Jestersix

Dry Rock Reef - 11 months in

Teague75 said:
Does anyone in the club with an established reef want to sell me some of their live rock rubble?
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If you want sand or rock rubble I have some in Castro Valley. Everyone claims they have no pests, so I won’t make that claim, but as far as I know, I don’t have any of the baddies (aptasia, majanos, acro eating flatworms, red/black bugs, red planaria, no bad nudibranchs).

If you want, you could even just buy some MaxSpect nano-blocks and swap one from my tank if you want.
 
Reflecting on the this, this is kind of a weird discussion to me. We literally live within an hour from the ocean. I know there's risks of certain areas having pollution, and you probably don't want to be getting your tank water constantly from the Santa Cruz boardwalk, but if the goal is bacteria shouldn't people just go drive out to a beautiful secluded beach, grab a Ziploc full of water and sand?

I'm also aware sand collection may be illegal, but collecting macro isn't (there's limits), nor driftwood. So if you feel bad about a bag of sand (in contrast to the mountains of sand somehow my kids get in my van), presume you can find another alternative.

That's not artisanal reef bacteria, but it'd certainly be chock full of bacteria.
 
Order 10 lbs of KP live rock and be done with it, beyond it likely helping with the sps issue it will introduce micro and macro flora and fauna to your tank that will help your reef in so many ways.
 
richiev said:
Reflecting on the this, this is kind of a weird discussion to me. We literally live within an hour from the ocean. I know there's risks of certain areas having pollution, and you probably don't want to be getting your tank water constantly from the Santa Cruz boardwalk, but if the goal is bacteria shouldn't people just go drive out to a beautiful secluded beach, grab a Ziploc full of water and sand?

I'm also aware sand collection may be illegal, but collecting macro isn't (there's limits), nor driftwood. So if you feel bad about a bag of sand (in contrast to the mountains of sand somehow my kids get in my van), presume you can find another alternative.

That's not artisanal reef bacteria, but it'd certainly be chock full of bacteria.
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Doesn’t work. Life here is cold water. You need bio from tropical waters. There’s lots of other stuff that I don’t know about but I tried it before. It didn’t work but that was in my early days.
 
Randy,
Thank you for offering to swap out a set of Maxspect nano blocks. I am going to order (2) to trade with you. How long have they been in your tank?
I am excited to see how this improves my SPS keeping.
 
Teague75 said:
Randy,
Thank you for offering to swap out a set of Maxspect nano blocks. I am going to order (2) to trade with you. How long have they been in your tank?
I am excited to see how this improves my SPS keeping.
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Weeks to Months. I swapped out with others as well, but they’re rotated, so I know which ones are old ones. Just PM me when they come in and we can work out a time for you to swap them out.
 
I am thankful for all the help I have received from the BAR community. I do not post much, but I read a lot.

It has been a month since I swapped nano-blocks with RandyC. I am excited that I have seen improvement in my SPS. Check out the picture below. Check out the green fuzzy one in the middle of the picture. It has almost fully encrusted. The purple one to the left was very white, you can see it in last months picture.
All in all, I think patience is a big factor, I have none... I am excited to see my corals improving. Thanks everyone!!

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Glad to see you are having some improvement!

I have been in a similar situation, my tank is around 8 months old - dry rock. Since adding rocks from Kenny, TBS, and a couple other reefers things seem to be turning around for me too (though I have made other changes as well).

I listened to the Aauabiomics episode of Reefbum today and the owner said it only takes about a month for a new aquarium to reflect a biome of that of a mature reef tank when seeded with a live rock. They haven’t tested the impact of adding it to semi-established tanks like ours yet but seems likely it will have a positive impact, as live SAND from a mature reef added to a semi-established tank does have a similar effect on the biome.

Anyway, seems there definitely is something to seeding rocks/sand to build a biome, and starting with pure dry rock does greatly extend your SPS journey.

Best of luck! I’d be interested in more updates - fingers crossed for us both.
 
Derek,
I appreciate your feedback. Over the past several months I purchased several SPS corals and all died within 2-3 weeks. I was ready to give up on SPS. I believe you are correct about the needed "biome" when you start with dry rock. I absolutely see a difference after a month of having RandyC's bio blocks in my sump.

So far so good. I have several in my tank now and they seem to be doing good. Knock on wood....

THANK YOU RANDYC!!!
 
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