melev

As I mentioned previously, I didn't want to treat my tank for cyano because it makes my skimmer overflow like crazy thereafter. I treated the tank on Saturday the 14th, and while the reef was simmering quietly I pulled out the protein skimmer and gave it a good cleaning.

Before I get into that, I have to share this picture. After treating the tank, all the algae that was on this dead coral was gone, and the skeleton was bone white. The cleaned up coral made it much easier to see the living branches that needed to be fragged off, which will regrow into a big colony once more. I liked that "perk" of treating the tank for cyano -- this was a very cool bonus. For some reason, a few people that saw it assumed the product killed my coral. No, that's not true at all. RedCyano Rx has never killed a thing in my tank other than cyano blooms that annoy me. That's why I sell it, because I trust it: http://melevsreef.com/catalog/blue-life-usa-redcyano-rx

Since the treatment period lasts 72 hours, I had plenty of time to let the skimmer soak in vinegar water. What I like to do is set up the skimmer in a trough of vinegar and water solution and let it run non-stop. The vinegar runs through the pumps and the plumbing and all over the body of the skimmer, inside and out. Using the red-handled gate valve, I set the water level to overflow the neck and down the sides back into the vat.

There's no reason to have the collection cup installed during this procedure. That was cleaned in the sink and then set aside for the time being. The Euroreef skimmer has been with me since 2004, and from time to time it crosses my mind how fortunate I've been that it hasn't been broken through all the years of service, cleanings, and tank resets.

Here's everything post-cleanup.

While the skimmer was out of the sump, I seized the opportunity to clean out that compartment of detritus, small shells, and calcified tube worms. Using a credit card, I scraped the walls clean, as well as the bottom of the skimmer zone. The waste was siphoned out. Once done, I refilled that section of the sump from my saltwater reservoir with about 40g of saltwater. Not exactly a big water change on this system, but that's simply how this worked out.

With the skimmer turned on, foam rose up the neck, and the foamy liquid drained into a nearby bucket.

Once the Euroreef was returned to its spot in the sump, I turned it on and dialed the gate valve wide open to reduce the expected volcano effect. In short, it wasn't a big deal at all and I was able to control the output nicely. For about 2 hours, the skimmer exported about 2g of waste, and settled in nicely ever since. Fresh activated carbon was put online as well to help absorb and polish the water. Tomorrow, the water should be looking sparkling clean once more.

For personal comfort, I used a Cobalt NeoTherm 100w heater to keep the solution 78°F while it was running through the skimmer. Why should I have to scrub it clean with freezing water?

About two gallons of skimmate was collected overnight. Once I knew the skimmer wasn't going to pull out unusual amounts of liquid, I switched the drain hose from this bucket to the waste collector, and then turned on the automatic top off system again. Had the ATO been left in the On-position and the skimmer dumped gallons and gallons, too much freshwater could have been added to the system. Hence, that is why it was off overnight until I knew everything was back to the norm.

Now that the tank has had 24 hours to extricate the cyano residuals, I did some water testing and dosed all the Prodibio additives.

7:00 p.m.
Salinity: 1.025sg
pH: 8.18
Temp: 78.8° F
ORP: 283
Alkalinity: 10 dKH
Calcium: 390 ppm
Magnesium: 1500 ppm
Nitrate: 5 ppm
Phosphate: 0.03 ppm

While performing each test standing in front of my reef using the walkboard as my workstation, Spock watched me intently. I'm pretty sure she was thinking what I was concluding: "Why bother testing? This place is awesome!" The results were conclusive, and the corals back those numbers. It's so nice, in fact, that I had to break out the Nikon for today's picture.