The changing of Substrate.

[Future]

Ninong, this is all for you and to show everyone that water changes aren't always the answer, but listening to people who actually give a "poopie" pays off.

Thanks Bud!


The beginning, just after I started at 5pm. Had no clue wtf I was doing, but dove in..




Removed 45lbs of crushed coral (CC) and almost every drop of water...




1 Stomatella refused to cooperate and wanted to weather out the storm...




Coral frags went into a side bucket for a little bit...




Refilled the tank after adding the 35lbs of sand (came out to 2.5" substrate bed, I have 30lbs left to fill in the gaps where needed)...




Added the LR after I refilled the tank, so I screwed up a bit, but hey it was my first time. Waited till 1am to add the fish. I didn't have a proper filter working on the new QT, so I watched for a LOOONG time after adding the fish back...




Finally at 2am it started to show signs of clearning up. I added the coral back and slowly killed the lights manually over the following half hour..




Took a look this morning at 7am and it was a bit cloudy still, but the fish were doing great, corals were readjusting.
Got home from work at 6pm and took a look, Fish are doing awesome and Corals were doing great, except for the acropora. That's another issue though (Yes that is natural sunlight and a modified intake on the AC50 powerhead.) How's that rockwork for not being able to see?? ...




And finally I figured out why my macro's sucked!
A. bowfront distorts my images, and B. They were too far away for the proper Macro, so here are some lil guys for ya (And no, I don't know what kind these are called)...

[Nemo Keeper]

I think the last pic is some kind of button polyp but not 100% sure on that. I have some purple ones that look like that. Maybe Seige or Lee or one of the other guys with some more experience can positively ID them

[charlie]

Looks like a pretty successful transition!!! I would keep an eye on things for a while, but my first thoughts are you did everything pretty much according to the book.

Distortion with bowfronts is one reason I have shied away from them in the past, they are beautiful tanks, but it is really hard to get a good pic, isn't it???

[Future]

Been checking, slight spike today w/ the bloom but not as bad as I thought it would be.

Got a new toy in the mail today too...

1/3hp