Damn that sucks goat nads Tony :(. Sorry to hear..

$hit Tony, thats just awful!! I've done several treatments without any clam issues. Odd.

Shite Man, sorry to hear about this, I just did a treatment on the week-end with Chemi-Clean and everything appears to be fine, talk about bad luck :cry:

I feel for ya.

So are we talking all clams here ? Even the big fella ? Whats with all the clam disasters lately ? I've always had a clam or two or more and never experienced any problems if we're talking Boyd's chemi-clean. I've used it several times over the years with no regrets. This is just awful, so sorry Tony :sad:

I feel for ya Tony.....really I do:sad:.....I always try and steer peeps away from doing a chemical band-aid type solutions, in favor of trying to figure out whats causing the issue......in your case I think we know whats causing it.....its a new tank.....perhaps the fact that the tank is in its infancy combined with the treatment is what caused the clamcrash?

any chance its expired or something?? sorry to hear about your little buddies i hope it gets better for you:):)cheers

I do agree with you Doug, I was really torn on this but the thing that made me pull the trigger in the end was that it was starting to bring down other livestock - snails who eat cyano die and it was smothering the blue zoas I had bought from Greg a little while ago. I'm not sure if they're recoverable at this point.

Anyhow I'm home now and I guess karma has been kind to me today. The carnage is not as bad as what it sounded like. Definitely dead is my blue spotted squamosa. :cry: My teardrop is gaping badly as is my hippopus. Linda forgot about my small crocea and small maxima so didn't check them when telling me the sitrep over the phone but luckily so far they seem to be OK.

What's happened is when I put my skimmer back online last night, I juryrigged it so that it was sucking hardly any air because it foams up so bad at first startup after a cyano treatment. What I failed to take into account was that the ATO is fed into the skimmer intake (an idea someone told me about that keeps the venturi clear of deposits. It works well but..). I actually did unplug the topup controller thinking that this would be good enough. Anyhow, wrong. What happened is all that suction from the skimmer recirc caused a siphon and emptied the top up reservoir. So the skimmer overflowed like crazy, the 5g bucket I was draining into spilled over so there's water everywhere, smells lovely too, and the sump is filled to the top. It emptied my RO/DI reservoir but since I filled it up on Sundays, it should have no more than 1/2 - 2/3 full at this point so it should only have dumped about 20g into the tank. The salinity has definitely been pulled down but only a few points. That's probably why the clams are gaping although I'm surprised that there is a definitely death on account of the salinity so I'm still wondering if it could have been the cyano treatment.

No cyano though :neutral: yay?

Sorry to hear Tony :sad: Hopefully the cyano stays away and doesn't cause you any more grief.

Sorry to hear this Tony. Don't give up man.

Ah man, real sorry to hear of the issues. Hopefully no more casualties will arise from this. Keep us posted.

give me a shout when you are ready to instruct me on your tank maintenance for your holidays. I am available when you are... til then.

Damn Tony... sorry to hear this.

Any update?

Didn't really have much of a chance to do much of anything this morning before having to head out but as far as I could tell the remaining clams weren't gaping anymore, but pulled in. This could be because as far as they were concerned it was still the middle of the night so hopefully that's all it was.

Mopped up the stinky skimmer water off the floor yesterday and tinkered with the skimmer some more and it seemed to be still behaving. Air cranked way back and flow dialed down and it's still creating a tower of foam.

No idea why the squamosa kicked it. Typical case of "look fine one day" to "totally dead the next day". For all I know it's just coincidence that this happened to that clam, or it was the red slime remover, and maybe it was either the dead clam smell or 1 point drop in salinity that caused the others to gape (or it was the red slime remover but I can't even count how many times I've run one before without any incident). Despite dumping at least 20 gallons RO/DI into the tank, between the larger water volume and maybe most of it dumping out via the skimmer the SG only went from 1.025 to 1.024. I figured that if my standard water change is 24g and it takes 12 cups of salt to make 1.025 then assuming total water volume of 280g it actually needs 5 cups of salt or w/c water at 1.035 to bring that 280g back to 1.025 or spread out over two water changes to bring it up 0.0005 at a time. :neutral: Man it doesn't LOOK like such a big tank when you look at some of others out there but that sure feels like a lot of salt for not a whole lot of change in SG.

But actually what I'm going to do for now is let some of the water evaporate out of the tank and that will drift the SG back up anyhow and I'll see where things are at tonight. It was already down 1" this morning (this cold snap means some extra dry air) and only has about 2.5" ish to go before it's back to normal level.

Tony wow man, that really sucks I know when I talked to you about the red slime stuff my skimmer went nuts for 8 days and i had to do almost a complete water change.

Annnnd my tear drop is toast. :cry:

And then there were 3 ... 15 a year ago, all long-term multi-year individuals some as old as 6 or 7 years ... and poof, just like that, all done. One by one.

What sucks is he's not completely dead but he's past the point of no return, I'll post a picture you can see what I mean .. but I think once you see the inside of the shell because the body has shrunk, that's really it.

Stuck between a rock and a hard place but have to go out of town tomorrow for 2 or 3 days for the sake of the family. If it were my choice I'd stay home and see how it goes because I always cling to the "what if it turns around" faint hope but I can't risk leaving it in there. So I have to do something I really wish I didn't have to do. :cry: But the reef collective is more important than any one individual therein..

:sad: That really sucks, I've never very good at making those choices either. I always want to cling to hope, however it's better to remove it then have it mess up the rest of your tank. Albeit that's easier said then done :sad:

:sad:

very Strange Tony, Sorry to hear you lost your Squamosa but glad everything else is pulling through.
It's always odd when something like this happens. It's possible the changes and treatment where just enough to affect just the one clam. Lets hope so anyway

J

Sorry man :cry:

That makes me wanna blow chunks Tony.....very sorry mang:sad:

So I did pull the teardrop on Saturday before leaving town. :cry: It was one of the hardest things I've had to do in a very long time as it was the largest maxima I had ever known of. But it was clearly gone.

It had been looking a little off for a little while, I had hoped that it might turn around and it had its moments where it looked fine but then other moments where I could see something was not right inside. So I think the treatment may have had nothing to do with it.

The squamosa caught me off guard I did not think anything was amiss with it but honestly it takes so little to do these things in. Again it could have been a case of it not being well for a while and just not really noticing it until the last moment.

Losses aside I'm sort of regretting not doing the treatment earlier, with the cyano gone it's evident the damage it left behind most notably in receded tips on the gorgs (they are a cyano magnet especially when shedding) and the blue zoos I picked up from Greg are toast. Darn it all.

Other than that though tank is looking nice, the red planet I picked up from Lorenzo is looking smashing killer and laying down growth like crazy, a cali tort I've got looks amazing and the pieces I picked up from John are looking awesome too.

I just wish I could take a picture of them that's in focus. They are in some kind of strange dampening field or cloaking device or something because I can take 50 pictures of them and not a one, not a ONE will look anything other than a cat barf.

So you'll have to use your imagination for now. Sorry about that.. :redface:

Glad to hear you've escaped your sps curse Tony! Looking forward to the pics... even cat barf will do =)

Picktchoors!!!

There is a weird dampening effect over some of the corals that completely prevent a picture being in focus of them, no matter what. The tort in particular, even the photos are kind of hard to look at. Guess I need to keep experimenting to find the ideal settings. But here are some non-throwaways from tonights efforts..

Red planet!
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/DSC_0001.jpg

Cali tort
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/DSC_0007.jpg

Supposed to be a blue polyp stylo but seems to be slowing turning pink..
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/DSC_0008.jpg

Rainbow stylo but also seems to be pinkifying..
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/DSC_0010.jpg

Dunkin' duncans.. (danke!)
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/DSC_0012.jpg

Acans..
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/DSC_0013.jpg

MOAR ACANS!!

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/DSC_0014.jpg

Lavender tang, totally underrated tang in my opinion..
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/DSC_0015.jpg

Cleaner shrimp plus survivors of caulerpa damaged Stylo from my 40g. Effecting a recovery (I can see growth) and has gone from brown to .. um .. moar pink. Good think I have a thing for pink stylos!!
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/DSC_0019.jpg

Male bellus angel
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/DSC_0021.jpg

Potter's angel
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/DSC_0023.jpg

Growing fast and darkening up (had bleached a little in a pellet incident over the summer in my 40g)
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/DSC_0025.jpg

Canary wrasse
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/DSC_0026.jpg

Purple sherbet! Yum yum.
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/DSC_0028.jpg

Insert Monty Python accent: Anyone else have something better to do than march up and down the square! The .. PIANO?! Right-oh, off you go .... (Lieutenant tang)
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/DSC_0029.jpg

And this girl needs to be moved over soon. Still chumming with the butterflies and eel in the 115g for now:
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/DSC_0037.jpg

Thanks for looking :)

Great photos Tony! Go SPS go!! :biggrin:

those shots are more than acceptable mang.......in fact they are bordering on kick-ass:biggrin:

Looks great Tony :thumb: I also love lavender tangs, very pretty imo.

I am lik'in everything you have there Tony! Wow your fish are beautiful!

Those photos look great man and so do your colors! Game on!

By Gosh Tony, I think you've got it! SPS thriving in your tank. The curse is broken!

Colours look great!

I have a bit of a theroy about sps keeping. From my expirence when I had a fair amount of LPS and some softies any sps (even birdsnest) would RTN within hours. I had always thought it was because maybe my nitrates were to high or something. However now that I don't have many lps or softies in my tank I am finding that I can keep sps and my nitrates haven't changed so......:noidea: maybe less lps & softies = sps alive?

I have mostly been adding Acans and other softies and the sticks keep looking better lol. I think it's a giant game of chance and you take as many pictures as you can while you're winning. Tony you're winning so snap snap!

can't believe you broke the sps curse. Two thumbs up bud

My old tank had zoas a large colt coral, a lot of large frogspawn, hammer, and torch corals. I'm wondering if it was something more to do with too many large frogspawn/hammer/torch corals. Not really sure but now those large lps corals are gone I can keep some sps, I still have 2 frogspawn and one torch but it's not 6-7 of them like I used to have.

No doubt there is chemical warfare going on in there Laurie. Although tricky, with sufficient carbon and adequate flow throughout the tank softies and SPS can both thrive in the same tank.

Hey Tony,

Sorry to see you had some troubles with your tank but it looks like things maybe on the upswing for you!

Thanks for the kind comments everyone. It has been very nice to see SPS gain a toehold and it's certainly exciting to think of the possibilities down the road. Disappointing about the clams but pragmatically I think these things do happen.

As for the chemical warfare, I do think this is a possibility. I do also think that fish choices may not have helped matters (I know now, for example, that my butterflies are not completely innocent in matters regarding SPS death, although you'd think munched polyps would not account for massive RTN'ing but who knows).

Still lots to learn. I'm doing zeovit with this setup but picking up some frags from lobsterboy - although the corals are doing well overall, they did not retain their colour. There is a peach milli which is brown but with blue tips - the pink prostata has stayed pink but it is not the popping pink/fuscia it was in his tank - and the yellow pocillipora and yellow acros - while still "mostly" yellow - are nowhere near the highlighter brightness that they were in his tank. Is this lighting? Or a function of different water or simply sulking that they are in a new setup? I hope to seek out some knowledge in this area. I did have SPS in the past but it's been so long I may as well be a complete noob in this area. Sooo .. let the real fun begin I guess. :)

So today I moved over the crosshatch trigger from the cube. I've been meaning to for a while but I wanted to do it on a weekend so I could be around to deal with the catching, acclimating, and then the inevitable subsequent watching "is everyone OK???"... And then, one thing after another, weekend after weekend, never an opportunity arose. So this morning I thought, better try this now or it will be yet another weekend slip by.

I did a netless transfer using my fish trap. What a much nicer way to do this over chasing with a net, there didn't seem to be much stress at all, just maybe a little patience while waiting for the fish to swim in.

First I tried baiting it with mysis, but that didn't work out too well, too small I think. So I tried some krill and that was the magic: she swam in within a minute after adding that. I pulled out the trap and poof, 45 minutes later she was in the new tank.

First she found a good spot to lock herself in with her trigger fin. Solid as a rock, just watching the world around here. All the while the cleaner shrimp were all over her. :lol: Once in a while she'd twitch them off but they'd come right back. Anyhow 30 minutes after being let out of the bucket she was swimming around as if nothing was ever the matter and that this was her new home all along. No issues with any other fish at all, although I wasn't expecting much trouble since they were all together in the same tank before.

Here she is! In her "blue" colour mood. I'll have to try to get a photo when she's in a green or yellow mood. It blows my mind how much she can change.

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/IMG_1906.jpg

This one shows the red in her fins a little more:
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/IMG_1918.jpg

This one would have been a great shot of her but the lieutenant tang swam into view as I pressed the shutter button. Ended up being a perfect shot of the tang. What are the odds eh! If I tried to get a shot of the tang it would never work out like that.
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/IMG_1905.jpg

Some random other shots since I had the camera out:
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/IMG_1922.jpg

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/IMG_1913.jpg

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/IMG_1908.jpg

Frags are all starting to take off..
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/IMG_1914.jpg

One of the BTA's has shown up (way in the back there):
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/IMG_1912.jpg

I had to spend a few days out of town this week for meetings for work. On the way home from the airport I decided to take the opportunity to take 5 minutes of "me" time (since I never have any free time anymore without kids in tow) and stop in at Gold Aquariums since it's not far out of the way home from the airport. Turns out they had just landed a nice shipment of corals so ended up walking out of there with a couple new things. Ran into 24storm at the store, it was nice to catch up with him and say hi.

Bali:
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/IMG_1902.jpg

Aussies (two of them, they are both probably the same coral, the colour isn't showing up quite right, I'm excited for their potential though, and both of them have little red acro crabs):
http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/IMG_1904.jpg

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/IMG_1904.jpg

http://i305.photobucket.com/albums/n...f/IMG_1910.jpg

Wow Tony - That's really starting to look nice.

I really like your fish trap idea. Might have to use that myself.

- Brad

Unfortunately when I was down stateside this week my wife texted me mid-week that yet one more of my clams had died. :( Bummer. The clam was looking fine when I left but I guess that's how that goes. .. fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, fine, dead. :( I'm down to two. No idea if their number is up soon too or if the serial-clam-death stops with this last one. I am wondering if maybe the problem is the zeovit and there isn't enough nitrate in the water for them.. No idea but I'm thinking I'm going to do some reading up on that to see if anyone else has ever wondered if there might be a correlation.

Things are looking good Tony.

Thanks Brad! And yeah, the trap is great. Only thing is it's large-ish so a little cumbersome to work with and maneuver into a tank. I had to get it right into a corner in my cube to get it to fit right but once I had it pinned in place it worked out OK. I used a couple magnets to help hold it up, it was a super solid grip but better than flopping around in the current otherwise the fish are not going anywhere near the thing.

If you want to borrow it sometime let me know. :)