Advice needed

[drsyme]

Hello old friends, I have not been here for a while.


I need to start over with my tank. I had a problem with a power outage while out of town, and everything died except for snails.

I have been fighting a severe cyano and aiptasia infestetion for months before this.

So I want to take this opportunity to clean it all up, what is the best way to do it? I want to take all of the rock out to clean it up. I am even willing to make it all base rock, and seed it again later. I am in no hurry.

How do I kill the aiptasia? Can I just take all of the rock out and dry it out? I was thinking about cooking the rock, but will this kill the aiptasia?

So I have time, and nothing in the tank to save. What would you suggest?

Oh, I am also thinking of just going to a FOWLR afterwards, I need to make everything as easy as possible. And, I have a DSB, should I remove it? I need the easiests lowest maintenance solution.

[Fly Guy]

cooking the rock will not kill the aiptasia.......but if you nail them with a heavy shot of kalk paste while cooking it will.

Cooking your rock would probably be a good idea moving forward...especially if you are not in a hurry.

I would replace the sandbed as well.

Sorry to thear of your troubles.

Glad to hear your back though.

[know-it-all]

I would think that "cooking" the rocks should get rid of aptasia
I'm no expert on the subject, but in theory it should kill them, no light for a couple months
otherwise kalk the bejesus out of your aprasia before cooking

I would also remove the DSB and start over with new sand
if you prefer to run with a DSB, now's the time to start completly fresh

[drsyme]

There are literally TNTC (too numerous to count) aiptasia, unless I can use kalkwasser, or something like that, in the tubs, I dont really think I can inject them all. I need a global method to kill them.

Can I just dry out the rock, and reseed it during the cooking process?

[Fly Guy]

Sim0ply cooking the rock wont get rid of them......at least it wont after 12 weeks...nor will it kill GSP after 12 weeks.

I didnt have a aiptasia problem...but i did have a GSP problem. What i would do is every week during the cooking process wehn i would swish, is i would just look for patches of the stuff and put kalk paste on them.......and let them sit out for 5-10 minutes while i swished the rest of the rock. then i would swish the rocks that i kalk pasted so it never messed with the water in the cooking tubs to speak of.

It killed 90% of it the first week..but i would continue to find tiny patches that i missed.....by about the 4th week it was gone though. You dont need to inject them...just smother them. I used a butter knife and thick paste

[know-it-all]

throw some peppermint shrimp in before you cook the rocks

[drsyme]

How long will it take the shrimp to work?

I said I had time, but are we talking about months before cooking the rock?

If I just took the rock out of the water and dried it out, what would be the result? Would the aiptasia die? Would it be barren rock that would never be able to be colonized by nitrifying bacteria again?

[Doug1]

If you dry it out it will become base rock, and theoretically it will support beneficial bacteria again, but everything that dies on the rock would leave some traces behind that would start to decompose when put back into salt water, lading to buildup of nitrates and ll the other bad stuff we try to avoid. I am not sure but I would think cooking the rock in the dark for a long time should kill off the aptaisia, assuming they or photosynthic, and not able to absorb nutrients directly from the water column

[Spanky]

Originally Posted by drsyme

I had a problem with a power outage while out of town, and everything died except for snails.

If your tank went that far south, I don't think you have much in the way of "live rock" right now anyway.

I would swish, dunk, and drain it real good in the tank water first. Get as much crud out of it as you can by shaking it real good under water and draining it until you don't see much stuff coming out.

Set it out and let it dry good enough on the outside to be sure the aips are all dead. They are tough.

Then cook it. If you see a few coming back, paste um. I don't bother with paste, I use a small Benz-o-matic torch and fry um.

In the mean time, be cleaning the tank and setting it up so it's ready when your rocks are.

[marineduud]

Ok look take the rocks out of the tank coat them with dry pickling lime which is cheap, let them sit for about 30mins. dry and then put them in a tub of salt water with a power head over night and they will be gone and the rocks will be fine. End of problem. And dont' kill your sand bed you need that when you put the tank back together, then do what you wish with the tank as far as fish only or reef tank. It works trust me.

[Saltyunderground]

The best way to deal with aiptasia in your case is the following. One is if you want to keep the rock alive the other is if you do not care.

Keeping the rock alive and cleaning the tank too: Buy a racoon butterfly if your water quality is okay. They acclimate the best of the butterflys and they are almost guaranteed to eat aips and majanos. It will also eat soft corals and LPS if there are any left in there. You will need to sell the fish eventually but its a good $40-$60 fix.

Starting over: Literally boil the rock in pots on the stove for several minutes to kill everything on the rock. Ask a freind if you can put your "new" rock in their sump for a while to get it back to life again. In the meantime, you will need to completely clean out your tank too to make sure you have all of the aips out of your system.

Drying the rock or "cooking" does not always solve the problem. Chemicals can sometimes make the aiptasia problem even worse. Plus chemicals will not clean up any aips you miss so the problem can start over.

Good luck