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NemesisElite
07/23/2009, 08:10 PM
recently i set up a 30g cube and threw brand new man made rock in it (i didnt cure it). all was well til i added salt and BOOM. its like it snowed inside my tank, its all calcified on my rock and alot of it settled at the bottom on top of my sugar sand. i removed the rock and am soaking it til it clears up.

my questions are
am i screwed? should i just start over?
should i just siphon most of it out? and live with the rest of it in there?
is there any other way to fix my mistake?

anything is welcome, thanks
drummereef
07/23/2009, 08:12 PM
Sounds like you had a precipitation event. What did you make the rock out of? If it's just the rock in there, I'd siphon out the precipitation and try to get the water chemistry back to normal. Probably no harm done.

What is that Precipitate in My Reef Aquarium?
http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-07/rhf/index.htm
NemesisElite
07/23/2009, 08:21 PM
i made it with portland cement/crushed seashells/aragonite sand

currently i have no flow in the tank what so ever. it was caked all in my return line/pump overflow box, its all over my sump. everywhere!!!

in the pic you can see the fine line between my sandbed and the "reef snow"

http://img43.imageshack.us/img43/1503/picture141l.th.jpg (http://img43.imageshack.us/i/picture141l.jpg/)
thegrun
07/23/2009, 08:32 PM
The Portland cement probably shot up your pH & alk which caused the calcium to precipitate out of the water. Get the rock out of your tank, do a major water change and test your water parameters, they are most likely way out of range.
VacavilleFC3S
07/23/2009, 09:01 PM
you need flow too
drummereef
07/23/2009, 09:07 PM
Yeah, it was the uncured rock that most likely had a crazy high pH. There's no animals in the tank correct?
NemesisElite
07/23/2009, 09:36 PM
yea theres nothing in there at the moment except for my sand. i read up on that link drummereef gave me and i went ahead and put some distilled vinegar in there and it seems to be breaking it up already, i also added a powerhead to get some flow.

ill give an update tomorrow to see how this goes down.


thanks again for the help
drummereef
07/23/2009, 09:39 PM
Good to know there's no animals. Once you can get the rock back in there just give it plenty of time to cure while the tank is cycling. You want the rock to be stable before adding anything to the tank - not to be completely obvious. :D Or, if you can cure the rock in a rubbermaid container all the better. Take your time and it will all work out no worries. ;)