Project, bring the rock back to life!

kablamo

kablamo

Member
Ok, Here's my plan. I can't get my big 70 gallon w/ sump and awesome light and all of that until October, so this is what I'm going to do:
Currently, I have
29 gallon AGA tank,
96 Watts PC lights,
emperor 400
seaclone 100
50 lbs of once live rock
about 40 lbs of aragonite.
A lot of salt
seven african cichlids who are about to go back to LFS!
Here's the plan
Return cichlids,
drain tank,
scrub off FW algae with tap water,
Clean Powerheads, powerfilters, and other junk, and break out the old skimmer.
Dry base rock in oven,
clean sand,
fill tank with SW, add aragonite, base rock, and two new peices of LR.
Run skimmer, PH, PF, and other junk for three months and foster rock to live again, and possibly cover it all with Coraline.
Anyone have any experience with this sort of a thing?
I am not going to have a single fish, only a clean-up crew, IF it becomes necessary.
Now, as far as growing coraline, does anyone have any recommendations, or threads for me to read? I have done a few searches, but haven't found anything quite like what I am doing. What do you guys think?
Anyway, here's some pix of the progress.
 
hot883

hot883

Active Member
You will need some good LR to seed the old stuff. You can "scrape" good coraline from established LR and sprinkle or place that on the dead stuff. Keep PH off for some time so the coraline will kinda get settled in and start to adhere. When you turn the PH back on ensure they do not blow right at the freshly seeded rock at first. Once you think it is started (week or so) then you can angle the PH closer to the rock IMO. Just my $.02
 
kablamo

kablamo

Member
Finally somehow got the sand and the buckets out of the "closet of doom" Washed it, pretty nasty it was, and got it dried out, too bad those cichlids are getting evicted!




 
kablamo

kablamo

Member
If no one sees any huge problems with this, then I am going to go ahead! Cichlids leave first thing in the morning!
 
hot883

hot883

Active Member
Originally Posted by Kablamo
pics 2, old crappy seaclone skimmer, other junk
Whats in the bucket in the center of the sand?
 
kablamo

kablamo

Member
those are paper towels, to soak up all of the excess water which has all of the stuff that looks and smells like skimmate.
1. Chloe is guarding the saltwater mixing and the sand waiting for tomorrow.
2. DONT LEAVE HOME WITHOUT THIS BOOK!!
3. Closeup of algae on live rock, how would you guys get rid of this to make the rock live again?


 
bigb

bigb

Member
3. Scrub it with your wife's toothbrush. Sorry I read your other post and sounds like she deserves it.
Seriously though scrub it with an old toothbrush, it won't become live til you seed it with other LR
 
bigb

bigb

Member
For the 70 gal I would get at least 40lb more LR. Search online and you should get some good prices. After scrubbing that fw algae off, if you put it all(your old 50 + new 40) in a large rubbermaid to cure I don't think you'll have a prob.
You could cut some seriuos costs off your "wish list" on that other post by eliminating a few things entirely and shopping online.
 
kablamo

kablamo

Member
I'm planning on doing a coral only tank for a few months till I can afford the 70,
about cutting stuff out, no way, I'm not going to do it unless I can do it right!
I'm going to try at first to grow coraline all over everything, and then to grow mushrooms, zoos, and star polyps and stuff, should be cool, it's also cool that i never have to feed anything, and won't have to worry about hair algae (low phosphates and I will have calerpa) :jumping:
 
bigb

bigb

Member
It is not a matter of not doing it "right" it is a matter of unnessesary stuff.
1)39.99 top- if this is the cheap glass top you definately don't need this, it adds heat to tank, restricts exchange of gasses to the tank and has to constantly be cleaned so proper light can get through. Plastic eggcrate $10.00 a sheet cut it yourself.
2) That coralife light goes for 400-430 online, free shipping.
3) If you get more LR and re-seed your old rock you don't need the live sand, it will eventually become live. If you must have it one bag is enough.
4)8.99 Marine Buffer, 7.99 Safe, 8.99 Reef Plus - 250, 13.99 Reef Complete - 500. if these are start up chemicals you definately don't need these, if you cycle your tank properly.
5) I wouldn't check my toilet water with a hydrometer, you'll want a refractometer~ 49.99- my only added cost to your project.
Opptional stuff.
6) Depending on how hot it gets where you are I don't think you need the chiller.
7) All your loc-line is way overpriced and i don't think you need that much. Just run your plumbing and attach the few pieces you need inside tank to direct flow where you want. Google loc-line and you'll see how cheap you can find it.
Maybe if you get the cost down the money grubber will let you get your tank.
 
kablamo

kablamo

Member
1 rocks cleaned and ready to go
2 stand in its new place
3 tank clean and ready to paint
4 ugly ass DIY hood with 96w PC
5 tank, painted and in its new home




 
kablamo

kablamo

Member
1 painted
2 aquascaped
3 finished
4 closeup of live rock i bought today
5 What is this little stalk here? these are everywhere!



 
shnabbles

shnabbles

Member
If they are like little tubes and the bases alittle coiled up they are a type of snail i believe .... a snail that does move... look in the hitchhiker thread for a better pic.... they are completely normal and they are filter feeders... they will sometimes extract a string of saliva looking stuff into the water.. this is them eating.
 
wax32

wax32

Active Member
Noone else has asked so I will. You haven't ever used copper in the tank with those rocks, have you?
 
kablamo

kablamo

Member
UPDATED, ok, it's now been three months and LOOK at the coraline! Keep in mind this rock was 100 percent DEAD. BOILED, BAKED, DEAD.
 
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