This page is designed to educate, and carry you along the path of one fish tank that eventually was converted to a reef system. If you aren't familiar with marine reef tanks but are interested in saltwater tanks or marine life, then this is the place for you. You will be able to use most of these ideas to convert your freshwater/saltwater tank into a reef. If you are a reef fanatic, then you should find loads of good things to to to your reef system. If you are a reef expert then you will find some good alternative and or fun ideas to try on one of your systems. The goal here was to create a self sufficient ecosystem. I am not a true reefer, but a biological fiend, or nut. Where some are satisfied purchasing expensive hard corals, and doing frequent water changes to keep high dollar species alive,I aim to have a full marine reef ecosystem from bottom to top that will feed itself, and maintain itself (for the most part) and will grow all of these things from scratch. Sometimes a fragment ("frag") of hard coral or mushroom or an occasional new live rock will be added to seed but no expensive pieces coral pieces were purchased yet. It is too much fun to watch them grow. Another factor was a tight budget that had to be followed to keep the system active so expensive pieces were out of the question.

The 29 gallon AquaPod. This is the current setup for the 29gal. Its doing well. This tank is running 2 foam filters on the back right side in the false rear tank. Also included in the rear tank is some Nitra-Zorb and a bag of bio media which isnt really needed at this point. This tank has a 2.75 inch DSB of Aragonite and Sugar Fine Marine Sand and is chalk full of live rock. In this image above you can see a False Percula, a few mushroom, alot of sponge, an Astrea snail, some Coralline alage, the leg of a pretty big black brittle star in the lower center, and a lavendar pink Porites SPS coral just above that. Theres also a powerhead in the tank for extra circulation. On the top right is a floating fish breeder box thats being used for a mini-refuge with numerous breeding pods, and caulerpa in it. That may be the damselfish in the bottom right which is pink with black spot.

The 29 Gallon Aquapod

I chose to buy a smaller tank due to space constraints and because i needed a place to save some of my primary favorite rocks in the 60 gallon tank that was being given to a neighbor. I chose to buy a 29 gallon aquapod becuse it was the only tall 20 inch wide tank i could find that had enough space in it for the large rocks. I dumped in a couple 20-30 lb bags of aragonite and I picked the best rocks out of the 60 gallon, and started filling up the Aquapod with the rocks that have been submerged in the 60 gal for about 15 years. The Aquapod was alive.

First i added the clean up crew shortly after cycling the tank. I purchased 30 Astrea Snails, and about 29 Blue-Legged Hermit Crabs. I also purchased a Black Brittle Star after the sand bed started looking like it was healthy with bubbles and bacteria. The reef was reborn.

I started out a few fish. The first fish was a False Percula. I also bought a lawnmower blenny. Those were the only 2 fish i wanted while the tank fully established itself. Then i added a Firefish Goby, and a Neon Goby. The Lawnmower Blenny died from starvation after all the algae ran out, i was very sad to see this happen and didnt expect it. Then i replaced the blenny with a damsel that resembles a 3 spot damsel, but this damsel is pink on the back 3/4 of its body, and yellow on the front and pectoral fins.

I use a floating fish breeder box as a refugium. The idea originally came about when i had the breeder still brand new in the box just sitting around and saw that my hermit crabs kept spawning. As the little zoeans floated in the water i saw the the clown fish always gobbled them up. I placed the refuge in there so that the zoeans had a place to gather next time. I put a bit of sand in there for them to settle and have a food supply. It did work. The next several times the females eggs hatched and alot of the zoeans would find their way inbetween the tines on the breeder box. Then i added some caluerpa algae to the refuge box, and since then, many pods have been using it to breed. I dont know what became of the zoeans, but I have seen atleast one micro sized hermit crab on the bottom of the tank in the substrate. the claws on the baby hermit were a little more than 1/16th of an inch in length and i could seem grabbing food with them, just inder the surface of the DSB. they were pure white since they havent been exposed to the light i believe. That was the only baby hermit that has been spotted so far. I am still tyring to figure out how to rear the young hermit crab zoeans properly so that many will survive into adulthood. Temp is kept at 79F.

Oct. 2007 - The tank has been established for over a year now and no fish have died. The original clown, and 2 gobies are still alive and doing very well. I lost about 10 Astrea snails over time, and about 20 hermit crabs, mostly because of the Alkalinity swinging clear up to 19dkh and nitrates spiking when i was neglecting water changes for a brief period of not having fresh salt for water changes, complicated buy over doing it with sodium bicarbonate additions. The brittle star has doubled its size, and the DSB is full of tube worms. I purchased some mushroom on a rock about 6 months ago which are still doing good. about 3 of the mushrooms died during the bout of bad water, and one has split. There is 4 left which are stable. I bought a small 2 inch rock that had some multiple colored sponge, which as it grew i spread aroudn the entire tank. The sponge is doing really good, and rapidly multiplies. On another of the small 2 inch rocks that i purchased i found a stowaway porites coral along with some Vermetid Snails which are tube snails and some more sponge. This lavender-pink encrusting SPS coral is spreading faster than i would have expected under the 64 watts of power compact (PC) flourescent lights. I have since fragged it accidentally, and now have 2 pieces. Temp was recently lowered to 76F to save electricity and because i thought it would be best.

Nov. 2007 - There is about 50-100 asturina stars in the tank. I always encourage all species to grow in the tank. These little stars eat sponge and coral. They are so small that they dont cause any problems. One has gotten quite big and i will move it to the 60 gallon soon. There is also about 5 visible bristle worms, one is getting very huge. That huge one will be moved to the 60 gal, like the last one was. I have an aptasia outbreak, and this is one species i like to keep under control. They are just unsightly with their scraggly arms, and cause damage to beneficial corals. So this is one species i keep under control. I use lemon juice injections and peppermint shrimp to keep them under control, but i lost my peppermint and cleaner shrimp during the bad water bout. I will be replacing these shrimp soon. I had to change out the burnt out 10k/6700k dual PC bulb($26). Current Temp raised back to 82F after reading an article on Deep Sand Beds to help increase the amount of production from the bed.

Total estimate of money spent to start tank, including all life and product purchased for the first year; about $800
$279 Reef Tank with filter and lights included
$85 on the 5 fish
$45 on 40lbs of aragonite sand and some live sand(also already had about 40-60 lbs of sand to add from last tank in addition)
$60 on mushroom rock
$30 on 2 small 2 inch rocks
$90 on snails
$90 on crabs
$15 on brittle star
$10 Cleaner Shrimp
$15 Peppermint Shrimp
$45 for a 5 gal. bucket of Coralife salt (lasts almost a year)
$5 Ocean Nutrition Formula 1 flake food
$5 Ocean Nutrition Formula 2 flake food
$0 Kent Marine Phytoplankton (already had a half gallon supply in refridgerator $45)

This is the tank back in the mid 90's when it was in its FOWLR(Fish only with love rock)stage. This was about 1992 in its original dual-room, mid-wall location. An arch was cut in the wall between the living room,and family room.You will notice a white background on those rocks indicating they are not yet established (cured), and you can also see a few patches of cyanobacteria (maroon stuff)growing on the central pillar and ring rocks to the left. The cyanobacteria eats organic matter. On bare rocks there is no life on them that can assimilate the organic detritus that falls and collects on then, so cyanobacteria comes to the rescue and is one of the the first stages in the biological process. Without this basic process, the organic matter would start producing and releasing ammonia which would eventually intoxicate the water. The other rocks are already cured, you can tell by their darker color tones. The sediment (crushed coral) on the bottom of this tank used to be vacuum siphoned to be clean due to over feeding habits and lack of experience, so you will notice a dark layer of bacteria in the sediment that is receiving light energy and oxygen from being up against the tank glass which allows the bacteria to grow and subsequently feed on detritus in the substrate.

The 60 gal

Back in the80's , the original tank was a basic 60 gal standard shape, and it was placed in a cutting in wall between the living room and the living room. This proved to be a spectacular look, especially since the opening was an archway so you could see over the tank thru to the next room as well as thru the tank. Many visitors thought it was a mirror above the tank at a first glance.

Tank replacement. Back in the day when you would take a tank outside to do a biennial sediment and tank wall scrub down where you would bring the whole glass outside and get the garden hose, vinegar, and razor blades out, we were doing a tank cleaning. The tank got chipped that day and a replacement was in order .A 55 gal was purchased and slipped into position. Some tap water was added and then some de-chlorinator, the under gravel filter plates were thrown back in,some plastic plants, and the colored gravel was dumped back into the tank,the fish were tossed back in, and the under gravel filter was re-activated.

Filter Upgrade. Since those days, the tank has seen nothing but upgrades. The under gravel filter was the first thing to go being replaced with a standard penguin hanging filter to keep the walls clean, and the gravel would be vacuumed. A heater addition was next in an attempt to get the fish to live longer, and to harbor nicer tropical fish.

Saltwater. In the early 90's, the first real upgrade came when the tank was converted to saltwater. This is the easiest part. Dump some ocean salt into tank and change the fish.

The gravel was replaced with crushed coral. The standard fish tank light was replaced with a home-built redwood hood with a dual 40watt four foot fluorescent ("NO"normal output light)50%/50% bulb's which is a mix between the actinic (ultraviolet blue end) and the white-blue areas of the light spectrum. It was a total of 80 watts of light. This new light setup made the tank look 100% better. The saltwater fish were happy, nice addition. The tank was an official "Fish only" saltwater tank.

Wet-Dry Filter. The first real saltwater upgrade came to the saltwater tank next. A wet and dry filter was added and it replaced the old penguin hang-on filter. The sump overflow was placed where the penguin filter was, and the new filter sump was placed directly on the family room floor as there were no cabinet or stand, so maintenance was real easy. Water back flows were not fun however as the filter was sitting directly on the carpet. The fish were real happy. Eventually i filled the overflow box with bio balls and squeezed the ever shrinking overflow filter on top of the bio balls.

Eventually some mostly dead live-rock was added and harbored some basic algae's, a tube worm or two, maybe a few substrate worms and some rare sights of copepods were observed but the live rock added didn't bring any new sea life. It had been long since dead rock, or mainly rock with cyanobacteria on it, so there were no real treasures of marine life on them. If you get good live rock, it could contain any combination of copepods, amphipods, sponge, coralline algae, sea horses, starfish, snails, crabs, shrimp, Caulerpa algae, mushrooms, hard coral, etc. This rock had none of this. The tank was an official "Fish only with live rock" tank.

Reef Beginnings. Around the year 2000, the tank was relocated. Now I could spend full time on the tank once again. Reefing started to become a very pleasing, rewarding, beautiful, relaxing, and addicting hobby. This is the point where I started to go "Marine Reef" tank.

Substrate upgrade. I removed all the crushed coral and replaced it with sugar-fine white marine sand. This was a winner. Unfortunately i only put in 20lb and this only covered about 1 inch, it needed twice this at least. This was the beginning step for creating a suitable habitat for a reef system. I also got the idea to place a bit of live sand (about 1-1/2")in the internal siphon box where it could provide safe harbor for micro marine life and add more substrate surface area to the tank (a mini refugium that uses the main tank lights for lite). I added some live sand from the "LFS" (local fish store) to the main tank, and to the mini-refugium to seed the substrate with beneficial bacteria's, tube worms, and maybe even some copepods, and I was off to reefing! Instant life. The substrate is one of the tanks primary filter systems. It grows special bacteria's that thrive in an environment (under the sand) that is deprived or completely stripped of oxygen, and assimilate the tank detritus that falls to the floor before it over ammoniates and intoxicates the water.

Light Upgrade. I built a new light hood that had some good white reflective material inside. The same type of light was used but new fixtures were added and this time i used 2 dual fixtures. New bulbs were added. One bulb was a 10k(high spectrum) 2 were 50%/50%'s, and one was a pure actinic. a this was a total of 160w light now. This time I custom built the fixtures onto the hinged lid so that when the lid was hinged open the light would hinge out to the top of the tank allowing for cleaning room without having to remove the hood. the tank was BRIGHT, and looked just too superb - reflecting off that white marine sand.

Refugium Conversion. The next step was to convert the wet-dry mechanical filter to a natural biological refugium. I took the wet-dry filter sump and converted it to a refugium sump.To do this, I had to remove all the bio-balls from the system,(the overflow box, and the sump), removed all foam filters filters which includes the foam overflow box filter and the foam sump-pump filter which allowed the water to just flow through the sump which would allow beneficial plankton, and pods to pass through the filter system unabated and the ones that landed in the sump could reproduce without being eaten by fish, thereby making a refuge for them. A huge wad was of macro algae (live plants)was tossed into the sump in place of the bio balls. The caulerpa and other algae's served many purposes but the two main purposes were filtering the water by assimilating nitrates, phosphates and other harmful substances created by the food chain, and it providing a refuge for breeding marine life such as copepods to attach to. The types of macro algae's (caulerpa) that was added were razor, feather, and grape Caulerpa.

Refugium Upgrade A light was placed down on top of the sump so it could grow algae's keeping them out of the main tank. A 15lb or 20lb bag or aragonite substrate was added to the sump refugium which created approx. 6 " deep aragonite sand bed.

What happens down in the sump(refugium) now is it turns into a breeding grounds for beneficial life including algae's and animals, and it becomes the primary filter system for the tank. Once the copepods and other shrimp like creatures become plentiful enough then regularly come shooting up into the main tank through the water flow and provide the algae's, fish, coral, and other marine life with a natural food source. A balance was struck, it was an official ecosystem.

I haven't added any food to the tank in months, the tank is feeding itself.

Growth

see 12-2004 notes for latest. growth

Pre 3-2004; Growing in the tank on the rock is numerous soft tube worms. These tube worms are brownish purplish in color and grow in colonies. there is about 10-15 different colonies growing here. Two of them are so big, that they have joined up, taking up a total space of a few square inches on one rock. They number approx. 250. The length of the tentacles are approx. the width of a pencil eraser head. The tubes are approx. 1/2" long (2-3 times the thickness of a pencil lead) thick and straight growing. The tubes slightly sway in the current.

Another type of tube worm that is growing is of the hard type. It grows bright white hard crusty tubes and has tentacles that are either hot pink, or fluorescent orange creating a very striking color contrast. The number estimate is approx 500-1,000. The size is similar to previous tube worms except the base curls or spirals outward over the are that is is attached to on the rocks to a size just bigger than a pencil eraser head, and coralline will grow over this white tube and its base eventually transforming the fresh bright white calcified tubes into striking purplish and pink crust covering which is the coralline algae.

Miniature snails that appeared from nowhere and continually spawned during a certain phase of the evolving eco-system number in the hundreds to couple thousand. You will only see about 10-50 at any given time unless you have a very keen eye. Most observers don't even notice them at all and have t strain to see them. Well, i might mention that's the fun of having a reef tank. You study each grain of sand, and every crevice of every rock and you will discover new life. The newcomer doesn't realize this and just looks at the big stuff. The snails hide and are small, the biggest are almost, but not quite pencil eraser size and are almost 9mos old, smallest are size of the tip of a pencil lead and are the newborns.

Starfish, these guys grew out of nowhere and apparently spawned in the tank or procreated however they do and ended up being about 15-20 or more cruising around the tank. The biggest starfish has 6 legs, and is almost as big around as a dime, but not quite, and this one is actually the only one that doesn't look deformed. They are 3 legged, 4 legged, 5, 7, and maybe even 8, and some are totally cut in half looking, with only 3 legs coming out one side and almost perfectly split in half. They are not actually starfish, however they are are very similar .I am starting to get used to the starfish as regulars. The smallest is little smaller than pencil eraser head. The colors range from aqua, to deep red, to chartreuse to blue green, to purple, and are all splotched with some combination of those colors.

Aptasia, these guys were multiplying, this is not good. I had one big one that I killed with a lemon juice concentrate injection (with a medical syringe), and it came back in full force within 3 weeks to the same size, big! I noticed about 6-8 others starting off from embryos or something like that. I killed about 6-10 in the last few months. These guys sting other corals and become a nuisance, multiply like nobodies business, and need to be controlled like a weed. Although there is no such thing as a weed, weeds are only alien species to a given area, or invasive species, like the aptasia.

Cyanobacteria, this stuff only seems to be growing in patches on the bottom, which I'm sure is only the detritus that settles on the bottom that feeds this red carpet, so its only doing its job in converting detritus into inert matter i guess.

Coralline Algae, pink and purple calcium growth substance, looks scaly, grows on rocks, and totally covers in some areas, growing over whole rock leaving nice lavender crust, or nice chartreuse sheen over original rock pores, there is multiple types.

Green Hair Algae(GHA), Ouch! this stuff SUCKS, bite me! The dreaded GHA. I'm about to take a huge horse brush and rip off the light lid with force, and pull out ALL the rocks, stick them in buckets, and scrub them all down, not, easy now, temper, temper. I seem to have this GHA under control now, I actually did the ultimate unthinkable, Ii scrubbed all the GHA off the rocks in the tank. This could end up being a big no no. You see, it is thought that GHA spreads like wildfire this way. A foam filter was placed into the external siphon overflow waterfall box to catch all of this stuff as the whole tank constantly stirred up to avoid the majority to be captured instead of settling. Both power heads running full force in the tank kept it pretty much stirred up, and the sump pump circulated the water through through the foam filter that i added at the beginning of the filter system to catch the stuff. I actually did scrub all rocks, and filtered 90% of this stuff out this way, and I will let you know in a month if it was indeed the beginning of the end. Hair algae is grossly invasive and can become a huge problem when you overfeed your tank with fish food, coral food, iodine, plankton, phytoplankton, and or other nutrients.We could, but wouldn't want to add a bottle of death liquid (algae killer) into the tank to kill this stuff off, that would be cheating, EXTREMELY non biological, and a blow to the overall success of the biological management procedure and system health and purity. I am trying to reverse this procedure biologically with sound biological management. (update, the internal scrub down did not have that much of an adverse effect on the tank as most would assume, i am glad i did it. It seems to be much better to do an in tank scrub where you can see the wildlife, carefully skirt around precious marine life such as tube worms, coralline algae, starfish, etc., its a good idea to do it this way if your brave, if your overrun by GHA, and have patience and alot of light shining on the tank from all directions)

New stuff every day. There's a crystalline structure growing that looks like its made up of fishing line looking calcium crystals that grow like silicon in a lab, or like crystals in a jar (in all directions).

There are some soft ball shaped things,a little bigger than a complete pencil eraser,they have tentacles which makes them look like they may be urchin embryos to me even though i have no idea what a sea urchin embryo looks like. These tentacles seem to aid in propagating. The tentacles stretch across and plant a new base from which another ball with tentacles can grow. The Balls are sort of bright clear, or greyish-yellowish in color.

There are some Pink Sponge, Anemone looking things. (I was going to elaborate on this, but i forgot what these looked like. It may have been a new pink sponge growth.)

Some miniature hair like worms are growing from beneath the substrate and extend their tentacles above the sand to feed.

I see alot of hard crusty shelled tube worms that come in pairs, there is two tentacles to a tube. The tubes are whitish with standard surface algae color covering which makes them kind of greenish whitish brownish, the tentacles are clear in color and grow rapidly and are very long sometimes extending 3 inches out of a tube that looks to be 1 inch. The tubes must be embedded even deeper into rock crevices.

There are some copepod or amphipod looking creatures swimming around hanging out in rock crevices to hide from hunting fish.

I see millions of micron sized sea bugs crawling ALL OVER the glass surface. I have to warn you, if your looking for them, you may never see them. They only visible with a magnifying glass or to the extremely keen observer and are smaller than the smallest bread crumb, in fact they are about the width of one grain of sediment or a single spec of dust and are mostly clear.

An occasional mysis shrimp and numerous other creatures in the tank, indescribable, that roam the bottom and look like insects that can be see especially at night time after the lights go out if you use a flashlight. It is usually thought that these creatures that you can see flying around at night are copepods or amphipods, but the ones that crawl slowly, who knows what they are but they only come out well after dark, and hide before daylight, and live in the substrate and rock crevices where it is the darkest.

Additions

(See 12-2004 notes for latest additions)

Pre 3-2004; I had only 1 fish, it was a blenny. The Blenny recently died when i turned out the lights for a week to kill some hair algae. I also lost a couple crabs. I really didn't expect this and felt really bad for killing the fish i didn't even have to feed. This fish is very unique, its actually called a scooter blenny, and I've been told that it isn't actually even a true blenny. whatever he was, he was very cool to watch. he just glides from rock

to rock, hunting for life on the rocks in the form of miniature worms and small crawling stuff. He sort of looked like a mix between a Plecostumus and a dinosaur, and you would almost never catch him swimming, rather effortlessly gliding, or clung to rocks, moving from place to place so stealthily as to avoid bigger predators. This fish keeps the tank clean, the tank feeds him. I will add more fish only after the GHA problem is entirely gone. I am in no means in any hurry to buy fish,the reef system is the interest, the whole biological interaction itself. Fish only overpower this delicate balance until the balance is perfectly struck. This can take years to achieve, or in this case, maybe in another 6 months when i have a fully stocked refugium and the proper lights for corals and a huge. I will try to replace him soon however.

Caulerpa Algae, 2 kinds, Razor, and Feather. Caulerpa is considered by most, at first glance to be a plant. Its actually algae. The razor is kept under control by growing in the in-tank siphon box, and will eventually be propagated and placed into the sump for refugium filtration as well. It looks like kelp sort of, and is very small in size compared to kelp. The leaves look like little bic razor blades with serrated edges and grows on sort of a vine type shaft that works it way along the sea floor. This stuff propagates easily, and when harvested regularly from a refugium, it is an efficient way to remove phosphates from the tank, and other organic compounds that cause undesirable algae growth. It is actually grown on the surface of the water in most refugium setups i believe and in that case the roots don't even touch the sandy bottom, yet feed directly from a reduced, slow water flow. The other type is feather Caulerpa which looks like feathers growing off a vine and would be the size of maybe hummingbird tail feathers, small. This stuff is really beautiful looking. I have a piece growing right off a rock inside the tank and it looks great. It will be big enough soon to split up to propagate.

Turbo Snails, 1 left that i can find, bought 10 couple months ago, most died as snails are about the most sensitive animal that you can place in the tank and i wasn't careful enough when i did this, or they did their job and ate all the phosphates and got over-toxified, :-) size; about the size of a brazil nut, but slightly bigger around.

Hermit crabs, numbers about 7, one i had for about 9 mos now, others just got when i got the snails cause i need a voracious cleaning crew to keep up with this biological filtration thing. size; about half of a shelled peanut.

Mushrooms
These things looks like big mushrooms, hence the name. Mushrooms are considered to be a soft coral. I had a fluorescent green one that was very small, and not fully developed yet, i haven't seen this one lately, but it may show up in 6mos form now looking fully good. I have a Maroon colored one that at night time is about an inch around stuck on a snail shell, and in the day, under full light gets bigger round than a silver dollar with its edges fanning in the water feeding, and it has bluish spots that only become apparent when its opened up like this.

Polyps. I have some yellow polyps that I'm not sure if they are yellow zoanthids or some other type of polyps. These things are doing very good in the tank. They are feeding off the nutrients in the water, and are growing well, there is a colony of about 20-30 of them on a rock, the same rock that has the feather algae.

On this same rock, you will find the most prized polyp colony of all, the stony polyps. Stony polyps are what we call Hard Coral! I have one piece of hard coral, these stony polyps are soft and create stony structures that are THE building blocks of hard coral. I'm not sure of the type of stony polyp i have, there are many types. They each are very small in size about the size of a pencil tip when closed up into the rock, and less that an eraser head when fanned out, and pink in color. I don't have the proper lighting to keep these doomed guys happy, they came with the Yellow polyps which tower over them in size. i an surprised they are still alive, and I'm starting to think that all i need to do to the system now when I'm ready to add corals is just switch out the lighting, the water seems to be close to there, if i can just get rid of this DANG HAIR ALGAE, that's a must first.

Chemicals in the arsenal

Notes

12-2004 Tank is relocated to Vista, CA. there is a few fish in their now, a lawnmower blenny, mandarin goby, ocelarris clown(spelling), tomato clown, conch snail, 10-20 red-legged hermits, cleaner shrimp, all the evolved starfish and micro snails that the tank has self created, and a tank full of killer algae. Will be looking into the Aqua C Remora skimmer real soon! In the past, the algae problem went away, but after 6 months of not feeding tank, i decided to drop some coral vite and coral accell, big mistake without a skimmer, algae i back. I believe with a good protein skimmer all problems will be solved, but at $300.00 a pop, i will be looking on eBay for this item. .3-2-04 Well, last month I would have told you that the tank was in dire straits with hair algae as i plain gave up on it, made no sense trying to control the wild growth. This month, however, after letting it establish, its not so bad. I'm letting the tank take care of it for me. Its starting to peel off on its own, but owns half of the tank, or at least 1/3rd at the present. It has covered some of the recently spawned mushrooms, oh well, either they will live, or they wont. In the meantime there is a huge worm boom which is spawning on the HA, not too bad, there's alot of good with the bad, alot of base life reestablishing to naturally control the HA. Stay tuned to see this probably unique experiment, i always trust in nature. Also, haven't tested water or added any nutrients in last two months either, will have to raise alkalinity soon, but aragonite should be taking care of Calcium and maybe even the Alkalinity. The strategy i am using is to leave the lights on about 13hrs a day to promote coralline growth which there is seeming minimal of cause there so much HA, but there's vast areas of rock where the HA just wont grow leaving space for the coralline and hard tube worms etc. I have never seen so many worms and amphipods before. New snails are being spawned finally too its been about a 9mos-year.1-19-2004 total scrub down, actually took the light off this time, total access. I scrubbed every rock in tank without moving most, and hit every crevice. Siphoned all hair algae and cyanobacteria layer off of sand bed, water and salt wasn't lost because i was siphoning into sump where i had foam filter in place temporarily for maintenance

also added foam filter to top overflow as well to keep junk out of refugium. cleaned all glass inside and out, needed this for a year on the back. tank looks great. fed coral-vite, coral-accell, and phytoplankton, and iodine as there is minimal hair algae in the tank to benefit from it and trying to be sure I'm not systematically starving out the life in the tank from the ongoing 6 month hair algae battle. Going to switch strategies now. Lights on for 12 hours a day again from 6hrs. The faster the coralline and other good growth takes hold on these rocks, the less room there is for the HA to grow. I'm noticing hair algae is less frequenting more mature/maturing areas of the reef. Cleaned refugium as well. Also i reset flow of power head in tank by setting it in a firm location on a rock where it wont suck up sand and placed piece of bio-batting between wall and head to dampen sound vibrations, adjusted tip to rush towards filter inlet box. Also poked another plastic piece out of sump pump, its really jamming now, tank is moving really good now, and the flow is looking more like it should be now.1-04-2004 looks clear, GHA ugly only sparse coverings, but on most all rocks still, turned off "old"(like 15yrs and looking decent still)back bulbs to see if that's the cause of GHA UGLY. running only front 2x40watts right now. cyanobacteria ugly is looking better now too, not as much after cleanup, not growing back as fast during day lite today. Added essential elements, coral accell, coral vite, and phytoplankton today, its been about 3 months, I decided the coral need to eat too. I also added phosphate sponge for 2 days to help control GHA, bad timing because of the feedings. oh well. 1-03-2004 water settled, scrubbed rocks down in tank again because of excessive GHA UGLY! placed foam filter in overflow box to catch,, siphoned GHA ugly off bottom after settled thru foam filter too, no water loss. no water changes in about 3 mos, will start heavily soon as money affords. Lost the dang thermometer during the process, i think the deep sea monster ate it. I Poked out a piece of the plastic prescreen from both power heads to reduce cleaning maintenance, now it just shots junk right thru, or critters, unharmed, instead of suffocating them, it used to be a snail killer, now they may turn back when they feel the shaving effect on their shell or just get shot thru back to safe haven.1-02-2004 just pulled the daylight-cover off from another 6days lite out, no loss of life this time it seems.12-25-03 parameters looking closest to perfect yet. Calcium tested at about 450 finally. no nitrate, dkh at about 12! GHA UGLY.12-19-2003 lost blenny and couple of crabs during lite out, they died.2-12-03 started refugium in attempt to curb GHA, lite's out 1week also per recommendation of LFS to try to control GHA.12-10-03 Major GHA Scrub down again, was not nearly as long as last time. Used a small pencil sized brush.