mmm everybody Steve Rotter tube reef I'm just finishing doing a water change thought I'd stream it live whoever joins us talk amongst yourselves for those of you who are watching later check out the comments on the right hand side of the video during the live stream don't forget to check us out at Rotter tube reef com also the Facebook group a lot of cool people know jackass is allowed or they're banned instantly what else check out Steve Rother com I'm also a writer I like to write about tech and music and gear a lot of cool things too so check that out Steve Rother comm also don't forget to check out all the links in the video description for all the equipment I use in saltwater aquarium care all right so hope you guys doing well I just did water change I'm gonna be scraping off the back of the glass you know what that is core lean algae so once I scrape that off into the water column it's gonna flow through the water column and those spores are going to propagate and attach themselves to rocks turning these rocks to deep purple again my tank used to be such deep purple because of that coralina and algae I love coralline algae love the purple Rock alright so let's get started first I'm gonna replace the foam in my rod or two but I'll show you guys how to do that something I designed you can get this at Steve rod I'm sorry at Rotter tube reef com basically it's a three inch clear PVC tube the water flows down through the overflow catches all the stuff much like a canister filter and you know I don't use some sex anymore I just use these I gotta buy some new foam she's just gonna put this in there I'm gonna cut it to size this is part of the weekly water maintenance this is all I have left I got to order more there's also links to this in the video description I need one twice as long that's what she said sorry he has to be done has to be said so there's gonna be a little too long so I'm gonna cut this other guy and this lasts quite a while I don't wash anything you could wash these I just throw them away as you'll see so I'm gonna get the garbage can and ready watch how fast this is gonna do this first let me get the glove on cuz I don't put my hands in the tank anymore after I had that bacterial staph infection I'm never putting my hands in the tank again because I had cuts on my hands and bacteria got in there and I had problems so all right so you see how that attaches right to the overflow take this off I've got different ends I just put this one on temporarily whoops it fell off in see all the nastiness it catches you're done I'm gonna put the new one in there if you're interested in one of these three inch PVC waste catchers the Rotter tube you can get them at Rotter tube reef com put it in you're done put it back in now water will flow back through the overflow let's turn the pumps on you'll see how it works and turn everything off when I'm doing a water change tanks filling back up waters coming through this overflow detritus and all that salads are getting caught by the router tube and then in four or five days I'll just take the other foam I'll throw it away replace it see no cleaning no mess no fuss no mice that's it and you throw the nasties in the garbage can from the yuck and you're done hate some socks not to mention some socks they sit in the water column in your sump what's the point of it catching all that garbage fish waste and uneaten food if the sum sucks gonna sit in your water column what good is that plus a little bit of water that's coming out of the Rotter tube it helps to oxygenate the water because it's touching air for a moment does a clog no it doesn't clog gets a three inch PVC you can see how much is coming out and how much space is left okay now that we got that done let me scrape the back of this tank I have my protein skimmer turned off by the way because I put some phytoplankton in the tank I want it to circulate through I don't want it to get caught up hold this back here it's coralline algae I'm gonna scrape it off okay once I scraped that off this is an awesome tool by the way you can get this on Amazon check out all the links on my video descriptions stuff spit on the back for a while it's nice to see coral analogy again I'm gonna scrape it off and let it just flow through the water column so over time it'll populate on these rocks see all that stuff coming off it's gonna float through the tank land on the rocks and grow that's gonna be awesome to get coralina algae in your tank you want to have good water parameters and you want to maintain your calcium it's like 500 to 550 I'm not gonna try and get it perfect I just want to get these spores floating through the water so glad that green hair algae is gone so sick of looking at it I nailed it the hydrogen peroxide I used check out the videos on that green algae was gone in three days three days kook Anna's all did nothing for this tank water changes helped but green hair algae always came back hydrogen peroxide kills mold kills algae kills fungus I destroyed the hell out of that stuff man just by having it in the water column dosing one milliliter of 35 percent hydrogen peroxide food grade for every 10 gallons of tank water gone dead so awesome so nice looking at a clear tank again it's good enough for now okay there you go and to keep the phosphates at bay like I said before I've got a phosphate reactor little tiny pump sucks up the water goes through the phosphate reactor the GFO catches it and traps the phosphates in there and then the clean water phosphate free gets poured out also I got a new ro/di unit which is registering completely zero phosphates and that's it I put another Rotter tube on the other side here cuz right now I just have this return pump catching no solids right so I want to put another Rotter tube fastened with PVC here and so I'll be catching salads with the Ryder tube over here and then phosphates will be taken care of with that dude I got the router tube over here as you've seen taking care of the salads and then I got the protein skimmer it's all I got it's all I got it's all the sump is corals are looking good star polyps are a little quiet fish are looking great everyone's hiding out because I'm cleaning the tank Mandarin gobies doing well he always hides when I bring out the camera check this out guys ever since I got rid of my sand bed look at the overflow here this clean can you see that we don't clean that is when I had a say I just noticed that now when I had a sand bed I was constantly scrubbing and brushing and all this crap it looks like a new I have not cleaned that I also attribute that to the hydrogen peroxide it clears all the fungus and nastiness I mean look at this look how clean that is I had gunk and garbage and slime now I got nothing on there it's great so there it is 125 gallon tank just at another water change Fisher doing great hydrogen peroxide 35% food grade completely wiped out the green here algae fish are doing great everyone's doing cool I used three times the amount it made me a little nervous to be honest but the fish never were affected no one got affected it just took the corals like four or five days to open up star polyps are slowly coming back they're doing good everything's doing great the zoanthids I got a little nervous but they're awesome after four days they were just as just how they were cuz the hydrogen peroxide it's different in the water column but you want to get food grade totally organic nothing added I've got a link to that in the video description I'll also put it in the top comment and the video description here and it just works great you know 35 percent hydrogen peroxide it's the only thing that worked for me completely annihilated green hair algae I can't praise that stuff enough I had green hair algae insane amounts of it for four months so that's it I'm gonna feed these guys so as I always like to do during live stream thanks for joining me the handful of you that are in oh it's Saturday really gloomy and crappy here in Chicago less my favorite type of day so let me get some rods food and I'll feed these guys right now I'll turn the pumps off and I got some rods food frozen rods food don't rinse off the rods food and won't put the gloves on to feed the guys but I made sure I don't know cuts on my hands fish look this the corals love this breathing life back into the tank after the nasty and green hair algae outbreak there you go day eight thanks looking really good it'll look better after the water clears from my little water change but you know what I got no sand in here so the first five gallons I removed just now look at the sailfin they're going to town on that piece of shrimp frozen shrimp from rods food so the second five gallon I removed it that a ten gallon water change is like really clear because there's no sand so the detritus which is fish waste and uneaten food it doesn't get trapped anywhere it just keeps circulating through the tank and out the tank through the Rotter tube and the protein skimmer and the water has been like clear when I do a water change for the most part when I had a sand bed and I do kind of miss the sand bed but this is okay to be honest man it's like the water was like brown you know when you do that water change it's like the dark yellow brown so I might get one bag of sand like a five-pound bag just to put a little dusting of sand because you see I've got a little mostly glass but I also got a little dusting of sand see so I'm thinking you to do like a tiny little dusting of sand just for a look and it won't be enough to trap anything or you go deep sand bed because then you've got a lot of life living in that sand bed and it's gonna break down the nitrates and everything but I had like a one and a half inch to two inch sand bed max in some places mostly was one in just one and a half inch sand bed it wasn't doing anything for me with all these fish I think with the larger bio load you either have to have no sand bed or just a little thin layer of it so all that fish waste gets blown around by your powerheads here and gets put out through your tank through your filtration otherwise your sand is just capturing that stuff then you got to get a cleanup crew and let's face it you need a lie to clean up crew cleanup crew is like snails and shrimps and crabs and they don't do that good of a job cleaning the sand but and eating all the fish waste and uneaten food you need a big cleanup crew that's more expense then when those guys die they're gonna release nitrates and death in the tank so I'm just gonna keep like maybe get a five-pound bag of sand and just like put it in there for looks I think that'd be pretty cool and if you see some glass once in a while so be it that way I'm gonna focus on my corals and my fish and get the rock a deep purple I think that'd be really nice plus I want a deep sand but but if you go with a deep sand bed you're gonna take away some of the swimming space from the fish I'd love to have a four inch sand bed but then you're taking them what look how close they're swimming to the bottom that's gonna be gone then so I might just get a five-pound bag from like marine Depot or bulk reef supply of the live sand just just for a little bit of a look you know that's my plane that's my plan thanks everybody for watching and thank you for your support Leia come here me me there's the little beast hey lay up come come hi babe not such a little beast anymore it's a big babe there she goes guys remember when she was eight weeks old the size of a toaster now she's like 68 pounds so thanks for watching I'll see you next Saturday or whenever I feel like making a video take care of your buddy happy reefing