Bombertech

Was wondering whe you'd get called out!

Jack, cover up the 660nm reds on your fixture while you combat the Hair Algae, it will help I'd recommend taking your sand out in quarters and rinsing it very well. As previously stated, the rock can leach the organics back into the water. If it gets out of control, you can always bleach/acid bath a rock or two at a time. The only thing to watch for when swapping out a lot of rock at a time is depleting your anerobic bacteria; it takes a long time to establish deep in the LR. So, if you over do the rock swaps you have to compensate with more water changes to keep nitrates down, macroalgae also helps. We just ran through the same thing over here on a fellow reefer's tank. If you end up needing some well established rock let me know and I can swap you some, I've got plenty...

Gotta love the triggers!! Jason brings in some really cool fish!

Indeed, them theme tanks!! Florida trip would be awesome. Rics and some badass rock nems! Too bad you can't get an out of state permit, I looked :(

Thanks guys, just trying to put all the options on the table. It's definately not for everyone!

Sorry to de-rail the typical response BUT... 24x48x8 Hydroponics tray: $35 at most "indoor" grow stores choose from black or white, best tank investment I ever made. If you put it in a wood frame you can insulate the bottom and sides, I also made a quick acrylic cover. No glass to clean, the sides just grow coraline. You get faster velocity flow since it's only 25 gallons, and PAR is quite lovely in the first 6 inches of water depth, why waste light... I have my return nozzles oriented to minimize surface disturbance and use a wave maker on a 6hr OFF timer when cutting frags, or working in the tank. Here are some random pics, I've ran this setup for 2-1/2 years now.

Didn't you find a source for large quantities of resin a while back?

Oh, almost forgot my fish keeper, Ava. She hand feeds the fish twice daily, and makes command decisions on aquascaping and fish names.

Wifey and me. -Matt

They come in on turbos frequently. Only other thing (minus food) is tank temperature being too high. Good luck and keep us posted.

Check for tiny cone shaped pyramid snails on the other snails. They will eat any snails/clams they can find.

How much flow is there?

If you have a 1 and a 1.5, use the 1" for siphon. As for how far down you want the straight pipe siphon, usually 1/2-1" below the surface of the water to the top of the drain screen. The backup should only have a seep of water going down it. 6 months down the road, if you hear water going down the backup, clean the screen on the primary drain. As TheClark said, you can always dry fit everything and give it a run!

There is no reason to torture yourself. If you can make due with an extra 2 inches of overflow water draining into your sump on power down: I like to run a full siphon straight drain. You can set the siphon drain a couple inches below the surface of the water. For tuning, a gate valve works great, but, if you can tweak in small increments and have some sanity left, a ball valve can work. I set my water level to seep at the full open backup drain. It's completely silent. You can hear the RW-8's humming

If it were me, it sounds like there are a couple options: Get some critters in there to eat all the algae, increase flow to capture their waste. Continue until whatever rock/sand is leaching nutrients finishes. OR.... Nix the sand (its cheap), and decide if you need to nuke the rock. When starting fresh, make sure you learn from previous lessons so you don't have to do it again. Oh, and as for the bacterial cycle, you can use bottled bacteria to help kick start the ammonia cycle. Which will convert it to nitrites and then nitrates. One thing to note is you'll have to let the anerobic bacteria populate the oxygen void parts of the rock, in other words, you'll need to keep nitrates in check with macro and/or water changes and be careful feeding or you'll go full circle.

Good decision! Moving a small tank is easy peasy! Some gems of wisdom I can give learned from my nano's move from Vancouver to Bend: #1: When you remove stuff from the tank, drain the water into buckets without disturbing the detrius. #2: When you set the tank back up, take the time to rinse the sand out very well with a hose. Then a final rinse in saltwater before it goes in the tank. Cover it with plastic to keep from stirring it up when you add water back in. #3: Stuff can stay in buckets for a couple days as long as there is heat and circulation. Don't rush to set everything up! Keep the fish buckets covered (but not sealed except for transit), they will try to jump. #4: Bonus Points: Pre-coordinate to grab 20 gallons of someone's water change (non-detrius siphon). Having some established water on hand allows you to shake out your rock while it is in it's bucket. For a RODI, best place for one is the laundry room. Grab a garden hose "Y" with the little shutoff valves ($5 at Lowes), put this on your cold water line for the washing machine. Backwash/wastewater line can go down the drain or ran to a garden water barrel outside. That takes all of 10 minutes to do.

Welcome! Indeed, small tanks are a lot of fun. As long as you can resist the urge to upsize, lol

Welcome!

I've shut my tanks down for 6hrs with no flow but the lights have to be out (including direct sunlight). this will stop the corals from photosynthesizing and poisoning themselves from excess oxygen (as I understand it, anyone feel free to correct me if there is more to it).

First prority is temperature. If the temperature is okay and the light is off you should have 8-12 hours.

Ace (depending on the owner) sells them. I forgot the name of the awesome site that sells well priced pvc fittings... maybe someone else will chime in...

In the future, just increase the salinity to match and swap them out. Try very hard to not damage the roots as it can kill them. In full on reef water they will need the trunk sprayed down every/every other day to rinse salt out of their air vents. I have a few that are 3ft. Would be awesome to do a super shallow mangrove tank.

That is pretty cool, thanks for sharing!

Indeed, looks like a sponge.

Congrats!! She'll be enthralled with your nano in no time!