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I was going to do some jawfish, a dwarf angel, 6 line wrasse (to eat my happy bristle worm infestation :-)), and maybe a few pretty gobis that are too small for the 180. I'm still pretty sad Good luck! Let me know how you do? I had kudas. I'm thinking that perhaps erectus might be a bit easier?

One had the gas issue, that looked to be clearing up really well. She suddenly died. Another seahorse who wasn't doing too well, and I had just started treating her with antibiotics. I kept hoping but she didn't survive either. Very sad.

Thanks to everyone who sent notes. Not sure if I'm going to do seahorses anymore. It was really sad losing them, especially after the struggle with the meds and all that. I'll never say never, but it was pretty painful.

Despite a long fight with antibiotics, diamox, etc., I lost all my seahorses. I'm going to give up on the idea for awhile and turn the 40 back into a FOWLR. Hopefully I'll do better that way.

Go figure, the seahorse I'm treating seems fine, but I lost one of my others to no apparent reason. I am not a happy camper.

I wish I had something deep enough to make for a pressure differential for that. *sigh* But then I'd also have to worry about what causes this. If it was a male and this was a pouch issue, I'm told I wouldn't have to use the antibiotics at all.... but since it's a female, I'm told I have to use the antibiotics. I'm doing some more research but darn this gets complicated real fast. If I saw where the bubble was, I'd lance it, but it's just a generally swollen tail so I have no idea how to deal with that. Luckily, things are looking better now that I'm giving her diamox.

Got the meds. Thanks to everyone! Hopefully now she'll pull through.

Seems one of my seahorses has internal gas bubble disease. I'm treating her with Diamox right now, but I'm told I also need the above drugs to pull her out of this. I'd like to get them locally rather than try to get them on the web which would take more time. Any ideas?

I got a really great copperband who was eating frozen mysis when I saw him, brought him home and he wouldn't eat for a good 4 days. He finally started eating silversides, of all things, soaked in "entice." I cut them up really small and he went after them. After that, it was easy and he totally chowed on the frozen mysis. I have yet to try the PE mysis, but will if they're small enough for my ponies who (thank GOODNESS) are all eating frozen now. *phew* Good luck. I hope he keeps eating. Picking on the rocks is a good sign.

Very sorry for your losses. I think I may have lost my Potters Angel since I haven't seen him since we got back. Vacations can be such a problem :(. Great shots, though. Both difficult to get (Rock Beauties are notoriously skittish, and getting an eel when being cleaned is really cool). What equipment do you use?

Hey, thanks for posting that. I'm going through it now, and especially like the guy's explanation of grey market, and how you can get totally scammed from some online photo purchases. I used to work photo retail and we used to have exactly the same problems with likely the same people via mail order. And by the way, even professional photographers, and those with vast amounts of underwater photography experience can have difficulty with tank photos. Besides the water, there's the glass (or acrylic) that the light has to get through. If you add flash to that, your results aren't always predictable. Manual white balance is essential. If your camera doesn't have it, well there's always photoshop :-).

I was truly expecting that everything would be completely as it had been for the past year or so with nothing really major league insane happening so of course I figured that the house sitter would have no need of a crash course (pardon the pun) in tank theory. I did go over everything with her. Hubby DID ask her to turn on the auto top off (which he really should have done himself but forgot), and if that had been done, chances are the cascade of insanity would not have happened. No real use crying over spilled milk. It does give me much pause before I go on vacation again. Last time I went away for a long weekend, a heater malfunction cooked my tank. I had much more lossage then than now, but darn it still hurts. Lessons learned. Thank you so much, DaveS for the attempt and your hard work. I owe you one. I'll restock the tank at some point, but not for awhile. It's a bit too painful at the moment.

Thank you so much for your attempt. *sigh* It went downhill VERY quickly. Husband failed to turn on the auto top off, so the water level went down, so the filter died, so the animals died. Very sad. I'm hoping my main tank and seahorse tank make it through.

I'm only getting spotty information from the tank sitter. Something about the tank going cloudy, so apparently the filter burned out, so I walked her through replacing the filter with another one I had, then she said it went cloudy again and a shrimp was dead, so she called DaveS. Last message I got was that it was a total loss. I suppose I'll know more in the morning.

Well, looks like one of my tanks crashed while I was gone and I lost all my jawfish, skunk shrimp and a scooter blennie. Something seems to happen every time I go away, despite all the precautions in the world. I love jawfish. I'm quite sad. I'm hoping this is my only disaster.

I've used Entice with some luck. The other thing I've used also is the live brine. I now know from vast experience that live brine is available at Superpets in Annandale :-).

Never leave town again? Never dive in "the big tank?" Oh dear... that would indeed make me grumpy. And we wouldn't be able to shoot video like Dave S. has volunteered, and TS has his cell. So far, so good with being able to talk her through things. I'm getting hold of my ISP person because the issue MAY be a closed port and not the web server at all. Will advise. WAMAS is great! You guys are wonderful. SO worth the membership fee.

Tank Sitter did both, in that order... rebooted router, rebooted AC. Nothing. My real web server computer on the same network is working fine. The AC sends email fine. All connectivity to the house is good, and I can ping the AC. The good news is that diving is great :-). We've already had a series of strange tank incidents with the auto top off not working on one set of tanks, the ACIII sending me emails that the pH is 7.1, then 8.4, then 7.3 (probably probe has build up, but I can't clean it from here), TS thinking a seahorse was dead because she was playing in the tiny amount of current we have, and a breaker popping and hubby forgetting to tell her where the boxes were. Heh...

My previously bulletproof Aquacontroller III web server refuses to serve web. I can ping the IP address from here with no problem, so that isn't the problem. ANy ideas? Tank sitter doesn't know from programming AC III.

DaveS has kindly volunteered to be "go to" guy in case the house sitter becomes confused. Lovely hubby has just finished the auto top offs for the 2 small tanks. All of the tanks are on controllers. The recalcitrant seahorses are all eating frozen (thank goodness) and I'm hoping that everything goes well when we're gone THIS TIME. Knocking wood..... lots of it :-) Would bring y'all back something but we're not allowed to touch the critters. java script:emoticon('', 'smid_23')

Hooray! Just in time for us to go on vacation 10/8 for 2 weeks of diving. We have a house sitter, but she only has a passing knowledge of salt systems. Would anyone near the Great Falls, VA area be willing to volunteer to take phone calls/possibly come out here to check on tanks if she gets confused? There will be a 180 reef (softies only), a 24 gallon seahorse, and a 40 gallon that currently houses only jawfish. We'd be very appreciative.

How bout taking some pictures for us?

In my experience, Kick Ich doesn't work. You really ought to do the hypo salinity treatment. But do it CAREFULLY. You have to get rid of the ich in the whole display. It's a royal PITA, but it's the best way to go about it. Try this article to start with. You'll have to remove inverts, etc. to do this. OR, you can remove all of the fish to another tank and hypo treat that tank, leaving your display tank "fish free" for 6 to 8 weeks so the ich dies off in the sand and rock while you treat the fish. Been there.... hated it. Good luck!

*sigh* I'm not sure whether to keep trying, or to give up and just stick with the ponies. It's been very frustrating.

I have had dismal failures with banded pipefish, losing two in the reef tank, and one in the tank I set up as species specific. I am getting the feeling that perhaps putting them in a reef tank was not the greatest of ideas, despite the abundance of pods for them to eat. The first one died almost immediately, the second a few weeks later. The third died the day after I acclimated him to the new tank. So, water parameters are correct, as in 0 nitrates, 0 nitrites, 0 ammonia, 8.2 pH, reef tank 80 degrees, species specific tank 75 degrees, both tanks at 1.025 salinity. Any ideas? My seahorses are doing great in a separate tank.