Tony, that's awful news. I have a pretty good idea how crushed both you and Linda are.
You are a valuable member to this community. Packing it in is out of the question ! Stop for a minute and consider the enjoyment you find in your systems. Whether it's sitting back and observing, or modifying and adjusting. That would leave a void that'd be difficult to fill. You've been cursed with moving things as of late. I've been down that road many times and the losses never get easier. Like you said, they become pets.
Moving systems is always a huge risk. You do everthing you can to do it right and the rest is dependant on luck... :sad:

I think you're right about the Ritteri, though it didn't "slime up" nearly as bad as the "big move". Last night, and still today, my sinuses hurt like hell ! I just figured I was comin' down with a bad cold... :confused: . I wish that's what it was...

Don't make any drastic decissions buddy !!!

Tony,

How are things going since the crash? Have been thinking about you and hope all is well.

I have heard a lot about bowfront seam failures.

In a rectangular tank, if the temperature changes up or down the glass would expand or contract evenly among all 5 panes of glass, thus the seams should not be stressed.

In a bowfront tank, the front pane is longer than the rear pane, therefore it should expand or contract proportionatly more with a temperature change. Over time this small amount of expansion and contraction could stress the seams causing a failure.

That is just a theory but it is the only reason I can figure why bowfronts should fail so much.

If it were me I would try to round up a number of people on line who have had bowfront tank failures and seek a remedy from the manufacturer, or talk to someone about a class-action lawsuit. As I understand it most companies would rather pay up than spend a jillion dollars on legal fees, whether they are right or wrong.

Hi Bev,

The mandarin who I've moved into my other tank is doing fine, although I'm concerned about his long-term prospects in there with the exceptionally hungry 5 other fish in there to compete with (doesn't matter how much I feed them ...). I shoot mysis at the mandarin when I see him and he'll take one or two, but it's a far cry from the 12 of so mysids he'd get per day when he was in the other tank (because the other fish are like lightning on the mysis, whereas with his former tankmates, nobody would let me get close to them with the turkey baster {except him} so it was a breeze to target feed him). I'll have to see how it goes, right now I'm not worried since he seems to be fat and not terribly hungry, but if that changes I might have to try to catch him and put him back in the other tank.

The other tank, other than being mostly empty now, seems to be doing OK now. The perc (probably ocellaris but it doesn't really matter to me) has the 90g to himself and I think he (she by now) is probably a little dotty without some company, so I am considering picking up a small percularis or two to see how that goes.

The anemone has had a few off days since the move but is overall doing OK.

Snails, hermits, conch, other corals (mostly softies), and the perc, all were unaffected by whatever it was that killed the fish.

I had contemplated getting rid of the ritteri but I don't think I'm ready to do that anymore. It's a very large animal and as such there are not too many tanks out there that could do well for it. And since now there is a risk to fishmates if something sets it off, I don't know if I could consciousably (sp? is that even a word??) pass it off to someone else if they didn't know what they were getting themselves into.

My thinking now is that if I ever do get other fish for this tank, and if I ever have to move them again, the fish have to be done in a separate move -- different initial tank, different timing, etc.

Before I had the tank setup I had briefly flirted with the idea of a common sump between my two tanks. :eek: I can only thank my lucky stars now that I had decided against that idea, I don't want to even think about what bullet I dodged there.

... I haven't quite decided if I want to sell the bowfront or keep it and maybe turn it into a vivarium. When I have some time I was going to tackle the issue of resealing it. Interamerican would charge $100 to reseal the tank, or I could try it myself (espescially if it's going to be mostly a terrarium or vivarium anyhow, no big deal if my silicone work looks sloppy, so as long as the leak is actually fixed). But to be honest I don't think the size/shape lends itself real well to any vivarium sp I'm not sure ... I'll have to sleep on that question some more.

That was a close call ... it certainly would have cut down on your maintenance time only having one sump/skimmer etc to deal with so I understand why running one only would have been very tempting ... good thing you did not succumb to temptation :razz:

did you check with the experts over at RC as to what that could have been excreted from the anemone or if they had seen the same phenomenon before ?

I am glad that life has settled back down for you.

I didn't put a post in my own thread, however, I did add a post recounting the experience to Gary Majchrzak's thread regarding his ritteri. He too had an incident over the summer (August IIRC), although in slightly different circumstances, had the same end result: a complete wipeout of all non-anemonefish fish in his tank. In his case his ritteri had wandered too close to the overflow and part of the pedal disk got sucked into it, causing an injury. But in Gary's case I believe he said he actually saw mesenterial filaments free floating in the tank, whereas in my case there was not really anything visible. With a lack of physical evidence, however, I am still convinced that it is the anemone. This is twice now in six months that this setup has been moved, and both times ended up with disastrous results. I know that any time a tank is moved, there is risk; but this goes beyond that.

The anemone had been moved twice before in the past but with no ill effects. However the first time that it was moved it was considerably smaller (5") and the second time, only clownfish were moved along with it.

IT'S A KILLER! :eek: But seriously, it sures gives pause to consider (and reconsider) keeping one of these beasts, or any anemone for that matter. They have wondrous capacities for harm in our little systems - another argument for leaving them in the oceans? ...like we need another.

- - - - - > :lol: :biggrin: :lol:

The thing is though Tony is that I did see stuff floating around in the tank when you were trying to remove his foot from that large rock ... kind of whispy slimy stuff ... maybe that is what Gary was referring to as " mesenterial filaments "

That type of defence seems to be specialized to ritteri's as I saw no evidence of that when I was removing my GBTA from the back wall of my old tank.

I don't think it's the same thing. He's referring to the filament structures within the digestive cavity (you can sometimes see them in the tentacles, or if an anemone is back lit). Basically, "anemone guts." I don't think you would see this get released except in an injury type situation where it would spill out of a tear in the flesh.

Slime is another thing though. But then, many many things slime up when disturbed, it's a fairly common defensive mechanism.

Who knows though. The thing is, we didn't stop to analyze what that stuff was under a microscope, so we'll never truly definitively know. We'll have to accept this as anecdotal/circumstantial evidence at most.