Mike Yasin
Guest
Hi all-
I've been supporting member, but lurking and not too active. Hope to change that and participate more, so I'd like to post my year-old build and progress to date.
As way of background, I've been in the hobby for 15 years and have maintained a beautiful 92 bow-front for 9 years. About a two years ago, we were in construction, and the crew killed the power to our house for 3 days over a holiday weekend while we were on vacation, and I lost all my fish, every SPS and nearly every softie. I let the remnants of tank limp along for a bit over a year, and finally took the plunge with a post construction build.
After the mass extinction event, I had taken out 90% of the rock out to bleach so I could start off with a (relatively) pest free system. After a thorough cleaning, I had it in cold saltwater for months, and about two months before I started the build, I began to heat and add bacteria so I could get the cooking process going.I think this actually made some difference overall, because although I still battled algae, my initial ugly period was relatively short lived.
I added my soft coral survivors to the new tank at about two months, and everything went well. I was so confident in my stability that i added some SPS at about three months, and everything continued to thrive. 6 weeks later I added more SPS and things just fine.
It wasn't until about 6 months into the build that I had some nasty dinos and possibly ostreo that killed a few SPS. I incorporated UV, Vibrant dosing, and some manual scrubbing and siphoning to beat it, which took about 8 weeks to get it all.
Next post will have some pics and dates.
I've been supporting member, but lurking and not too active. Hope to change that and participate more, so I'd like to post my year-old build and progress to date.
As way of background, I've been in the hobby for 15 years and have maintained a beautiful 92 bow-front for 9 years. About a two years ago, we were in construction, and the crew killed the power to our house for 3 days over a holiday weekend while we were on vacation, and I lost all my fish, every SPS and nearly every softie. I let the remnants of tank limp along for a bit over a year, and finally took the plunge with a post construction build.
After the mass extinction event, I had taken out 90% of the rock out to bleach so I could start off with a (relatively) pest free system. After a thorough cleaning, I had it in cold saltwater for months, and about two months before I started the build, I began to heat and add bacteria so I could get the cooking process going.I think this actually made some difference overall, because although I still battled algae, my initial ugly period was relatively short lived.
I added my soft coral survivors to the new tank at about two months, and everything went well. I was so confident in my stability that i added some SPS at about three months, and everything continued to thrive. 6 weeks later I added more SPS and things just fine.
It wasn't until about 6 months into the build that I had some nasty dinos and possibly ostreo that killed a few SPS. I incorporated UV, Vibrant dosing, and some manual scrubbing and siphoning to beat it, which took about 8 weeks to get it all.
Next post will have some pics and dates.