120gal mixed predatory reef tank

[whatcaneyedo]

Its been a bad year for clams in my tank. I've lost 4 now out of the 7 that I started the year with. The large maxima and crocea I had for about 5 years each while the squamosa and little maxima I only had for a year or two. I believe that the squamosa may have carried a disease or something that infected the others as it was the most recent addition. From day one the squamosa would exhibit classic signs of pinch mantle. In total I think I gave it 4 fresh water dips which would work for a little while and then the symptoms would return. I also routinely inspected all of them for parasitic snails but never found any.

What really confuses me though is how all of them died. The large maxima looked pinched on a Monday in April and was dead on the Friday. The Squamosa looked pinched for about 5 months starting in the Spring and finally died in October. The following day the crocea which looked perfectly normal the night before as it had for years was dead in the morning. Two weeks later the small maxima died basically the same way the big one had.

The three clams I have left are a 5 year old Crocea, 4 year old Derasa and 2 year old Maxima.

On the plus side the tank continues to look great and everything else is growing almost out of control.

[Delphinus]

I feel your pain, I lost several clams this year including my oldest ones (one was over 6 years in my care. ) It seems once one of them gets something it transfers to others fairly easily.

Nevertheless the tank still looks fantastic, great colours.

[lastlight]

Sorry to hear about your clams. Amazing FTS. Love the green on that cap. Not sure if mine is just a different strain or what but it's such a pale green...makes me jealous!

[zum14]

Originally Posted by lastlight

Sorry to hear about your clams. Amazing FTS. Love the green on that cap. Not sure if mine is just a different strain or what but it's such a pale green...makes me jealous!

Tell me about it! I have a frag of that very cap. It grows like crazy but I have yet to get it that green.....

[whatcaneyedo]

All of my bulbs are 250W 14K Phoenix MH. I'm not sure if thats all there is too it of or if its a water quality issue as well.

[lastlight]

Do you dose anything other than Ca,Alk,Mg?

[whatcaneyedo]

I've got a small assortment of things I use every once and a while. Once every week or two I might use Lugol's, Selcon, Vit Chem or Kent Garlic. Each week I add some magnesium salts to my water change water. Then every couple of days I'll feed Coral Frenzy. Kalkwasser and a Calcium Reactor do the rest. I haven't added baking soda or calcium chloride in months and I only breifly tried some Pro Bio products and Vertex bio pellets earlier this summer.

[whatcaneyedo]

My Tunze ATO has begun to act up this month for the first time in 4 years. For some reason it doesn't always stop topping off once the water level returns to the bottom of the photo eye. So what I've done is add another float switch to my controller along with some more program language so that if the water level reaches the float switch the controller will shut off the tunze for 30 min. While doing this I also added a command to shut off the ATO for 30 min whenever the Kalk reactor mixing pump comes on. This way freshly mixed kalk water isn't being pumped into my tank anymore.

Overall my program looks like this now:
If Power 020 Then LT1 OFF
If Power 020 Then LT2 OFF
If Time > 00:00 Then WP1 ON
If Time > 00:00 Then ALM OFF
If Time > 00:00 Then SKM ON
If Time > 00:00 Then ATO ON
If Time > 18:00 Then FWT ON
If Time > 19:00 Then FWT OFF
Max Change 005 M Then WP1 OFF
Max Change 020 M Then LT1 OFF
Max Change 020 M Then LT2 OFF
Max Change 030 M Then ATO OFF
If Sun 060/-120 Then LT1 ON
If Sun 120/-060 Then LT2 ON
If Moon 000/000 Then MON ON
If Temp > RT+1.3 Then COL ON
If Temp < RT+1.0 Then COL OFF
If Temp > RT+1.3 Then FAN ON
If Temp < RT+1.0 Then FAN OFF
If Temp < RT+0.7 Then HET ON
If Temp > RT+1.0 Then HET OFF
If Temp > RT+3.0 Then LT1 OFF
If Temp > RT+3.0 Then LT2 OFF
If Temp > RT+3.0 Then ALM ON
If Temp < RT+-1.0 Then ALM ON
If Temp < RT+-9.9 Then HET OFF
OSC 003/255 ON/OFF Then KAL OFF
If pH2 > 06.60 Then CO2 ON
If pH2 < 06.50 Then CO2 OFF
If pH < 07.60 Then CO2 OFF
If pH < 07.60 Then ALM ON
If pH > 08.60 Then ALM ON
If pH > 08.40 Then ATO OFF
If Switch1 OPEN Then ATO OFF
If Switch1 CLOSED Then ATO ON
If Switch2 OPEN Then WP1 OFF
If Switch2 OPEN Then ALM ON
If Timer KAL = ON Then ATO OFF



New pictures
Top right to show off the montipora colonies.


Top left to show off the green acro


Probably my all time favorite clam. Fortunately its also one of my few surviving ones.



These two Pocillopora colonies started growing on my returns about a year ago all on their own by either spawning or polyp bailout.

[whatcaneyedo]

I'm happy to report that the expensive little frags that I bought from Oceanic Corals last September (5 months ago) are doing quite well.