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.
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.
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!)