zygote2k
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Posts posted by zygote2k
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In my 150 maintenance reef I have 3 jumbo green chromis, 2 cleaner shrimp, arrow crab, 2 serpent stars, 2 damsels, and a chalk bass. I have introduced several fish over the last few months only to have them mysteriously die with no warning or symptoms. I have lost 2 yellow tangs- both of which were eating well and were extremely fat. Both over 3 years old and from different tanks. They only made it in this one about a month.
The Foxface, Coral Beauty, and Royal Gramma each went the way of the tangs. All of the rock was cured and quarantined in a seperate tank to insure no mantis shrimps or other predators. The Chromis and the Shrimps are the only existing fish- everything else was added by me. There are also the regular janitorial crew in the tank too- hermits, snails, sand star, conch, etc.
The tank is a 150 Tenecor with a 400w mh and an ASM skimmer in a 20g sump. I have 3 of the 1200gph Koralias for circulation and a Rio 2500 return pump with a 1" eductor. The temp stays at a consistent 76-78 deg. Alk= 4 meq./l Ca= 350ppm Ph=8.1 Nitrate >20 ppm. Water source is bottled o2 pure water. 10% water change on weekly basis. There are sinularias, zoas, shrooms, sarcophyton, litophyton, xenia, anthelia, gsp, montipora, acropora, duncans, etc. All corals are extremely healthy and growing rapidly- anyone need some frags? Lots of macroalgae thriving too. Daily additions of Purple-Up and weekly dosing of Kalkwasser are the only supplements added. Fish are fed sparingly on a daily basis. There is absolutely no Cyanobacteria, Hair algae or any other type of nuisances. There are only 1 or 2 Aiptasia.
My client wants Tangs, but I'm hesitant to put them in here. He's of the opinion that only the ugly fish will survive. I'm at a loss. Can anyone help me with my dilemma?
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I have an Eng. Goby in my 40g skimmerless tank. The only thing I notice from time to time when it digs a fresh hole/burrow, is an oily sheen on the surface. The water is always crystal clear. Otherwise, I think it does a good job at turning the sand over. Maybe better than the sand-sifting star since it moves the sand under the rock. I don't worry abour rockslides since I have one layer of rock on the sand- nothing stacked.
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I'm running carbon in the sump. The Ricordea is by itself with nothing touching it. I placed it near the outflow of the eductor. It's not real strong current that washes over the rock, but a nice steady flow.
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This is different. Definitely not dropping a deuce. This mucus mass is almost as big as the individual polyps'.
It expells it over 2 or 3 days. A healthy shroom, ric, or anemone expells waste without losing shape or size.
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Wow, I think we need to have these formal insights implamented to the word filter list. You know just in case anybody "miss" uses the word "to", "too" or "two". LOL
The word is "implemented". With all this discussion about grammar, you'd think that someone might be tempted to use spellcheck before he/she posts.
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I have many corals like shrooms (hairy,frilly), zoas, anthelia, xenia, neon sinularia, neon montipora, gsp, neon sarco, RBTA, LTA, etc. All corals are thriving and grow rapidly. Salinity is at 1.027, nitrates between 10 and 20 ppm, temp 77, alk 5 meq. ca=410. Tons of various macros, lots of copepods, coralline rapidly growing. The only fish are an Engineer goby and a Maroon Clown. 1 cleaner shrimp and the usual assortment of janitors. Power compacts run approx. 12 hrs and 400w mh about 8. I run an LED on rdp for the refugium.
The ricordea don't seem to be expelling their zoothanthellae; just a big mucus mass. The colors are almost the same as new: rainbow-ish, red and green. I guess I could try to shade them- it's kind of difficult in the 40.
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I recently purchased a Ricordea Yuma rock with about 30+ polyps. It looked fine for about 2 days and then each polyp began to express a clump of mucus like material from the mouth. They have also drastically diminished in size too. Their overall appearance is not at all good. When purchased, they were under 400w mh similar to mine. I have excellent water quality and no predators or coral eaters present.
Has anyone witnessed anything like this? Hope this wasn't a $100 lesson to learn...
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Ch-Ch-Ch-Chia.
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Does anyone know how to tell a male from female in cleaner shrimps?
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Way back in '94, I had a 90g reef tank with a 250w mh on a homemade dump bucket style algae scrubber.
It grew nasty hair algae across a 20 micron screen floating in about 2" of water. this scrubber overflowed into a 30 gal. sump tank , then returned back to tank.
Algae was scraped from the screen once a week, dried and fed back to the tangs. This system produced an Elegance polyp bailout spawning and natural budding of a GBTA. It harbored massive amounts of copepods.
If anyone would like help designing a dump bucket style of scrubber, contact me.
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Can you order some Ochtodes algae?
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Rob from Reston here. Been doing this for many years- took a break for a while and am now geting back into the old habit. Nice to see this community online and many knowledgeable aquarists.
Joined 1 day ago and already got a free frag! Thanks David!
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My chromis' appear to be nesting and so far, they have killed a yellow tang, foxface, coral beauty, royal gramma,and kole tang. Nice to see that they are happy and content. Wish I could tell the other fish to stay away...
mysterious fish deaths
in General Discussion
· Edited by zygote2k
Haven't tested for Ammonia. All the softies are growing well with 20 ppm Nitrates. SPS growing slowly but otherwise healthy. Tank is enclosed by a canopy. The tank is in a busy Chiropractic office and I've occasionally witnessed children smacking the acrylic. Could the fish be dying of fright?
The YT's and the Foxface showed no discoloration or ick or any visible signs of body damage. The Coral Beauty and the Royal Gramma had torn fins- quite possibly from conflicts with the Chromis. The Chromis frequently lay eggs though. I've wondered that they could possibly be the culprits, but it seems unlikely.
The damsels and chalk bass do fine with no visible signs of stress. No, I didn't quarantine the fish. That is the next requirement before any fish are added again. On the QT issue, does it make a great deal of difference if the fish comes from a healthy local tank rather than the local fish store? They would be Qt'd in my tank, then introduced to the 150. Why not straight from the healthy tank to the 150, leaving mine out of the equation?
On another note, this tank is available to be viewed by the general public. Feel free to drop by and take a look in person and possibly see something that I don't. It is located at Active Family Chiropractic in Reston.