Before and after pictures cleaning coraline

[chris88]

The difference is amazing when you clean off all of the coraline algae. Pictures were taking with camera phone and not edited.

Befores:





Afters:

[shaunt]

wow what a difference...much better. what did you use and how long did it take you? did you have to remove some rock?

[Jadams]

Looks great now...Much better!

[chris88]

I didn't have to move the rocks but I had to move some of the corals because I was bumping them pretty bad. I put it off so long because I thought it would be too hard to get it all off. But it was surprisingly easy. It took about 30-40mins of hard scrapping but it came of easy and didn’t scratch the glass once. My only worry was what effect the coralline scrapings might have when they fell on the corals because there was tons of it. It didn't seem to affect them at all. Here is what I used.

http://www.jlaquatics.com/info/224/K...+%26+Pads.html

The metal blade worked better then the plastic.

[epleeds]

looks really good. now all you need to do is soak your return lines and power heads in vinegar for about a few hours, then clean them off. it will look like a brand new tank..

[cubsFAN]

i also use that yellow metal blade. you don't even need to buy the attachment. works great. Your tank looks great. I like the clean look.

[silverfly]

Wow!

[silverfly]

You missed a bit!

[chris88]

thanks for the comments. It is hard to get all of it because the scrapper is to bulky to get by the overflow and tank corners. I will have take your advice and clean off the return pipes and power heads.

[forrealb50]

I had been thinking about doing this to my tank and now I'm sold. It will look much better.

[melev]

It looks way better! That's what I try to keep up with as well.

[jbird69]

you have a beautiful tank!!

[sam11909]

I really like the clean look, but it would look even better with a black background!

Your coral looks awesome BTW.

[chris88]

I think the black backround would have helped hide the powerheads and return pump as well. Thanks for all of the great comments. I am pretty happy with the tank overall, but it will look much better when the sps grow in. If you want to here a big secret i have never used anything but tap water in my reef and i have zero algae growth other then the coraline.

[noahm]

You have inspired me.

[chris88]

Does anyone know what will happen to the coraline that i scraped off? Will it just melt away and release the calcium and mag back into the water column. It seems as if the scrapings are disapearing and there was a ton of it all over the rocks and sand bed.

[melev]

It will seed the tank and grow elsewhere, like on the rockwork.

[jbird69]

What is it with you canadians and your beautiful tanks?

[chris88]

It's in our water lol. Like i said earlier i only use tap water.

[melev]

Why don't you change that background to a darker one? It looks like it is simply applied to the back of the tank.

[Anthonius]

with scraping the calcareous algae off the glass this does not kill the algae therefore the calcium and mag are not returned into the water column but you relocate it. it will most likely end up on your rockwork or right back on the glass(giving it time of course). or you could bottle it up and sell it to some poor sap with eco rox or marco rocks. the drab looking rock could use some seeded color

[Archreefer]

Seeing those pics, just gave me something to do today that I have been putting off for a long time!! Thanks

[dlmkmm]

Great looking tank, I like how you have some separation like your zoo garden on one side. Can you give us some specs on the tank (lighting, sump, ect.)?

[chris88]

I kind of Iike the blue background but if would redo the background black just for a change if I could but I spray painted it blue and I can't move the tank to scrape it off and redo it.

Tank specs:
It’s a 50g (36-18-18)with a 20g sump
Nova extreme pro with aqua science bulbs (2 20,000k, 2 17,500k, 2 15,000k)
Skimmer is a bubble magus bm100 which is bigger then I need
There is a lot of turnover in the tank using the return and 2 hydo k power heads
I manually does cal/mag/alk with 2 part dosing and I feed heavily with a mix of dry and frozen food
Water changes are done every 2/3 weeks removing about 20% and I only use tap water
I sometimes dose vinegar with kalk to drive bacterial growth and reduce nutrients when I notice algae beginning to show on my glass which is rare. The only problem is sometimes I loss color in some of my corals when I do it so I only use it sparingly.

The setup is about 1.5 years old but the sps colonies are only a few months old and have some room to grow in still. I will take some more pictures in the future when they grow in. Overall it is a pretty low tech tank. I tried to cut cost on equipment to save for corals and livestock. Most of the rock was non live base rock which I mixed with live rock and I found it has help keep my tank mostly bad hitchhiker free. Comments and criticism are welcome.

[Ritten]

Nice tank! It has so much more depth now.