I take potentially.

I do also believe that it sounds a lot like symptoms of what people describe as OTS and I will admit that I have not been able to maintain the tank like I had been in the past. Unfortunately though these issues had started when I was doing very steady consistent maintenance which is another reason I am leaning towards perhaps a leeching from the rock and sandbed.

right now in a 75 gallon with a 35 gallon sump I have a medium yellow tang, 2 clowns 1 medium one small, a firefish, 3 chromis medium size, a yellow clown goby and a yellowtail damsel small/medium. With the biopellet reactor running and skimmer going I think I can make due as I am also potentially looking at getting a biocube up and running to put the goby, firefish, and saved frags in for recovery.

here is what my research has turned up on the key largo marco rock. It is old buried live rock that no longer contains life put still could potentially hold organic material. The people at marcorock state that they take the old rock, put it through a 4 stage cleaning process, precycle it seperate from any other "live" rock, then dry it back out leaving it completely reef safe. Now grant it I have no clue about how much of that is true but I have yet to read of enough bad instances with marcorock to be too afraid of giving it a go.

midnight- unfortunately I am not too close to charlotte (im in Chattanooga) but i do have a friend that has a 45 breeder that he is currently not using as well as a hang on bio wheel filter that I would not be scared of using if I had to for a 2 week maximum (hopefully not even close to that long but you never know.) keeping it strictly as a holding tank and bare bottom.

Originally Posted by Midnight

Although the rock most recently came from the ground, it was once alive. Any old dead coral skeletons can posses nutrients in them. Joeogio, you may have had good results without cooking the rock for a time, others have had bad results and it took months for them to rid the rock of nuisance algae when they started there tank with it, even when there was little to no bioload in the tank. Look at Marc's frag tank, I bet the valonia was feeding off the leaching phosphates from the rock as there was no issues in the main display.

This is straight from their website.

"Can I add rock right into my established tank?

We do not recommend our rock or any other rock right into an established tank without testing first.
However you will find our Key Largo rock 100% free of organics or "pre cured" this makes it safe to tank in an established system without fear of an ammonia spike."