Attention anyone w/ crushed coral

[janastasio]

My tank has not been in great shape lateley. Lots of algae problems! I have had the tank 2 ?might be 3 years now. Got it already established from someone else. Came with crushed coral. Being new to the hobby at that time, I added more! After reading about the down side to this stuff over the last 2 years, I recently decided to remove it. Well, I have lost several fish recently, and tested params and trates were high. I decided to do an overhaul on the tank! I removed all coral, remaining 3 fish, and some rock. I moved other rock to one half of tank and took the subtrate out on the bare half. I have to say, this stuff was nasty. The crushed coral appeared to almost be degrading. Alot of it was this gray mush mixed in with the crushed coral. I can only imagine the nastiness breeding in there. I have heard people start to have problems after 2 years and I am wondering if this is the reason. I am a regular water changer. I vaccuumed the subtrate every 2 weeks in the areas that could be reached. I assume that is the reason why anything was even alive in this tank! So, just wanted to share my experience with pulling this stuff out, and have anyone with crushed coral think about what theirs might be like. For now I am going to keep the bottom bare. My water is cloudy now, but clearing quickly, thankfully. I plan on doing water changes every couple of days since things got so stirred up in the tank. I can also see some "silt" that has settled on the bottom, so I will try and remove this over the next few weeks.

 

[al mc]

Had similar problems when I started in the hobby and my LFS suggested CC. Once I removed it my nitrates 'mysteriously' were cut in half.

 

[janastasio]

Heres to hoping!

 

[mx#28]

CC collects detritus - which is the gray mush you see. If you keep a tank with CC (often done with an undergravel filter) you need to 'vaccuum' the junk out from the CC with a siphon attachment.

 

[nordy]

I put CC in my 55 gal tank (converted from FW) when I set it up about 6-7 years ago and yea, it gets nasty down there. I regularly stir it up by first putting fresh paper filters in my 2 canister HOB units, turning off the sump, stir up a small area of the CC and let it clear up before turning the sump back on. The tank clears up very quickly. Since my bioload is much lower now, the CC doesn't get nearly quite as dirty but I still stir it up. My nitrates are now in the 0 to 5 range. Of course I am now also doing more regular water changes w/RO/DI.

 

[renogaw]

jaime just save me some of those mini brittle stars

 

[janastasio]

Renogaw, I put a net under the water when I siphoned. got as many as I could. They are in the rocks, so plenty still around! Just have to get them out of rocks now! Even when scooping the cc out I still went thru it picking these little buggers out!

 

[sh00tist]

CC is a disaster looming in the not so distant horizen. For people who are thinking of removing it I would do so very slowly,taking a little bit out each week,to offset the bacteria you are losing it would be good to start placing some extra LR in your sump or tank as you are removing the CC. if your tank is clouding up real bad I would suggest using some blue/white filter floss in any available location. I use one piece where my overflow comes into my sump but I replace it every 3 or 4 days as a rule. if I am doing a lot of work or moving things around inside the tank I stick some in my overflow as well as the return area of my sump then remove after a few hours,it really helps to clear things up fast. The stuff is quite expensive to buy in the pre-packaged squares(packs of 10 or so),but a lot of LFS have a great big roll of the stuff in the backroom and they will usually sell it quite cheap by the yard.