Update: 26 Gallon Tank Extreme Clean!!!

So after careful consideration and planning I decided to do away with the 2" sand bed in the 26 gallon display. Looking at it after I cleaned it all out I realized that that was probably the best decision I've made in awhile. I grabbed a tote and put some of my tank water in it and removed all the corals, fish, and rocks and placed them in the tote and filled it up as much as possible. I filled up two more 2.5 gallon jugs with tank water too.

At this time I had about 2 gallons of water left in the tank and  all the sand which I mixed up and ended up turning the rest of the water that was in the tank into like a chocolate milk color... This was from all the crap that had settled in the sand bed over the past couple years. This is where my nitrate and phosphate issues were coming from. I decided that I would rinse out the sand that I removed from the tank as well just out of curiosity. Man was I surprised. After 6 or 7 full buckets of water and a few times of just continuously running water into the sand the water was still a dark brown.

I added the leftover sand from my girlfriends tank to the little bit of sand that was still in the tank to end up with a little under 3/4" of sand on the bottom. As I mixed 10 gallons of fresh saltwater up I decided to get the rock back in and play with it until I got the look I've been going for for the past 3 years and I finally got it. I dumped in the newly mixed saltwater, the two 2.5 gallon jugs of previous tank water and then as much of the tank water from the tote as was needed to fill the tank up past the power head so I could turn on the filter to clean up the water a bit before adding anything.

After an hour or so I started putting coral into the tank and then the fish and finally topping off the tank. Total time for this project: about 5 hours. I took my time with it making sure that I had everything, cleaned everything, and placed everything right the first time so there was no messing with it after the fact. Now since the sand is so shallow, when I blow the rocks out I can also do it with the sand as well and not have to worry about releasing 2" of crap and who knows what else into the tank. To help with keeping the sand bed clean I've added my girlfriends Orange Spotted Goby who kept jumping from her tank because he was to big for it. Now he has plenty of room in my tank to do what he pleases.

As far as the Red Bugs go, I haven't had a chance to make up the dip and try it out, but I will be doing that tonight and posting about it. I will also be posting up the recipe for it on here as well. Now it's picture time!


The tank before the tear down and cleaning

After the water, rock and sand have been removed and cleaned and the rock and sand were replaced. The front glass still needs to be cleaned off.

This is shortly after everything was put back in. It was still a bit cloudy, but everything was good.

 

 A FTS as of yesterday morning about an hour after the lights came on. The water is nice and clear, the fish are all active, and the corals are all open and happy (except for the Blue Stag that has the Red Bugs...).