Have fun! And yes, the 'Nucks have to start playing better. This win one/lose one crap is no fun. Most of the other teams are fighting for a playoff spot and playing with an edge. We don't really have to give-er so much and it's showing in their play. Not to worry though, they'll get it done when they need to.

Was a great game today, I am positive there was more Canuck fans in the place then King fans, place went wild every time the Nucks scored, hope tomorrows game is even better.

Well we made it home from our epic weekend LA road trip to some bad news, the Idol was found dead on Sunday morning, kids were devastated as he was the new favorite, no idea what happened, apparently he ate Saturday night with everyone else and was found Sunday laying on the bottom, I looked him over and there is no signs of trauma and they said nobody was bothering him so a little confused and upset as to what happened. :(

Aww that sucks! He was such a beautiful fish.

Damn! Very sorry to hear this Dave.

Sorry to hear this. Moorish Idols sure are touchy fish :neutral:

very frustrating as all has been going so well with that tank and he seemed to be fitting in fine and eating well, even took extra care with acclimation and introduction, never fails seems it is always the favorite fish or coral that goes first if something isn't right, doing water changes today as the reef is not looking so hot either, looks like the good intentions of my loving wife and the feed extra so they grow lots while he is gone plan didn't exactly pan out, don't know exactly how much went into the reef but the seahorses had way too much. That will teach me for going away and having a good time.

Thats too bad Dave. Its really $hitty when you lose nice fish. Hope the trip was good otherwise.

Just a suggestion but whenever I ask someone (a non-reef someone) to feed my tank, I always portion everything. Every day's (dry) food is in a film cannister marked with the day. I don't feed wet while I'm away but those who do usually are feeding cubes so that's already portioned.

This has the added advantage that I can be sure that no days were missed.

I'd like an idol one day (I'll call him Billy...Billy Idol !) but all the stories from those far more experienced than I leave me wondering if it will ever come to be.

Came home from work tonight, 4 dead fish and the rest covered in velvet, WTF, everyone was fine last night and there has been no changes to the routine in 2 years, no recent additions and no warning to the pending disaster. If I suffer a total wipe out tank will be shut down, anyone wanting large pieces of live rock drop me a line, I will leave tank run fallow for a few months to ensure no parasite transfer, watch for the for sale thread, cheers all.

That sucks. Do you think maybe some contaminant got into the water? Like a glue or soap residue? Or maybe something was accidentally knocked in? I hope at lease some of them can recover. Are you running carbon?

Unlikely, top is covered as is the sump, only thing that goes in is food and I use fresh chopped seafood and pe mysis, same that goes in the other three tanks and they are fine so I don't know, just added some fresh carbon and changed out the bulbs on the uv sterilizers, don't have the ability to quarantine due to size and number of fish and don't like to medicate the display (not that I could afford to medicate 1000 gallons) so it's a waiting game now, garlic in the food, cleaner wrasse working ot and fingers crossed.

I got my fingers crossed for you too man.

Dave, that's terrible news! WTF!
Any new additions to the reef? I know you were using water from the reef for water changes in the FOWLR.

:sad: Sorry to hear, are you sure it's velvet? Hope the rest pull though it would be sad to see such a big system shut down :sad:

Sorry to hear about your situation. :( Here's a bit of a long shot...adding carbon and new UV bulbs around the same could have caused enough changes in the water to stress the fish. Not much you can do about it now, but hope for the best. If it really is marine velvet though, you're probably hooped. :(

Only lost two last night but the rest are looking rough, the snapper still has a great appetite, he has eaten 6 clowns, 4 chromis and my mated pair of royal grammas in the last 24 hours, guess they were getting too week to outrun him, that it the one fish I won't miss but my luck is he will be the sole survivor. The next few days will tell where things are going.

That is not good news at all. Good luck on the next few days!

Dave thats terrible news. It sure seems like when things go bad in that tank they go bad in a big way. I hope that everything turns out ok as i would hate for you to have to shut down such a cool tank that you put so much effort into.

Crap! I know several local reefers down here (including myself) suffered big losses from Marine Velvet in the last year/year & a half. Hope yours pulls through.

Anthony

I felt like this was a good read... this may be what happened to your Idol...
Some general information on Velvet
It may have been in your tank and when you added the Idol (after having been bounced around from tank to tank for a couple months and been kinda stressed) it gets introduced to your tank that may have had velvet in the tank but the fish are okay with it cause it's not too bad or the fish had it but it wasn't too bad, but the Idol got stressed. It comes in gets the Velvet/loses the battle and you get a huge explosion of dinospores with the added stress of the new tank mate, Velvet outbreak... Just my 2 cents, because you seemed concerned that nothing had changed in a long time but this still happened, I though you might appreciate another view.

From another site "diatomaceous earth filters may also be economically employed to control this parasitic disease" It kills them in the tomont stage. Or a 50 micron filter...

What's the word today Dave?......... (keeping my fingers crossed)

Very, very sad indeed :cry:

I think the list of what's left is going to be short, lost the blue and kole Tangs today, not counting on this ending well for any of the others, they are looking rough, only positive is they are eating well and behavior is reasonably normal.

Fingers and toes crossed that this turns out OK. I was hoping to get to see the tank on one of my trips over to PR......sad if it ends poorly and there is no more tank:cry:

I doubt I would sell the tank, limited market for something this big and everybody would want it for nothing, If I have a total wipeout I will leave it alone for a few months before making any decision to tear down or restock. I do have a very nice blue face angel that was bought as a tiny juvi to replace the one I lost last year that is fat and happy in a 90 that will require a larger home at some point, Here's hoping for a monster tax return, there was at least 4 k worth of fish in there.

I hope it turns out ok for you
good luck

Wow .. I'm so very sorry to learn of your losses...

When it rains it pours, my wave box on the reef packed it in today, 3rd time in just over 2 years, what a POS. Amazing how much the flow in the tank changes without the wave, don't think I will waste my time getting it fixed again, just crank up the MP 40s. Can't wait to see what happens next.

:sad:

Wow! So sorry for all your troubles, will keep my fingers crossed that nothing more goes wrong. :sad:

Well Dave, how has the summer been treating you and your tank? I hope things are on the upturn for you. :)

Been a busy summer, ongoing home renos, tanks are holding ther own, things seem to be stable so I have been reluctant to make any changes, perhaps close to Christmas I will try a few new fish and see how it goes.

Thanks for the update! Care to snap a pic or two? :D

It's been quite some time since the last update.

Have things improved? I read up on this while build a couple days ago, and the tank is gorgeous and definitely INSPIRING!

Please give us a couple of pics and an update.

Just got my first bill with the new Hydro smart meter, $870.00
If the next bill is not dramatically lower this tank will be shut down, anyone interested in very nice, very large pieces of clean pest and algae free live rock pm me, will also have approx 300 lbs of live sand. I highly suspect there will be an epic tank tear down comming real soon.

Ouch!!!!....thats seems a touch on the extreme side

Good GOD!!!!!

what was it with the old meter?

Ya, received the bill this morning, my vision has only just returned from the stroke I had thus the late post, funny thing is I had one of the old analog meters till last year, they upgraded to a digital and my bill went from 250-500 and now with the smart meter up another 70% time to make some cuts.

The first bill I received after the smart meter was installed was really high (just over 200) but the next one was unusually low $87..... hopefully the 3rd will be somewhat realistic lol