Rjohn Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 I know yall got tired of me whining about how ugly my tank was. I appreciate that no one told me to get off the board. Here was my tank for John Baloney's Ugly tank contest: Marc Callahan finally got so tired of hearing me that he offered to come take a look and see if my setup could be tweaked to get it back in a more reasonable condition. He suggested a phosphate reactor using first phosphate sponge and then GFO, and a new skimmer. I added those and my problem algae started dying. I did the "3 days of darkness" with a twist. I shrouded the tank with beach towels to further reduce the light. That worked wonders. My tank looks like new again. Marc, I really appreciate the time you took to help me get back to where I can be proud of my tank again. Thank you. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gonzobob Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 Wow! Fantastic Ric. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wayneb Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 Ric, it's looking good. wayneb Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zarathustra2 Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 Wow, like night and day Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+dapettit Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 AWESOME! Meeting at Ric's place, meeting at Ric's place Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rjohn Posted February 12, 2010 Author Share Posted February 12, 2010 I will schedule a meeting at my place. Let me clear it with the boss (spouse) but I am thinking May? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wwarriner Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 What skimmer did you end up getting instead? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rjohn Posted February 12, 2010 Author Share Posted February 12, 2010 Vertex IN-100. I am really happy with it and it is pulling out some nasty gunk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carrie Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 Isn't it nice when the algae dies off! Great job! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dav_nolen Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 Huge difference! looks great. I live in Hutto also, so if you want to drop by sometime your more than welcome. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pbnj Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 Which brand of phosphate sponge did you use? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Posted February 12, 2010 Share Posted February 12, 2010 Very nice! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rjohn Posted February 13, 2010 Author Share Posted February 13, 2010 Kent PhosGuard I think. It looked like little styrofoam balls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rjohn Posted February 13, 2010 Author Share Posted February 13, 2010 Huge difference! looks great. I live in Hutto also, so if you want to drop by sometime your more than welcome. I'd like to see your tank. I live on the north side of 79 not far from Huttoplex. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reybeast Posted February 13, 2010 Share Posted February 13, 2010 ok, I'm ashamed to admit this, but who is Marc? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rjohn Posted February 13, 2010 Author Share Posted February 13, 2010 Sorry, I should have been more specific. Marc Callahan (screen name mcallahan) is one of the leaders of our little group. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Posted February 13, 2010 Share Posted February 13, 2010 Sorry, I should have been more specific. Marc Callahan (screen name mcallahan) is one of the leaders of our little group. I always thought he spelled his name with a K. Oops. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Starsprinkle Rainbowsmile Posted February 13, 2010 Share Posted February 13, 2010 Wow big difference... Congrats the tank looks night and day difference. I bet you are really enjoying it and feel like putting energy into it again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rjohn Posted February 13, 2010 Author Share Posted February 13, 2010 I have a new sump to put in and that should do it for a while. I am still gathering pieces and parts for that exercise. Then hopefully, it will stabilize and I can just enjoy it, as long as I keep to the maintenance schedule. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dav_nolen Posted February 13, 2010 Share Posted February 13, 2010 i should be home anytime tomorrow, it doesnt look like were too far from eachother. Im just a couple of blocks behind the Wag-A-Bag Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Posted February 13, 2010 Share Posted February 13, 2010 I will schedule a meeting at my place. Let me clear it with the boss (spouse) but I am thinking May? WOW Ric!!!!!!!!!!! Totally awesome since seeing it in December... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
offroadodge Posted February 13, 2010 Share Posted February 13, 2010 ya that does look alot better, in the future you could also try Marine SAT, its not a chemical and doesnt hurt anything in the tank. Its a micro-bacteria that eats what the algae is using as its food source, therefore eliminating the HA and bubble algae. It worked for me in my old tank. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
innate1 Posted February 13, 2010 Share Posted February 13, 2010 Looks good. Good on ya Mark! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wwarriner Posted February 13, 2010 Share Posted February 13, 2010 I'm really curious as to what all you did. My tank looked just like that while I was sick and in the hospital. I had surgery and was in the hospital for 2 weeks only to come home to a tank that was COVERED in hair algae and missing fish. I just traded all my fish and corals in and I'm gonna start over. I'm drying my rock out right now because I thought it was hopeless to try to even attempt to fix it...not to mention I'm not supposed to lift more than 10lbs right now so there goes water changes. I saw you used a phosphate sponge and then GFO. Which one worked best and which one do you still use? Which skimmer did you switch from? And what else did you change to get it to start looking that way, manually picking stuff, scraping the walls, etc? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rjohn Posted February 13, 2010 Author Share Posted February 13, 2010 When my tank got so bad, I had stopped using a skimmer at all. I was using an algal scrubber. It was kind of a fad on here for a while. I did not have much success with mine. My algae and cyano were way out of control. I was so discouraged I was at the point of deciding to start completely over. Mark said he would be happy to come take a look and see if it was salvageable. I had scraped some of the hair algae off the back wall and some of the snails I had purchased seemed to start cleaning up what was left. However, the cyano outbreak continued unabated. I had added an Auto Top Off system from Autohub.com several months ago which is the secret to a successful skimmer. Mark and Dave Petitt both encouraged me to buy the Vertex IN-100 skimmer which started getting out the dissolved wastes almost immediately. Mark sold me a phosphate reactor he didn't need anymore and threw in a little Kent phosphate sponge which I started using immediately. I changed to GFO (granulated ferric oxide) media in the reactor on Mark's advice. At this point, algae started dying off fairly rapidly. I decided to do a '3 days of darkness'. I added a twist of my own in using beach towels to shroud the tank. I figured if a little dark was helpful then really really dark would be better. It worked. When I unveiled the tank 3 days later, it was almost pristine. I do have a few little patches of cyano that I hope to get rid of with another 3 days of darkness. Does that help any? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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