zotzer

I think they recommend against putting the modded maxis on timers. Can't help you with the screen though. Tracy

James, This is wild! We hacked up several of my ricordea that day. That particular one *just* attached itself! I tried mesh, rubberbands, you name it. Finally, I stuck it in a crevice of a lumpy rock in a low flow zone, and apparently it liked it there. You have no idea how many times I had to play "find the ricordea" in the past three months! LOL It was just that one though....all the others attached right away. Guess they missed their "other half" LOL Tracy

Is Dr. Mac coming to the meeting? Tracy

Maybe they were "Mission Impossible" candy canes....set by mother nature to self-destruct. LOL It is bizarro, isn't it? Feels like there is a giant hole in my tank now. :( The color was so unique too....light but amazingly bright green. Tracy

The candy canes are gone, James. 15 fat happy huge heads, gone in two days! I came home today and the flesh that had been intact was falling off and there was even some black necrosis. Everything else in the tank is happy and healthy....even the monti I posted about over the weekend has retained (maybe even gained) it's color and is doing better. This is so bizzare. I always figured the candy cane would be the coral to take anything out, if anything. The new lights are the only cause that seems to make sense. Some zoas colonies are still being fussy and semi-closed, while others are open and rockin'. It's the first loss I've had that I didn't know the cause of (ie: a poccilopora being knocked into the anemone while I was cleaning the tank) I'm totally bummed. It had doubled in size since I got it from you. That single paly polyp you gave me at the same time is now four. Just don't get it at all!!! Sorry hon! Tracy

Jessica, Do you have a refugium? Also, I am not sure you ever told us what kind of red algae you have.....the slimey kind, or the purplish fluffy kind? Tracy

I can see even more of the skeleton tonight. :( There is still bright green flesh, and I see some "feelers", but most of the brighter green "mouths" are gone now. Not sure how this thing will ever recover, but as long as there is bright green flesh and it looks like candy cane, I'll keep babying it and hope for the best. Tracy

Marcia, It is gorgeous!!!! I was beginning to get worried about you. LOL Nice recovery on the corals. They look VERY happy now. Great job, as always!! Tracy

She actually said that the detritus is under the algae, which is what made me think it was the fluffy kind. That stuff (be it on rocks or on sand) holds onto an amazing amount of detritus. You manually remove it, and a white cloud of gunk is released. It can survive the most pristine water conditions. It's virulent, but only a minor chore to get rid of. Manual removal (and I followed behind with a very fine fish net to catch the crap), reverse-light-cycle fuge, and one fat mexican turbo (maybe two for her size tank). It will be gone from the display within a week. (If it is indeed the fluffy stuff and not the slimey cyano monster) Must be mexican turbos though!! Sean at F&F usually has them. Tracy

That's what mine looks like....a big snowball of about 15 heads of them. Well, it did. Right now it looks like a little green stump. Lights are still out though, so I will hope for some recovery. T

Well, it has a few tentacles out...long ones, but not the shorter ones that usually line the inside of the polyps. We'll see.

If you can think of anything else I can do to help it recover, let me know. I've added it to the target-feeding regimen of my faded monti frag already. T

James, When you first started having trouble, I chimed in that I'd be more than happy to give some back. Doesn't it figure that before this latest plea, I came home today to find mine very deflated. There are even spots where the skeleton is peeking through. The flesh is all intact and still bright green, but overall it isn't looking good. I did a water change fast and then tested what I took out. Everything is totally in check (ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate <10, ph 8.2 alk 4 and cal 430). I was blaming it on the new lights and turned the daylights off early (even though I had cut back full daylight to only 5 hours). I'd put some "recharged" purgigen back in the tank Sunday, and promptly took that back out....worried that maybe all the chlorine wasn't pulled out during the 12 hours it soaked in Prime. I also replaced the seagel for new. Guess now I just sit back and wait. Some zoas are closed as well, and mushrooms are smaller than usual, but otherwise, everything seems fine. Xenia, SPS, anemone, ricordia, fish and snails all normal. The candy can is my only LPS. If I can get them to recover, I'll bring them to the meeting and we can frag them up. Cross your fingers!!! Sheesh, when it rains, it pours!! Tracy

Beautiful!!! Tracy

We could always plan a raid on Copp's tank! Tracy

centropyge joculator Tracy

Great topic, Dave!!! I guess since I started with the "bleaching" thing, and am a relative newbie..... If you toss a red sock in bleach, it doesn't turn white, it turns pink. That's why I picked the word. It is always preferable to have a common language, and I will be watching eagerly! Tracy

Yep, could be oddball parameters. I did go through several days when I had to top off with treated tap a couple weeks back. Could be a delayed response to that, plus the low cal and alk. Got a bum bucket of reef crystals and didn't discover it until several water changes into it.

Thanks for your help, Dave. Do you think the spectrum shift could have occured already on two-month old bulbs though? The lamps I upgraded to mid-november were actually higher par too. Something obviously made it unhappy. I guess I'll keep target feeding it and seeing if I can't get some sort of color to reappear. I have read over on RC about people with T5 systems who's corals "pastel out". Entire tanks look like lighter versions of their prior selves. This is the only SPS that has been affected in my tank so far. Guess I'll just wait and see what happens. Dr. Mac keeps this coral under 1000w 20ks. I'm with you that the color change probably isn't due to "too much" light.

Okay, lights just came on, so I snapped a pic. Here is the color the day I got it back in October (and it remained this color up until last weekend): Here it is now. It actually looks more white in this pic than it is. It's like a very pale pink. You can see that it had encrusted over the sides of the frag plug. It still glows blue under the actinics (which gives me some hope of life remaining): Tracy

Bummer! What happened??? Is a fish tank like a dog pack? Like, when an "alpha" dies do they posture for "top dog" until a leader is decided? Tracy

How much did that bad-boy weigh when you lifted him out of the tank? Jeff is holding out on giant clam pics. Did he keep it, or did it go in a client's tank? Tracy

You have to leave your tank up....who on earth would have room for that clam??? tracy

I think they slime up over time and the microbubbles calm down. You can also put one of their prefilter boxes on the output instead, with a sponge in there or something. Tracy