After the Crash

My tank has started recovering from this spring's crash. For a while I could barely stand to look at my tank. Throughout the summer I thought things were recovering but I would then have an unexpected loss.

After coming back from vacation at the end of July my Green Slimer had no polyp extension. I never figured out why. I watched it start losing tissue. Despite fragging I knew I would lose all of it so I pulled it out on August 3rd.


Late August or Early September my Bird of Paradise RTNed. It was beautiful one evening and the next day after work it was gone with the exception of a few tips. I cut off three tips just a few millimeters long and glued them to a plug. Two survived and are growing well. Not a great pic.


Here are some more survivors:

Lots of pieces of this digita died. Fragged the dead pieces off but still showing some scars.


This Forest Fire Digitata was wounded but survived.


I have no idea what this acro is. A very slow grower and showed no sign of stress during the crash.


This purple stylo is the most expensive coral I've bought. Thankfully it survived.


Growth was also stunted on my blue and pink stylos. They have started growing again. Here is the pink.


My Sunset monti was unfazed by the whole ordeal.




I thought that I would lose my monti caps but they pulled through after bleaching pretty badly. The orange cap is now about 1/2" away from the front glass. I can no longer get the Mag Float between it and the glass.


The above picture also shows a smile green slimer that survived. One branch from the large colony reached a rock and encrusted to it. The tip of the branch later broke off when the colony was slightly moved. That piece survived and is now shooting up new branches.

I believe this is a Joe the Coral. It also survived. It lost a lot of color during the crash and turned mostly and army camo green. The tips are now growing quickly and are a beautiful blue. This piece has red bugs but is doing well anyway.


Closeup


This pink birdsnest also survived and is growing quickly now.


This one was completely browned out and given up for dead.


The following are some pieces I've purchased over the last few months.
Echinata?


The flesh of this one was almost white at the LFS with a hint of yellow. It has darkened to green in my tank but retained the blue tips.


Yellow A. Caroliniana?








Tenuis? This one is curved and the picture is looking at it from the top. It's much bigger than it looks in this picture.


Pearlberry?


The tips of two others.


Perhaps a Purple Monster in the center. Green tipped birdsnest is on the right. The pink stylo that survived is on the left.


A couple of millies. The second one was getting stung by my anemone so it was recently moved. It had great polyp extension before it started getting stung. Hopefully it will live. There is also a third one that I didn't photograph.




More




This digitata was added recently but isn't doing well. I already fragged a few tips.


I bought another pink birdsnest. At the store it was much pinker than mine and under actinics was blue. After a couple of weeks in my system the color changed and looks exactly like my established pink birdsnest even though it is near the top of the tank. It is to the left of the cap.

From 2010_10_20

Finally, a full tank shot.

Here Today, Gone Tomorrow

I lost my CBB yesterday. He was literally fine one day and dead the next. Not sure what happened. He was doing great. He ate lots of Rod's food and seemed to be doing well.

A few days before he died he seemed to be out of sight more than usual. I was a little alarmed when I couldn't find him but after about 5 minutes he came out and ate well.

I was feeding him every other day. I used a turkey baster to feed Rod's food to make sure he got enough. He would stick is mouth inside the end of the baster to get the food. Perhaps every other day wasn't enough.

Yesterday when I came home from work he was no longer able to swim. he had brown splotches on him as well as some white spots on the end of little threads hanging off his fins. He was still alive but barely. I had to go out and when I came home I couldn't find him again.

I had heard of other reports of CBBs that died suddenly. Not sure what happened in other cases.

Testing the Waters

I bought two acro frags this weekend. I'm hoping these thrive.

I did notice a few days ago that my green Wellsophyllia had some skeleton exposed in the area that was closest to the dying colt.

Pulled out the Colt

Tonight I pulled out what was left of my Colt coral. It looked as if it had gone beyond the point of recovery and was turning white. Indeed when I pulled it out it was getting a little oozy. Several months ago the Colt coral started to decline when I separated it from the glass and a rock so I could stabilize the rock my Green Slimer is on. It never recovered. In fact, looking back, that is about the time my tank started to decline. Could the stressed colt have been allelopathic and led to the decline of my SPS and my recent tank crash? On the bright side not all is lost with the Colt. A baby Colt is growing nearby in a spot where long ago I pulled a branch of the colt off the rock.

RIP Bluethroat

Found him dead in the HT tonight.

He was turning around and eating very aggressively. I thought he was going to make it. Last night he didn't eat though. Today he was dead. The HT never really seemed to cycle. Don't know if it was the medication or what. I was doing 50% water changes a night to keep the ammonia in check and dosing Prime. I thought maybe the ammonia was a little higher than normal yesterday but I didn't test. Just did the usual water change.

For the record I started treating with Prazi in the HT. I did that for a week and a half or so. He seemed to get worse so I switched to Metro. This seemed to be helping and was eating aggressively but still not putting on weight.

Pretty bummed out. Not only did I lose the fish but I lost a lot of nice coral trying to originally treat him in the DT.

Lesson learned.

STN Carnage

Here's what some of my corals look like today. I hope it's done. My monti cap continues to color back up so that is a good sign.

What's left of my milli



Purple acro


Tricolor plana


Orange Digitata


Green monti cap


Purple Digitata

API Calcium Test

I'm unhappy with my API calcium test. I've only been using API for Ca and have been using Salifert for everything else. I had no issues with API Ca up to now. The Ca test was nice since a color chart isn't involved. You simply count drops until the solution changes from pink to blue.

When I bought this last test kit I noticed that my Ca had dropped quite a bit. I didn't think much about it because I hadn't tested for a week or two but thought my Ca had dropped kind of quickly. In time I forgot about this until I started having problems. I went out and bought another API Ca test and compared the results. My older kit was measuring 420 ppm and my brand new one was measuring 520 ppm. Which one was right?

Neither...

After I found out I couldn't trust my API test I bought a Salifert Ca test. It measured 480 ppm. Essentially right in between the two APIs.

The APIs are now officially tossed in the trash. I'm using Salifert for everything now.