monkeydad

Here is the tank after another nine months. This is what it grew to before I recently started taking it down for a move to Phoenix. As you can see, the GSP was really taking over! I put in a Tunes wave pump (the magnetic/wireless one) really awesome. A small Koralia steady pump Upgraded the stock main pump to a 900gpm one BioCube skimmer Bag of carbon changed regularly Changed the back actinic to a 50/50 white/actinic I can't wait until we settled into our new house and set up a (much) larger system. Thanks for all the help!

I stumbled upon a way to get rid of bubble algae. At first, I would p#*!k it with a long, skinny, sharpened, solid siphon tube attached to a syringe, sucking up the gooey inside so as not to spread it. This worked okay, but it still let some of the gooey insides out. I left it alone, until one bubble got to be about 3-4mm, and I was curious, so I touched it. I discovered it had a hard shell.... Hmm.... So I wiggled it, and it popped right off the rock! I tossed it out. Another piece had grown, this one about 6mm (pretty big), so I tried to pop it out too. It was more difficult, and required very gently, patiently wiggling it back and forth until it popped out too. So far I've been lucky in that each piece that's grown was reachable by hand. I've hand-removed all of my bubble algae, and have not seen any in over two months! BTW, pick them off when they are less than 5mm or so, the shells on the smaller diameter are harder, and you can wiggle them with more force than the larger ones.

Wow. I've got a large one also, in my BC14. I've decided to leave it in there, it's very interesting. It is very bold, and comes out in the daytime to feed on detritus on the sand bed. He pokes around the rubble. I've grown quite fond of him! So far I have not observed any "bad" behavior from him.

We have one that is approaching that size. He/it is very bold, and comes out all the time during the day. It is the best detritus eater I have! He poke out about half-way, and munches on the sand surface. I really like it! Great pic thanks.

Thanks all. I think it is lympho as well. I'd like to scrape it, but that fish is as fast as the Millinium Falcon, and as maneuverable as an F1 car! I really don't want it to infect the percula that's in there with it.... I'll leave it in the main tank, stay on top of params, and feed it well. Just gonna haveta watch and see. Sam, are you sure it will get worse? I was thinking I could take better care of him if he was alone and getting fed etc. etc. ...I leave town for six days, I come back, and my tank looks like H-E-double hockey sticks, the water is off, and my damsel has the clap! WTHO?? ...I did a thorough cleaning and water change before leaving too...

My YT blue damsel has a virus/fungus/infection/parasite. My LFS owner thinks is a virus, a fairly common one, and that the virus has no cure... It is possible that it is something treatable, but without removing the fish and bringing it to someone who can get a sample and look at it under a microscope, identification by visual means seems to me hit-and-miss because so many illnesses look similar, but they have different treatment regimens. Here is the best photo I can muster... I do not have a cycled hospital tank. I do have a 5g tank with hood (light, filter, pump) that I can set up with just my existing tank water. Choices: I can try several treatment methods over the next month (each unsuccessful attempt is surely going to cause stress for the fish). I can give it away to a fellow reefer who can take it (unlikely). I can euthanize the fish. I cannot leave this fish in my tank for obvious reasons. If it is the virus my LFS owner thinks, it has no cure, and is not fatal-usually, if the fish stays totally healthy-but is communicable. I'm leaning on euthanasia. What do you more experienced reefers make of this situation?

VEry useful!! I'd like to share one with all of you. My wife is a nurse anesthetist, and I asked here to bring home some syringes. 3ml for dosing small amounts 20ml for target feeding 60ml for cleaning: I found that injecting the sandbed gently with tankwater turns the sand over very nicely, gets the detritus into suspension, and lets me get rid of it with the water change I do right after.

Why 'wet' skimming? I thought the most efficient way to run a protein skimmer is to run it so that it makes lots of bubbles with as little water as possible. THanks!

zygote, thanks for the original. its interesting to read he used gravel, but more recent advise is to use fine-grained aragonite

Thanks dbartco and sen, I'll leave it. It is sloughing off a clear globulous slime-strands (maybe a spawn?), and the tentacles are turning brown, as if burned. I feel horrible:cry: I have had high phosphates, despite religious water changes. I put a macroalgae in the tank behind my rockscape to eat it up. The phosphates have dropped from.50 to .25 and I hope to see it go to normal soon. I fed it, and it perked up a bit, but after an hour, it started looking worse again...I fed him Rod's Coral Blend.

1 U-shaped Coralife 10k 24watt florescent 1 U-shaped Coralife actinic

Good idea trockafella. I don't like that the dead matter flew all around my tank though... I did a partial change last night when it happened.

Stock BC lights. What does the spawning look like?

It is a long tentacle plate. I learned about the sandbed preference yesterday. It's in it's original place on the sand where it was happy before. Thanks.

We'll see what happens. It was stressed some, but in the last 24 hours it's flesh turned into a brown jelly as described in my coral book. It happened very fast. Stated treatment was a fresh water dip. Params are as in my above post. I'll give it another 24hrs.