BornToHula

No other changes I can think of besides adding some coral frags before Thanksgiving as well.

EDIT: I take that back, I did swap out my two Gyre Pumps for two MP60s recently.

4 minutes ago, FarmerTy said:

58 minutes ago, BornToHula said:

Hey guys I've noticed my male Crosshatch Trigger hasn't been eating much, if any, in the last week .  I've fed pellets (new life spectrum and PE Mysis), frozen krill, PE Mysis, Reef Frenzy foods, spirulina brine shrimp.  I *maybe* saw him eat a piece of krill yesterday, but he isn't aggressively going after food like he use to. He also isn't swimming around the tank much in general, and only hanging out in this one area.
All the other fish are acting and looking fine, including the female crosshatch. 
Below is a youtube video of him with food being just added to the tank.
Any advice on how to handle this? 
 
 

He does look a bit thin. Any changes lately? New fish?

I added a small Flameback Angel and a Solar Fairy Wrasse before Thanksgiving.  I haven't noticed any aggression toward him, unless its happening when I'm away from the tank.

Hey guys I've noticed my male Crosshatch Trigger hasn't been eating much, if any, in the last week .  I've fed pellets (new life spectrum and PE Mysis), frozen krill, PE Mysis, Reef Frenzy foods, spirulina brine shrimp.  I *maybe* saw him eat a piece of krill yesterday, but he isn't aggressively going after food like he use to. He also isn't swimming around the tank much in general, and only hanging out in this one area.

All the other fish are acting and looking fine, including the female crosshatch. 

Below is a youtube video of him with food being just added to the tank.

Any advice on how to handle this? 

 We have ourselves a good old-fashioned reef tank mystery!   Get out your pipe and let me know what you think happened.

I had two rose tip bubble anemones and two Sherman green bubble anemones in my tank.  They were all located on the left side of my tank in the same general area and didn't move around much - if any - since I set the tank up in its current state in March. I've had these anemones since getting into the hobby, they came with the used system I purchased in 2012 or 2013 and they pretty much always stay put.

Then, a couple days ago I came home to this:

Notice the chunks of rose tip anemone under the sherman.  Both of the rose tip anemones were gone and there were chunks of them everywhere!

There were about nine larege chunks of nem that I could find and remove from the tank.

(Sorry for all the cyano in these pic - I was out of town for a week over thanksgiving and was too liberal on the auto-feeder)

Then yesterday I find one of the rose tips on the opposite side of the tank way in the back! Unfortunately I can't get a pic of it but it seems healthy and normal.

What is your guess of what happened here?

I kinda figure one got sucked and chopped up by a powerhead - but that doesn't explain why:

1. Why did the rose tips move after being in place for months and not having a history of moving? 

 2. Why did only the rose tips move and not the shermans?

3. Were my clown fish rebelling against me setting up Christmas lights and didn't want to be around any more green AND red?

22 hours ago, dustint21 said:

I just sent Jen a text. They are 48”! **** you! Now I got try to get the funds together...

 

neck cleaner is on on my list!

No doubt the ATI Powermodules are awesome, I have two 48" units myself.  That said, if I was in your position of already having an 8-bulb ATI unit, I would just add some supplemental LEDs to your current lights if you find yourself wanting some more shimmer/color control.

Not great pics, but the flameback angel and the solar fairy wrasse are in the acclimation box.  They will only be spending a couple days in here before going in the tank, I'm leaving town on Monday for the week and want to be able to observe them in the tank for a few days before I leave.

1 hour ago, FarmerTy said:

Nice! I ordered the Milwaukee refractometer holder too!

 

Its pretty nifty, the only thing I wish was the dropper to calibrate fit in the side pocket too. 

Got in some 3d printed parts today.  

Probe holders, dosing line holders and a a wall mount for the Milwaukee  refractometer.

Magnets seem a bit weak, but shouldn't be an issue for the 3/8 in glass on my 75g sump.

Some pics...

The frogspawn did really well throughout the dinos.

Torch and zoas did well too.

Still loving the triggers

Have 3 sunburst anthias and a midas blenny in my homemade acclimation box.  They will be leaving the acclimation box on saturday.

6 hours ago, Reburn said:

Yes sir.  Come on over this weekend.

Cool, I'll send you a text tomorrow or Friday.

4 hours ago, FarmerTy said:

7 hours ago, BornToHula said:

You did see where I said inexpensive stuff, right? 
For real though, if you have hardier/cheaper stuff I'd be interested in putting together a pack.

Come to the meeting this Saturday too. I'll have some cheap stuff. Some I'm giving away, some I'm selling on the cheap.

Good to know, I'm going to try and make it to the meeting if I'm not deer hunting Saturday morning.

15 hours ago, Reburn said:

I know where to get some frags......:)

You did see where I said inexpensive stuff, right? 

For real though, if you have hardier/cheaper stuff I'd be interested in putting together a pack.

I forgot to mention I removed my two Gyres and replaced them with two Vortech mp60s each with a battery backup. 

I found that if I did not keep the gyres extremely clean they would stop running when in pulse mode once they got dirty. I'm sure the dino outbreak wasn't helping things, but it became really annoying. The gyre's battery backup not working when I had a power outage was the final straw and I decided to replace them.   I had reservations of going with Ecotech again after getting burned on the Vectra L1, but I have a mp40 and mp10 that have been working years with no issues at all. Fingers crossed that these are reliable as well.

My tank is finally emerging from the ashes from the battle with the dinos.  Surprisingly, dosing Vibrant & running my lights at 50% intensity for a few weeks seems to be what was the final push the tank needed to combat them.  Every couple days I still need to blow off the rock at a certain spot where the dinos want to grow back, but they don't seem to be popping up anywhere else (knock on wood).

I've gotten my nutrients back close to where I want them.  Alk 8.5, Ca 460, mg 1440, Nitrate 12-24, PO4 .06.  I would like to lower the Ca and Nitrates a bit.

Final death toll - 8 acro frags (most from world wide corals), 2 large acro colonies, 2 chalices, my two anemones each split, and all living arcos are half dead, but showing signs of recovery.

Zoas, torches & frogspwn all grew really well with the higher nutrients.

I'm going to do a few daily 15% water changes in a row to kind of reset things, then go to a once a week 15% change.  Also need to start loading up on coral again . Need to get some inexpensive stuff to test the waters before I go all crazy on the premium frags again.  One of these days I might actually start liking this tank again!

So interesting thing... I am noticing sps starting to recover and grow back over some of the dead areas.  This is opposite of what I expected, I'm currently sitting between 40-65 ppm on nitrates (using the nyos kit it gets really hard to read 40-95) and 0.3 ppm on phosphate.  Wayyy above the recommended levels.  I figured my acros would all be toast at these levels, but they seem to be doing well.  

The dino growth seems to have slowed, but is definitely still growing.  I ordered some vibrant cleaner, but it still hasn't come in yet (I'm glad I paid $8 for shipping!). I'm debating on maybe doing another lights out period in the meantime.

14 hours ago, Jen_h said:

Ty always told me to try an introduce something that will out compete the Dino's. Read on reef 2 reef a lot of people were using vibrant and complaining that it caused cyano. So I grabbed a bottle hoping to get cyano and I did. I let it kind of get out of hand for awhile to make sure it was smothering the Dino. I then turned around and used Chemi clean to get rid of the cyano, did a 50 gallon water change and things seem to be back on track again. Maybe it was a fluke or maybe it really worked.....

I ordered some vibrant yesterday, maybe I'll have some good luck like you!

6 minutes ago, FarmerTy said:

Ouch! I do enjoy my compliments with a side of bashing.

If it makes you feel any better Hula, I just started my own fight with dinos after reintroducing the fish. If I figure out any new ways to win, I'll let you know!

I'm sure you will get over the dinos quick and easy while I'll just be here scratching my head haha.

 I've ordered some Vibrant to try out on mine since it doesn't seem like any "natural" solutions are going to work. I've tried vibrant before on the Chrystophytes with no effect, but maybe I'll have better luck on the dinos.

In the meantime I have been really cranking up the nitrate/phosphate dosing.  I figured since most of my corals are already trashed, why not see if it works. I'm up to ~40ppm nitrates and .21 ppm of phosphates.  Still dosing the phytoplankton as well.  Nothing else growing yet except for dinos .

18 hours ago, jolt said:

Ugh, I hate dinos so much.   The new triggers look great in there though!

I definitely hate dinos too, probably the worse thing I've dealt with in regards to coral death/damage.  The triggers are awesome and have been a great addition to the tank!

9 hours ago, JamesL said:

Ooo, the flareback will be a nice addition!  Saw one in my LFS the other day, and almost bought it.  Such striking blue lines.

Mines pretty awesome so far, I'm hoping he behaves well when he gets in the big tank.   He has lots of personality and is curious about everything - I can't manage to get a good picture of him though!

I did a round of testing yesterday:

Alk: 9.1 dkh

Ca: 450 ppm

Mg: 1380 ppm

Phosphate: 0.16 ppm

Nitrate: Between 15 and 20 ppm

I've gone through a full bottle of peroxide with no effect so I think I will stop dosing it for now.  I'm still dosing phytoplankton - 3oz. daily.  

Not sure what else to do for now.  I'll probably monitor the dino growth for the next few days and see if it slows at all.  If not I will try some products like metroplex, chemiclean, or vibrant.

Tank is looking better:

But the dino's are growing back =(. 

Some of the SPS are still alive, they are all damaged though:

3 days of blackout are over.  It looks like 95% of the dinos have died off.  I did a 40g water change this morning and will be doing anther 40g change this evening removing any remaining bits of the dinos.  Hopefully this, plus everything else I have been doing, is the knockout punch against the dinos! 

Really bad pic, but I got a Flameback Angelfish and Red Head Solon Fairy Wrasse in today from Diver's Den.  The Flameback already looks awesome and has quite a lot of personality.

Started a 3 day lights out period today to see if it will help get rid of the dinos.  I did a large water change last night to remove as much of the dinos manually before the lights out.  

I also made an acclimation box this weekend. Don't want any smaller fish to get immediately eaten by the triggers!

2 minutes ago, Isaac said:

"lowering nitrates" part.  i think they like cleaner water... essentially.  in my case anyways.

I don't know...  What were your nitrates at when the dino went away for you?

35 minutes ago, Isaac said:

are you skimming any wetter than normal?  Mine went away on my biocube w/ more bioload, peroxide, more feeding, and wet skimmer.   seems like you are doing the opposite *lol*

 Why do you think I am going opposite of what you did?  Did you see the last post on page 17?

More bioload: added two crosshatch triggers & a kato's wrasse. Will be adding 3 sunburst anthias and a midas blenny in the next couple days.  

More feeding: With the new livestock I went from feeding 6 cubes a day to 8.  I also have a autofeeder that goes off 4 times a day, dropping about half a teaspoon of pellets each time.  Also I just started dosing phytoplankton & added copepods yesterday.

Peroxide: Have been dosing peroxide for 3 weeks so far. Dosing 3ml per 10gal (about 75ml) each day with a dosing pump.

Wet Skimming: I generally keep my skimmer skimming wet, so it is not wetter than normal, but it would be considered a "wet skim".  After about a week the cup will be 1/3 to 1/2 full and needs to be emptied.

What I am doing differently than you is siphoning out the dinos (this is the only thing that has been helpful so far), added a UV filter, and running carbon.

1 minute ago, Juiceman said:

 

Hmm. How about doing some Chemi clean?


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Haven't thought of it, but isn't chemiclean for Cyano?

Just now, Juiceman said:

 

Hmm.. do you have any form of carbon dosing? Vodka or bio pellets?


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No, not that I am currently running. I have a bio pellet reactor sitting in my closet though.

1 minute ago, Juiceman said:

Fresh carbon helped a lot when I had Dinos


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Doesnt seem to be helping my situation too much. I've been replacing mine every few days. Just about have gone through an entire big container of it from BRS this month