Ugly Tank Contest - Results!!

No problem John. Take your time, I am in no hurry. Thanks for putting on the awesome contest.

 

Wow. How does that happen?

 

species tanks tend to be maintained for curiosity purposes rather than aesthetic reasons, and a lot of these types of tanks get this way. Algae problems don't mean bad water quality. The water is crystal clear, and I think the tank can come around. We just need to change some things. This is what I would do, so this is your prize stepho:

1. Take the mag float and clean the back of the tank like you do the front. If you have trouble because of equipment, put your hand in the tank and use only that half of the mag float to clean. Net. as much of the stuff as you can. Same thing with the overflow box, toothbrush the return and the major areas you missed with the mag float. In a 10g, maybe 6 minutes.
2. add large clean up crew. the mantis is going to make major dents so I would add 100 dwarf ceriths, 30 blue legs, 4 chitons, and 12 medium nerites. The dwarf ceriths numbers help to keep the crew cleaning, the nerite hopefully stick to the glass and out of reach and the chitons aren't considered a meal. With a 100 dwarf ceriths you may establish a breeding population and that will help out with longevity.
3. switch out the rock for the new rock i will send you. and also what is that pvc looking thing? probably just go ahead and throw that out.
4. your tank will probably benefit from increased flow. I will send you a little mini pump from harbor freight that should do the trick in the middle left side of your tank. Dial it way down, and put some rocks in front of it. A $6 value, yours free.
5. Do you have a refugium? If so, I can send some chaeto and mangroves, that will help with the nutrients.
6. seems like the gorg died. maybe it is time for something to replace it. What kind of lighting do you have?I know you mentioned it somewhere, maybe I can find that page, but it was a long thread....
7. Stir the very top layer of the sand bed every time you do a water change and remove all that gunk. In this situation it would be nice to have nassarius around to eat leftover food, but if they share meals with the mantis they will run into trouble. Pods and bristles might work as an alternative. I can send pods if you don't have them already, probably not bristles.

will you be able to update the thread as things progress?

 

Also I am in the process of building a DIY algae turf scrubber for this tank. Should I complete and install it or would you prefer we test the power of the clean-up crew and rock?

 

you dont have to do all that. just send me a pic one day is all.

you and all the finalists should contact me through regular email to arrange the prizes and what not.

 

Hey john, great idea. Your so generous, keep up the great customer service, everyone really does appreciate it. Wish i would have seen this earlier!!

 

thanks! You could have been a contender with that.

 

I know, dang. And to tell you the truth, this was when i actually tried to keep the hair algae down. I would take all the rock out, scrub it, scour the tank and everything. Nothing worked. But that was before i used ro, a phosphate reactor, and all the equiptment i have now. Man that tank was bad! i could have used some help from you on that one ;D

 

OMG stepho, that tank looks absolutely HORRIBLE. I can't believe that there is anything alive in there besides that cyano. I had a 125 with about 150 lbs of live rock in it sitting in [STRIKE]a[/STRIKE] my mother-in-laws garage for 6 months with no filtration and it didn't look that bad. It did have a kickin' smell though. To say that m-i-l wasn't happy with me would be an understatement.

Anyway, congratulations on the win and I'm amazed at the quality of that prize. John always goes above and beyond. For anyone out there who doesn't have a CUC yet, check out John's site. It is well worth it ;D.

 

I know!! The water quality actually isn't that bad, the cyano is probably keeping the NO3 in check. The only thing I have in there is a damsel and a mantis, which both of those are pretty bullet proof anyway.