Tearing down a mess of a tank/cooking liverock

[jeffnewt]

I have to take down my 60. It is a disaster, loaded with 20 pounds of hair algea.

the whole project was doomed. A 60 barebottom that I didn't have enough flow or dititus removal.

Anyway, after the rock became grass, a decided to cut my losses and removed my best rock, coral, and inverts. Now I have a basically emty tank and I need to take out the rest of the rock, about 5 pieces, and I think I should "cook it" I read about this before, but now I am not sure how to go about doing it.

I also want to set up a smaller fish only tank, for my barred morey. How big would be big enough? its about 16 inches long I would think.

 

[freetareef]

you can set up a 5 gal bucket of tank water and srub the rock with a clean bbq brush...

sorry bout your lose but don't give up!!!

tell us more about your system, did you have a good clean up crew? ie crabs and snails? how were your tank perameters? was you tank still cycling? did you have a skimmer? how about your nnr (natural nitrate reduction) system? ie dsb, plenum, small grain ssb, or weekly water changes?

 

[freetareef]

les in the fish section would be able to give you a good answer on the tank size for your eel most likely

 

[jeffnewt]

you can set up a 5 gal bucket of tank water and srub the rock with a clean bbq brush...

sorry bout your lose but don't give up!!!

tell us more about your system, did you have a good clean up crew? ie crabs and snails? how were your tank perameters? was you tank still cycling? did you have a skimmer? how about your nnr (natural nitrate reduction) system? ie dsb, plenum, small grain ssb, or weekly water changes?

well- I set things up pretty good. I had things under controll for a long time. I had a built in overflow, 30 galon sump. Macroalgea, skimmer, dual returns, powerheads in the corners.

Barebottom, and the problem was ditritus removal. I wasn't siphoning it out once a week like I used too. I tired to get it out in the water column, but in the end it just got hard to work with, I didn't have time to keep up on water changes.

No phosphate removal. I let the ph get off a little, and also, I had to use tap water, which in ballard is actually not bad. I was useing R/o water for along time, but I wasn't home long enough to run the system and fll up the mixing can.

I tired to scrub, over and over. A toothbrush is the best, which I did again tonight to take out the rock. I saved a few chunks of rock that I used to set up my new tank, a 20 gallon long. it was a rock cave for the eel, the demsel, and the urchin. I put the simmer in there, and the cheato.

looks funny. But in the end, it was the only way. I am keeping the 60 gallon. Its a great tank with a nice overflow. and I have top move to a smaller place, thats sort of why I gave up, but in the end it just was going to be impossible to remove close to 15 pounds of algea without spending a fortune.

so all in all, I just didn't have the resources (time/money) to salvage the 60, but a 10 gallon nano and a 20 fowlr is going to be more fun I think. The nano looks fantastic, it really shows off the colors of the rock, and I have so much growing on those 5 pieces that It looks even better.

 

[jeffnewt]

New 20l FOWLR

notice the only lighting is the subcompact 50/50 bulb. Thats as much as I want. I don't want this algea growign anymore, and I plan to move it over to the side with the cheato. I only have the eel, and urchin, and a small fish in here. I may ad a b,coral shrimp and some crabs, snails, and mabye something else small, but then thats it.

but I am thinking I could get some good lights and make this my reef, and just put everything in here. its tempting, but I really like how small the 10 gallon is. I can't do a massive water change with just 2 buckets. i just don't want any serious lighting over anything I can't scrub off a few times a week.

 

[jeffnewt]

pics2

opps, ment to post these