400 gallon project

[untamed]

With little fanfare, the tank had it's 2nd anniversary recently. Unfortunately, it seems that I've spent more time lately hauling OUT giant pieces of dead/dying coral than anything else.

I look back and it really doesn't feel like the tank has progressed anywhere for over 6 months now. Every tank parameter that I can check seems fine and I've even made progress on raising my average pH considerably. The mystery is that some coral continues to do very well, while others just stop all growing and decline slowly. Without growth, any damaged area on the coral eventually spreads and the coral dies. Flesh between polyps thins and dies and the very last part to go is actually the individual polyps themselves.

I'm experimenting with various dips. Since some of the coral is thriving, I'm pretty sure now that there isn't anything with water conditions that I can improve.

So...I'm really in the process of removing every coral that isn't healthy and just ditching it. This has resulted in removal some colonies that I have had for 10 years or more.

Meanwhile, the fish are quite happy and continue to grow. If you've skipped all the blah..blah so far, here are some fish pictures!

"Freckles" is just plain huge!


"Ripple" has finally turned into a real Atlantic BLUE tang and is now significantly larger than the Achilles Tang.


"Lance" has also grown considerably and is now probably the 2nd largest fish in the tank.
(spots you might notice are algae on the glass in front of him)


"Moe" Getting more fancy every day, although somebody shortened his bottom tail streamer recently...