I feel your pain man, i flooded the house 3 times in 2 weeks about 2 months ago. Twice in the basement and once upstairs where the tank is when I had a Ato back syphon from the sump and it put about 8 gallons of salty kalk water onto the hardwood and out into the carpeted hallway.

And you still have the tank? Wow! I figured she'd maybe hold your head in the tank until you stop bubbling, and then put your tank up on Kijii. :mrgreen:

Brutal :biggrin:

Sssssshhh. Don't give her any bright ideas. Actually none of my mishaps have ever cost me a trip to Mexico either.

glad to hear it wasn't a complete disaster!

Yesterday i was pumping some RO water from the basement to my top off reservoir under the tank. I stood there for a minute wondering why no water was coming out of the hose.. d'oh!! The water was being pumped into the furnace room because I forgot to hook up the hose to the pump.

Ha ha! Touche

I swear my captive-bred Yellow Assessor is the toughest little SOB I've ever seen! I got this fish 2 months ago and he's already survived three traumatic experiences.
Upon arrival I floated his bag in the QT tank. Somehow he jumped out of a small hole in the top of the bag and did a five foot header to the floor, where I nearly stepped on him when I came back to mix some tank water with the bag water. I picked him up and plopped him into the tank. 24 hours later he has Ich! Grrrrr. Obviously caught it at the LFS. Treated him with Cupramine and he remained in QT for 8 weeks. After the 8 weeks he was fat and healthy so into the 90g he goes. The Coral Beauty, (the little dink), immediately gives him a hard time and the Assessor spends most of his time hiding under a large Torch Coral coming out at feeding time only. After a few days the CB accepts him and everything is fine. Came home from work today and go to change the filter sock in the sump and find the Assessor in it. I don't know why I looked in it but I'm glad I did: Otherwise he would have gone through the washing machine in a few days. Pop him back into the tank and away he goes on his merry way. If anyone is looking for an indestructible little fish I highly recommend these little guys. Can't kill them!


P.S. I betcha the little bugger would have made it through the washing machine too. :mrgreen:

Ha Ha that funny because I have found my clown goby in my filter sock twice. The first time i changed the sock and just had it sitting in a large bowl while i was doing other stuff. about 5 minutes later i took the sock outside to give it a rinse off with the hose and found the goby in the sock. AArgh run back upstairs and toss him in the tank. Did the same thing about a month later, now i always look inside as soon as i change it.

Yeah, after this I'll be checking it every time.

Wow, for me those socks come out so dirty I usually HAVE to invert them and do a quick prerinse. I figure if I'm going to do that, I might as well pick out all the 'pods and worms and brittlestars and whatever else might be worth saving and I toss them back into the tank. Sometimes there is indeterministic goo that makes me wonder just what the heck it is, ... that stuff I don't save.

Have found a few fish doing this!! Usually the smaller ones. The eel made it into the sump a couple times early on which tells me he must have gotten out of the bag somehow on his own, that would have been interesting to see as I sort of imagine that he would fly out of there.

BTW Lance I was looking at BRS and noticed they have 4" 200 micron bags, both felt and mesh - they say the mesh clog less easily so I might give those a whirl, you might want to check them out too?

Thanks Tony. I'll definitely give them a try. I order from BRS quite regularly.

Precipitate. How come? Help!

Lately I've been getting a lot of precipitate build-up in the return pump, (Mag 7). The PH's in the DT have no build-up at all. I just tested and the params are: Ca: 410; Alk: 7; Mg: 1290; pH: 8.0 These numbers stay quite constant from week to week. I use the two-part from BRS and dose via 2x Drew's Dosers. Both dosers drip into the return section of the sump; calcium in the morning and alkalinity in the evening. Is it possible that there is not enough water movement in the sump? I estimate flow through the sump at about 280 GPH. Any ideas?

P.S. I'm using exactly the same set up on the 225g with no problems, so it's not a problem with the two-part mix.

I was having the same problem, bumped the mag level up to 1400 and changed the one dosing line to the overflow so it mixed better, solved it for me.

Thanks Dave. I'll try upping the Mg. I used to keep it at about 1350 but I found the SPS does better with it a little lower. I might try a bigger pump for the return and get a little more flow through the sump as well.

Man-eating Trigger!

Thinned a few corals in the 90g this morning and was mounting these frags in the 225 when suddenly Bubba decided he wanted to sample a little human flesh. Bastard nailed my pinkie finger and drew blood! This comes as a surprise as I have held him in my hand many times. Maybe my pinkie was sticking out from my hand and looked like a nice fat worm? Christ, it's bad enough having a blood-thirsty mama Fire Clown; now I have to contend with a 6" Trigger with a mouth full of big teeth. I just hope the Tuskfish never wants to sample me, those fangs could do some serious damage. It's a sad state of affairs when one has to don Kevlar to work in his tank.


http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/o...9/IMG_0973.jpg

My mom used to put those kinda books up high on the shelves when we were kids so we didn't get corrupted and stuffs. Glad home life is exciting buddy =)

Ouch! My triggers like to bite fingers too, but only when Doug sticks his fingers in the tank and wiggles them around :lol:

http://i261.photobucket.com/albums/i...r/PA310764.jpg

Hehe. Brett, I swear you could find smut in a nursery rhyme!

Laurie, I think that's what I must have been doing: Wiggling my fingers.

Lance that better be a compliment because I've taken it as such!

Absolutely! You're the word-a-magician! And a very punny guy! :biggrin:

AND THEN THERE WERE THREE!

I purchased 12 Bluegreen Chromis two years ago and now they are down to three. I'll never keep them again. Nasty little fish; always picking on each other. I read somewhere that if they are fed small amounts at least five times per day the aggression may lessen. I tried this for two weeks and never saw any difference in their behaviour. I've always fed my fish well anyway so i think they're just plain nasty. Either that or the spawning male is screwing them to death. They spawn every week without fail and with a surprisingly large amount of eggs. For anybody who's thinking of getting some I'd advise against it.

Here's all twelve together taken back in February '09

http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/o...k/IMG_2618.jpg

And here is a typical spawn with the male guarding the eggs.

http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/o...k/IMG_1019.jpg

I have bought a total of 18 over the years (i'm a slow learner :lol: ) and I am down to 1 healthy, happy chromis .....who is over 6yrs old now come to think of it

I only started with 3 but have two. My percentage isn't bad lol. They get along great too and no spawning.

Tank has come a long way (one of the nicest FOWLR out there) I can't remember how many chromis I have purchased but they always thin out to just a pair.

Maybe that's the way to do it. I'm down to three and have three tanks. One per tank = happy Chromis!

Got back today from vacation and after 17 days away from the tanks I was a little bit worried as I have a new tank-sitter. He did a good job but there are a few issues, (none of which are his doing).
The 225g is in pretty good shape, other than the skimmer needed a good cleaning and the GBTA decided to move and sting the hell out of a large Pocci colony. Damn thing! The Pocci is salvageable though.
The 90g didn't fair so well. :sad:
Firstly, the timer for one of the dosing pumps packed it in at some time while I was away and alk is at 4. Stupid POS timer! Dosing manually for now until I get another timer.
More worrisome though, my large pink Monti Cap is in bad shape. About half of it, from the center out, has no flesh and the edges of the bleached areas are sloughing off when blown with a turkey baster. All other corals look fine, including Acros. Monti-eating Nudis? The Cap is in the center of the tank so I can't get a close enough look at it. Tomorrow after work I'm going to break off the entire 12" colony, have a good look-see, frag the good parts, dip them, and put them in the frag tank for observation.

As for the vacation, we had a great time except for the fact that I ended up in a Mexican hospital for a brief stay. :redface: We took some snorkling/diving pics and will post them in a few days when I have time. (a few were taken specially for you Tony)

Oh yeah. I had an interesting incident with a large Barracuda. I swam around a large rock structure and came face to face with a large mouth full of teeth. I'm guessing he was about 5' long and as big around as my thigh. It wasn't the least bit afraid of me. As I swam around him he turned with me so as to always face me. I turned and swam slowly away; looking back I saw it following me, staying about 15 feet behind. That was pretty unnerving so I headed for shallow water. I'm guessing it followed me for about 5 minutes. I didn't hit the beach running and screaming like a little girl but I do admit to thinking the beach wasn't getting closer fast enough for my liking. I went back to the same area several times later (just to prove to myself I could) but never saw it again......... (thank Christ for that!)

Glad to hear you still got in the water after your ordeal over there! Too bad about the monti but hopefully you can salvage anything. After that it's only time =)

That is freaky about the cuda...brings me back to my last trip to mexico and I stumbled upon a school of large tarpons. Not being an ID whiz I just saw a bunch of 5 - 6 foot fish maybe 20 feet away and I seriously almost shat myself.

Welcome back Lance!
Hows your ear doing? Hope the plane ride didn't aggravate it too much.

Those barracudas are scared of nothing. I had a similar experience while snorkeling one trip out there. I was definitely not too thrilled when the cuda gave me the stare down without flinching. Lucky for me he didn't feel like following though.. :smile:

Glad the affair with the cuda turned out alright. They are scary when that big.
What part of Mexico?

Ear seems to be pretty good now Brett. Flight home kinda hurt though.
As for the Cap, it was getting too big and I was thinking of fragging some good sized chunks from it. Guess I have to now.

I'm not exactly the most experienced underwater guy and I always wondered what I'd do if I ran into something scary down there. Would I be brave or a chicken ****? I guess I fall somewhere in between Rocky Balboa and Richard Simmons. :mrgreen:

Caribbean side. Near Akumal.

Glad to be back. The ear's pretty good.
Yeah, no fear in those fishies. I wish I had the camera with me but the wife had it at the time. Of course, I probably wouldn't have thought to get any pics. More interested in getting the hell away from it.

Welcome back buddy, I thought it had been kinda quiet around here lately. Next time your over I will show you my picture of the school of barricuda that my son and I swam through when I was in the Bahamas last summer. Must have been a thousand of them and then when we came out the other side we wound up right in the lap of a 5' reef shark. Whoo Hooo fun times!

Wow! Sounds scary......... I mean exciting!

I forgot to mention how many Lionfish I saw. I knew they were getting to be a real problem in the Atlantic, but I didn't realize just how many there are. In some areas I snorkeled in there was literally a Lionfish under every other rock ledge. As a reasonable guess I would say I counted over thirty of them in an area no larger than 1500 sq ft.

So this is what I came home to from my vacation:

As you can see the big pink Cap is about 50% dead. I was thinking maybe Mont-eating Nudis but I couldn't see good enough as the Cap is in the center of the tank. I broke off a good sized chunk and examined it; but found nothing. Any ideas?

http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/o...1/IMG_2317.jpg


After fragging, this is what I'm left with. I dipped all the frags in a freshwater bath and then a coral dip. They will remian in Qt for awhile until I'm sure they're ok.

http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/o...1/IMG_2323.jpg


This is what that part of the tank looks like now with the cap removed. Although I have had that cap for 3 years and grown it from a frag colony to a nice sized colony, it was actually getting too big and shading out my Crocea. It hurts to lose it but now I have space for more corals. :wink:

http://i371.photobucket.com/albums/o...1/IMG_2320.jpg

More space is always good, sorry the monti didn't do well though. Glad the barracuda didn't get the better of you, and that you had a good trip over all :biggrin:

Thanks Laurie. Yeah we had a good time in spite of a few not-so-nice incidents. I can't figure out what happened to the Cap. All other corals are fine, including other Montis.