Tank Journal Archive

DavidS

The Resident Loony
Jul 17, 2011
3,337
1,033
Ballarat, Victoria
The First Half Of 2016 Update...
So.. leading on from my previous update 6 months ago, the lights have been rebuilt.

A lot of effort was put into killing algae by way of peroxide dips - this certainly killed the algae, but alas it returned quickly. I've been unable to detect any real phosphate in the water, so I suspect after most of 2 years neglect, I have a heap of bound phosphate in the live rock.

I have a plan for the phosphate - I'm going to bathe half of the live rock from the DT in a container of lanth choloride + salt water for a few days, then throw around a bit of hydrogen peroxide for good measure. I'll get that rock back into the tank, leave things for a few weeks, do the other half, wait a few weeks then do the rock from the sump (I have a fair bit of LR in the system to cope). I'm doing this as I'm expecting that this process will cause a fair bit of die off, so obviously need to allow some time for the life to repopulate before I kill any more and allow what's left in the system the chance to deal with whatever chemical hell this creates. Besides, the fish need somewhere to hide :P

Not quite ideal - in a perfect world, I'd move all the stock to another system, do the whole lot at once, cycle and get back to normal as this method is obviously going to allow for some of that rock to absorb phosphate out of the remaining rock until it's all gone through this process. I'm hoping that the existing algae will help absorb the remaining phosphate while I get around the tank, and minimise the amount of phosphate the dipped rock can absorb. If necessary I may look at lanth dosing after I'm finished - will really be a wait and see.
The amount of phosphate being introduced now is quite limited, so I'm hoping I should be on top of this in a few months.

I found myself making ASW at the weekend for the first time since 2011. I'm about to make an entire IBC's worth for a change from using NSW, so this should be fun. Fresh RO/DI filters installed ready for this action.

In other news, I ran out of calc and mag supps a while ago, and my levels at the weekend were atrocious. Calc was down to the high 200s, and the mag was down around 900. I knew they were dropping - but just haven't had a chance to do much about them. I was surprised that they'd dropped quite so much considering the limited number of corals in the system, and the frequent WCs. I received a bulk supply of new supplies late last week, and after making 10L of calc, and 6L of mag, I've got enough calc to last me a couple of months, and enough mag made to last me to the end of the week (not even lol on this - the top up dose was 4.5L which I'm just over half way through dosing as I'm doing nearly 1L a day). My Alk skyrocketed temporarily when I started to get the other levels up, but seems to be back under control. Calc is now about where I'd like, and Mag has a way to go, but should get up within the next couple of days. The use of a dosing pump does make this a whole lot easier, and I'd like to get this balanced out before I start pulling rock out.

With bubs due very, very, very soon now, I'm kinda hoping to get started on the rock bath before he comes out - we're expecting him to be in hospital for a while as he'll be a bit prem, but with a bit of luck, I'll find some time around that to at least get the first batch back in in the tank and next lot out and get this process started. Some positive results would do a lot to keep me motivated!
 

MagicJ

Moderator
Jul 11, 2011
9,650
3,761
Hobart, Tasmania
Sounds like fun David :D

A Winter baby in Ballarat will be a challenge - I hope you have a good heater and/or clothes dryer ...
 

DavidS

The Resident Loony
Jul 17, 2011
3,337
1,033
Ballarat, Victoria
Sounds like fun David :D

A Winter baby in Ballarat will be a challenge - I hope you have a good heater and/or clothes dryer ...
Central heating and a clothes dryer are both recent additions to my life over the past couple of years that I've learned I can't live without :P
 

DavidS

The Resident Loony
Jul 17, 2011
3,337
1,033
Ballarat, Victoria
So the lanthanum chloride bathing has commenced. It seems that my rock volume guestimate was fraction off - looks like I'll need 3 loads from the DT (well more like 2.2 of them.. I wasn't that far off).
When I took the lid off the bottle, and filled a 1/3 cup measurement (it was what was handy) pouring that in convinced me that maybe that was more than enough (I do awesome science lol),
Within an hour, a heap of the algae on the rocks in the tub had changed colour and wasn't looking healthy. I spent some time removing it just to avoid the water getting all fouled up.
I might change my original plan though - initially I was going to soak for a week. I've got a heater and a wave maker in the tub to keep conditions as tank like as possible, and a lid on to reduce evap so hopefully this might retain some life. I think next weekend I'll scrub the rocks down to get the remaining algae off, drain the tub, and refill it with water from my next water change, add some more lanth chloride and leave it for another week. I can't fit a skimmer into the tub for export, so hopefully just draining the whole thing will do the same job. Doing some reading on the fairly limited amount of useful information out there about trying this method on live rock (as opposed to dry), there are some suggestions it can take a couple of weeks for the phosphate to leech out and be bound up by the lanthanum, so I might as well let it go that bit longer.
 

ReeferRob

Solidarité
Oct 22, 2014
2,661
931
Bel Air
Here's what I do to get rid of bound phosphate. 1 drop in the weir every 4 days, I fill a filtre sock with filtre floss so it catches the bound phosphate and LaCl. Some of the rock I have has been in captivity for 30 years and was kept under questionable conditions. When I cycle rock, I do the same thing and I add a kg or so of AlO or FeO. The wife's 2' cube had issues and we started doing this, the bubble algae has been slowly disappearing over the last 6-8 months. Just be VERY careful if you're doing this in a stocked tank.
 

DavidS

The Resident Loony
Jul 17, 2011
3,337
1,033
Ballarat, Victoria
So. all of my rock has spent at least 2 weeks soaking in a saltwater/lanth solution. I've also taken the opportunity to hit the algae areas with hydrogen peroxide to help kill it off.
Some of the most affected rock is back in the tub for its second pass, and I will do this on a rock by rock basis as I don't want to keep screwing with the whole system quite so much. I'm not seeing much growth at the moment, but its still happening to some extent.
It's fairly hard to tell how affective this process has been given I can't really quantify levels given the bound phos.
I'm going to do some other things to help the process along:

- I've got some 5 micron filter socks coming. I'll start working on introducing some lanth into system in small quantities, and let the socks capture it. I may use floss inside the sock just to help capture the crap.

- I'm going to build a turf scrubber. I can't justify spending $600 on a Santa Monica HOG3x given that bubs has been home for 2 weeks and I bought a new car at the same time (XR6 turbo.. early onset midlife crisis is my excuse and I'm sticking too it). I do however like the design so I'm using it as a basis for a DIY. So far the cost of parts to build something of similar function has been around $120. It will function largely the same way, though I'll use a layered PVC mesh for the backing with cured PVC glue to hold the layers together - same stuff we use on pipe plumbing so should be water safe. I'll use white cable ties for the "strings" which will come through from the back of the acrylic sheet I'll bond the mesh to.
I'll mount an airstone in the bottom for aeration. The container will be basically 2 suitable black plastic boxes with the metal screw mounts cut out, held together by some epoxy covered rare earth magnets. These are the only thing that may need to change depending on how they go through glass as I've had to order without seeing them.
Lightwise the approach will be similar - 9x660nm (red) LEDs. My configuration will be a fraction different in that the "low" light channel will be 4 LEDs instead of 3. This just makes the electronics a little more sane from my perspective - I can run the same type of transformer on both channels without getting the LEDs too far out of spec.
As for the heatsink - I'm going to cut some ali channel off cuts to fit, and make it work inside the exterior box. It's light stuff so that should help the magnets out. If it gets too hot, I should also be able to cut holes in the exterior casing to line up with the inside of the channels to get air through them to help cool them. Doing it this way, I should have negligible light leak. No idea if this is going to work - will build it and see lol.

My first real drive with the new car was to Deer Park to look at new stuff. I found a couple of corals - some of which are fine in the DT, and a couple of pieces that are sitting in the frag tanks to grow a little more.
The "almost Mrs DavidS" having now seen what clean and happy tanks look like in the shop gave me permission to focus more on getting the tank cleaned up, so I also grabbed some trochus snails, and some new fish food (I've suspected that the food I was using may have been a little heavy on the phos side).

Slow progress, but progress never the less.
On the upside, I have about a million frags to get rid out of the frag system (which is much healthier lol) - mostly a whole range of well growing palys that are trying to overtake the tanks :P
 

DavidS

The Resident Loony
Jul 17, 2011
3,337
1,033
Ballarat, Victoria
Congratulations on the arrival home of the new baby - to keep the girls happy you had better provide a photo :)
I really should do something about getting a decent pic of him now that he's out of hospital (he's 6 weeks old today - born at 33 weeks and 5 days with some issues, so the first 4 of those weeks seem to have been an eternity ago). I have a million pics of him, but I need a new one to show :P
 

ReeferRob

Solidarité
Oct 22, 2014
2,661
931
Bel Air
Congrats on the new addition mate!!

DEFINITELY use filtre wool in those socks to catch the precipitate, that's the way I do it. The last thing you want is that shit settling out in your tank. If you're cooking the rock in a separate tank, a small internal filtre will work to capture it, I do that when I bring in new rock and start cooking it.