Quarantine 40-50 fish from existing 500 gallon reef

Jeffdstafford · Feb 21, 2017

Thanks Humble, got one on order.

Since I've never used Cuprisorb, I didn't realize how small the particles were..I did manage to rig a system though out of a mesh filter sock and zip tie, and threw that inside my media reactor. I'll let that run for a bit and will toss in the poly filter when it arrives to get any leftover copper out.

monkiboy · Feb 21, 2017

Jeffdstafford said:
Thanks Humble, got one on order.

Since I've never used Cuprisorb, I didn't realize how small the particles were..I did manage to rig a system though out of a mesh filter sock and zip tie, and threw that inside my media reactor. I'll let that run for a bit and will toss in the poly filter when it arrives to get any leftover copper out.

you can use the poly filter for your cartridge in the reactor. I just cut out some circles of the poly filter and use on each end of the media as a "screen" and another way to force water through it.

Jeffdstafford · Feb 21, 2017

Thanks for the tip!

tj w · Mar 3, 2017

How's it going Jeff?

Jeffdstafford · Mar 3, 2017

Thanks for checking in TJ; I've been lazy on posting here as there hasn't been much going on, but there will be soon! So in trying to remove the copper from the water, I ran carbon for a while with no success, so I ran 500ml of Cuprisorb and a polyfilter, and that has me down to .2ppm currently. I've got a few more polyfilters arriving in the mail tonight, so 1 more should get the remaining copper out of the system. I plan on starting PraziPro this weekend, and should have some squeaky clean fish after that's done. Also all the fish seem to be doing much better now that the copper is all but gone; they are a lot more active and seem to have a little skip in their step now; thankfully no more deaths since the weird white spot death of the Naso a week or two ago.

From there, my plans are still up in the air. I'm doing a 3 month fallow period in the display tank, which ends on April 1st. I've also got a couple hundred pounds of live rock I'm curing currently for the tank as well, so there's a lot that is waiting to go in the tank. The new house we are in the process of buying has hit a snag on the seller's end, so not sure what's going to happen with it. I'm going to keep the fish in the QT setup as long as the house purchase is still looking good, as I think it would be more stress for the fish and myself to plop them back in the tank, then tear the tank down and catch them all again a month later.

I'm really, really hoping the house goes through, as we are having an absurdly warm winter here in west Texas, as it's been close to 90 degrees the past week here, and so as spring progresses, it's going to get harder to keep the QT water temp down out in the garage. I'm easily maintaining 78 degrees currently, but much warmer, and I'll have to start using fans to cool, which means high humidity in the garage=everything in the garage will rust, and I do not want to deal with that any more than I already have.

I'll update on the Prazi progress once it gets going; hope everyone has a great weekend!

tj w · Mar 3, 2017

Jeff, I hope all goes well with the new house for you guys. Hopefully everything will get resolved soon. Yes, the weather has been crazy warm here this winter. I'm thinking we're in for another long hot dry summer.

Empress · Mar 3, 2017

Hope your house goes thru for you and I would take your weather over Idaho's any day! I just received an invert/algae order that was delivered almost frozen! The package was packed with only newspapers and without warm packs and the water in the bags was so cold I had to float them for almost an hour!

I've been following this thread and got my fingers crossed that everything works out as planned. [emoji225]

Jeffdstafford · Mar 3, 2017

tj w said:
Jeff, I hope all goes well with the new house for you guys. Hopefully everything will get resolved soon. Yes, the weather has been crazy warm here this winter. I'm thinking we're in for another long hot dry summer.

Yeah I get that same feeling..it's going to be nasty summer!

Empress said:
Hope your house goes thru for you and I would take your weather over Idaho's any day! I just received an invert/algae order that was delivered almost frozen! The package was packed with only newspapers and without warm packs and the water in the bags was so cold I had to float them for almost an hour!

I've been following this thread and got my fingers crossed that everything works out as planned. [emoji225]

Thanks for following along Empress! Wow we are on opposite ends of the weather spectrum, did your items survive once they were defrosted??

Empress · Mar 3, 2017

They were in a bit of a shock, but I believe they made it through ok. Snails, hermits ok. But I worry a little about the clam. It's only about 1 1/2". Tiny little thing. The pods are probably DOA though. Hard to tell with them. Macroalgae probably ok.

I'll be glad when spring gets here for sure!

Jeffdstafford · Mar 3, 2017

Yikes, can't believe there were no heating packs in there...hopefully they all come through, especially that clam!

Jeffdstafford · Mar 6, 2017

Geez it's tough getting copper out of 200 gallons of water! I went through a couple more polyfilters this weekend before I realized you can regenerate Cuprisorb, so I bought some Muriatic acid and baking soda and got it regenerated and rinsed well last night and back in service. So hopefully I will be copper free today.

I did randomly lose a Lyretail Anthias on Saturday; I have no idea what happened to it, as all of my Lyretails have been doing great this entire time. I found it stuck to the powerhead but fully intact, and it didn't look emaciated or any signs of sickness..just dead. So, I'll keep a close eye on everyone else, but hopefully this was an isolated issue.

Happy Monday everyone!

tj w · Mar 6, 2017

I could imagine that is a difficult task for sure Jeff. Sounds like you're making head way with it though. That's interesting you can regenerate cuprisorb. Let us know how it works out. Any news on the house front?

Jeffdstafford · Mar 6, 2017

Yeah I was about to toss it when I randomly read the bottle, you just soak in Muriatic acid for an hour, rinse, pour baking soda to neutralize, rinse, and it's ready to go..you can reuse it like this until it won't go back to it's original color. I'm not sure how many uses you get out of it, but pretty cool that it's reusable.

Concerning the house; may have some progress. Found out the issue is specific to the title company we were using, and the way the title is worded with the seller, however nothing really out of the ordinary. I did mortgage sales for 10 years and saw this same thing many times and it never was a hangup. So, resubmitting to another title company this week and hopefully can get this show on the road.
Don't they know there is a fish room hanging in the balance????

melypr1985 · Mar 6, 2017

Jeffdstafford said:
Don't they know there is a fish room hanging in the balance????

The nerve!! lol

Jeffdstafford · Mar 6, 2017

melypr1985 said:
The nerve!! lol

Ha, right?!

Jeffdstafford · Mar 10, 2017

Howdy everyone, it's finally happened.. I finally got the copper out of the system! It took 2 rounds of 500ml cuprisorb and 5 poly filters, but it's finalllllly gone.

I just finished up a 100 gallon water change, as I tested nitrates and they were blood red. I lost an anthias last night, and I'm thinking the high nitrates might have added stress? Who knows, but everyone else looks great.

I also adding PraziPro so we're on the last leg of this ordeal, and the end is getting closer!

An unforseen benefit of this fallow period has been a new appreciation for my corals. Before this, there were so many fish in there and so much going on, that while I loved the coral, I didn't spend a lot of time closely inspecting them, where as now it's all I have to look at, so I'm seeing a tiny new sps branch here and there, or my LPS getting a little new growth, which has been so neat to closely observe.

It's been a while since I've posted pics, and threads get boring without them, so here's a few shots from today of some of my corals.

Have a good weekend everyone!

melypr1985 · Mar 10, 2017

Your corals are quite beautiful Jeff! Thanks for sharing. I'm sorry about your anthias.

If the nitrates were extremely high they might contribute to stress or poor health (HLLE comes to mind) but it doesn't usually kill fish outright. Maybe there is a bit of aggression going on when you aren't there to observe?

Jeffdstafford · Mar 11, 2017

Thanks! Aggression is definitely possible, but it was a different species as the others, and I hadn't seen any previously, but you never know about the other 23.5 hours I'm not there watching.

Brew12 · Mar 11, 2017

That coral really is amazing! I keep looking for a coral like the pink one in your top 2 pictures. Guessing it is a chalice coral. Love those things but can never find one.