First I want to say THANK YOU (all caps for serious emphasis) to every one who has cheered me on today via private messages and posting on this thread. I spent the better part of the morning crying and vascialting between smashing the tank with the sledgehammer, or pulling up my bootstraps and making the darn thing work.
Dr. Hank, you don't make me sad when you tell it like it is. No need to apologize. What makes me sad is when I work really hard and nothing seems to go right. YOU didn't make me have a deadly ammonia spike or buy a pump that is ten times larger than my tank can handle.
So, the sun finally came out and my disposition has changed as well. First, I took the pump to the LFS and they gave me full credit back for it even though I used for a day or two. So that credit gave me enough to buy 60 lbs. of Caribsea live sand, a bottle of live rock iodine dip, and the largest bucket of Tropic Marin sea salt.
BEFORE I do one more thing, I'm going to see if any of you think this is a good plan. Please point out any thing that looks wrong. I'm not making a move until I get a majority consensus. I will try to be as detailed as possible.
1. Scrub my live rock in the tank with a new baby bottle brush wearing new dish gloves with no powder inside.
2. Fill a 20 gallon bucket with new, freshly mixed salt water, a heater set at 80 degrees, and a powerhead on high.
3. Fill a 5 gallon bucket half-way with new water salt water and Kent Marine's Lugol's Solution coral dip 40 drops X 2.5 = 100 drops.
4. Immerse each piece of live rock in 5 gallon bucket for 10 - 15 min.
5. Add freshly dipped live rock to the 20 gallon bucket.
6. Empty my tank of water and sand and pumps and skimmers etc.
7. Clean tank, pumps, skimmer, sump, overflow, etc. with a mixture of 1 pt. white vinegar, 20 pts. water. (5% solution) (I thought of using the bleach mixture but I don't know that I'd be able to totally rinse it thoroughly since I can't take the tank outside to hose it off. I'd have to use rags.)
8. Rinse everything in RO water.
9. Air dry for four to six days. Scrub live rock again during that period and do a 100% water change in the bucket.
10. Live rock rubble and bamboni rock will arrive.
11. Reassemble tank. Leave bioball wet/dry filter empty. Put new blue filter floss after overflow in wet/dry filter. Put new foam block after trickle filter/before pump & skimmer.
12. Add
60 lbs. Carribsea Arag Alive Sand
13. Fill tank with 80 gallons (72 gallon display and 8+ gallons for sump)freshly mixed Tropic Marin Pro Reef.
14. Turn on pump, heater (to 78 degrees), skimmer.
15. Scrub large live rock & base rock again and add it to the tank.
16. Cure newly arrived live rock rubble and bamboni base rock with this method:
- Place the live rock in a new 30-gallon plastic garbage can. Consider adding bottom drains to the container to speed draining and water changes.
- Completely cover the rock with freshly mixed saltwater, with a specific gravity of 1.021 - 1.025.
- Use a heater and keep the water temperature near 80 degrees to speed die off.
- Provide constant water movement with a power head or air stone.
- Keep the area dimly lit to prevent algae blooms.
- Perform 100% water changes twice weekly.
- Gently scrub the rock with a new nylon bristle brush or toothbrush between water changes to remove any white film or dead material.
- When the water conditions stabilize and ammonia and nitrite tests are zero, the rock is ready to be placed into the display aquarium.
17. Add the rubble to the wet-dry area and bamboni to the display. Arrange in my desired way.
18.
Come back to RS and ask what to do next.