fishhead
Active Member
Greetings reefers and moderators,
It seems like its been a long time since I last visited/posted here. I'm not sure where to put this thread, but it is about a 15 year old 90 gal reef that I broke
down to move. I kept all my rocks(~150 lb?). I did not move.
I kept all the rocks in the 40 gallon sump (moving water & filtered of course). After a while the acrylic sump was bowing from all the water. So out they all came again, and I got a 60 Gallon Tall (4 ft x 2 ft by only 1 ft) glass tank on Craigslist.
There was still life on the rocks (GSP, monte etc..), so I decided to put my 4 x4 x 54W T5 hood that I used to have on the 4 ft. 90 on it.
After about month, the corals were actually doing quite well, the rocks at this time however were putrid, and just seemed to get worse with time. I stuck with it hoping to bring things around. I put a Reef Octopus BH90 on it, and a couple more power-heads. After about another six months it was evident that something had to be done, the rocks were so ugly and grey brown growing gook all over them.
Now it was a challenge. I live in a small apartment, but this thing is a lot smaller than the 90, so I put a sump on it (RS200). This helped a lot. The tank temp dropped several degrees from having the sump somehow. I was also able to use a turkey baster and blow sludge off the rocks to be filter socked out via the CPR CS90 overflow.
With all the extra power-heads now in the tank, the temperature was again too high. If it was only the rocks I wouldn't worry too much, but there was coral and a six-live wrass that I kept (gave all else to an LFS for peanuts). At this point i should have just given up and started something new but..I added 1/4 HP chiller from AquaEuro. This was ridiculous all this for a box of rocks I know, but I kept collecting the pieces...
It seems like its been a long time since I last visited/posted here. I'm not sure where to put this thread, but it is about a 15 year old 90 gal reef that I broke
down to move. I kept all my rocks(~150 lb?). I did not move.I kept all the rocks in the 40 gallon sump (moving water & filtered of course). After a while the acrylic sump was bowing from all the water. So out they all came again, and I got a 60 Gallon Tall (4 ft x 2 ft by only 1 ft) glass tank on Craigslist.
There was still life on the rocks (GSP, monte etc..), so I decided to put my 4 x4 x 54W T5 hood that I used to have on the 4 ft. 90 on it.
After about month, the corals were actually doing quite well, the rocks at this time however were putrid, and just seemed to get worse with time. I stuck with it hoping to bring things around. I put a Reef Octopus BH90 on it, and a couple more power-heads. After about another six months it was evident that something had to be done, the rocks were so ugly and grey brown growing gook all over them.
Now it was a challenge. I live in a small apartment, but this thing is a lot smaller than the 90, so I put a sump on it (RS200). This helped a lot. The tank temp dropped several degrees from having the sump somehow. I was also able to use a turkey baster and blow sludge off the rocks to be filter socked out via the CPR CS90 overflow.
With all the extra power-heads now in the tank, the temperature was again too high. If it was only the rocks I wouldn't worry too much, but there was coral and a six-live wrass that I kept (gave all else to an LFS for peanuts). At this point i should have just given up and started something new but..I added 1/4 HP chiller from AquaEuro. This was ridiculous all this for a box of rocks I know, but I kept collecting the pieces...
