Algae Scrubber. That’s me.

March 7, 2010 — Marc

Well, further to the previous article, I am now an algae scrubber. No not the kind that sits in your sump.

The kind that pulls the rock out of your tank and takes a scrub brush to them.

Here are a few pics of a pile of scrubbed rocks next to some yet-to-be scrubbed.

Scrubbed Rocks

Left is scrubbed. Right is covered in algae.

The process of scrubbing half a tank of rocks took about an hour. I only scrubbed bare rocks (no corals on them) or easy to manage rocks that only had a few corals on them. No corals were harmed in the making of this picture.

I siphoned out 15 gallons of water from the tank to use in the cleaning process. In one container I had 5 gallons of scrubbing water and in another container I had the receiving water. where the rocks sat until I was ready to put them back in the tank.

I will wait till next weekend before I tackle the other side. For some reason working with this algae gives me a terrible allergic reaction and I now feel like I am full swing in the middle of a nasty cold.

Lets hope this cleansing lasts.
As you can see, i need to do the walls too. Sigh.

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More on algae removal

March 7, 2010 — Marc

My quest to erradicate hair algae isn’t going well.
After testing out Hair and Sludge, which seemed to help a bit by slowing the growth, it did not get rid of it entirely as I had prayed it would. I guess my genie in the bottle didn’t appear.
I have decided to do something drastic. If you read anything wrong with this plan please post a comment.
A trip to the fish store to top up my cleaning crew to start my day.
1 a water change. I plan to remove aproxomately 15 gallons of water to be used later.
2 one rock at a time I will transfer to a bucket and manually scrub, with new brushes, off as much algae as I can. This may require a seperate tank where I will need to transplant corals that I remove before I scrub.
3 shake off any detritus. A really good shake. I don’t want any dead matter back in the tank.
4 place rock in a bucket of SW
5 repeat with half the tank.
6 replace rocks to tank
7 repeat steps with other half.

The reason i am going to split this is I see this as being a big job in a 75 gallon tank. Part is to give me a break and also to allow me to rebuild after removing half the rocks.

After I will replace any phosban and start my skimmer from fresh. I will also need to scrape off the glass and syphon out any crud left on the substrate. I am hoping that the drastic removal will remove any sources of phosphate that may be feeding it.

That’s all for now. I’ll reort back, possibly with some progress pics.

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Live Rock vs DIY Rock

September 17, 2009 — Marc

DIY Live Rock

With the push to save the reef many salt water aquarists have turned to supplement thier tank with DIY live rock.

agrocrete Pictures, Images and PhotosAside from it being a heck of a lot cheaper than actual live rock (some report to pay as little as .07 – .09 cents/pound!) it is reef friendly when done properly. What I mean by done properly is that if the instructions are not followed correctly you will find yourself with a dead tank. Fish, corals, rock and sand will all be useless due to the PH spiking sell above 9 and the leached chemicals from the improperly cured and cooked cement permeated into everything.

Don’t let it scare you, properly following the instructions can save you hundreds of dollars and you can mix it with existing live rock. It purples up just like the real thing and you can customize its shape to perfectly fit your tank. Want a peice of your back wall to have little natural looking shelves for corals? Make it! What about a cool tunnel for your gobies? You can do it!

I’ll link you to some recipes I have found on the web, but the basic process is:

  1. Mix cement with some other porous substance (many people like to use crushed oyster shell)
  2. Add water to a consistancy of thick oatmeal. This allows you to shape it but not runny enough to lose its shape.
  3. Shape it in a bed of sand, salt, or aragonite in a water tight container.
  4. Allow it to cure for a prescribed time. The time depends on the method, porousness and ingredients used.
  5. Once cured (hardened) it needs to be cooked. ***!!!*** This is not a process to skip or to do too quickly. If not done properly and then the rock is placed in your tank it will be doomed.
  6. Enjoy your rock in your tank. If you are using all live rock, you will want to seed it with a piece of rock or some small piles of substrate that is already seeded. A filter sock would work as well.

Post assembled about DIY Live Rock

From Reef Central, a recipe and tips by Insane Reefer (08-14-2008)

Dave’s Reef offers his tips and recipe plus includes his test results during the process.

Speckled Trout on Reef Central shows what can be made with DIY rock. (Scroll down)

Want to see what you can do with a little creativity?

If you manage to get to doing any DIY Live Rock, feel free to report back or show us on our Facebook page what you have done!

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