Ryan’s 75 gallon

[tbrown]

Current stock:
2 clownfish
Long tip anemone
2 banner cardinals
Sailfin tang
Mandarin goby
Firefish goby
Yellow watchman goby
Vampire goby
2 tiger pistol shrimp
Cleaner shrimp
Neon goby
Sand sifting starfish
Tuxedo urchin
6 line wrasse
2 blue chromis
Around 30 coral frags
Various snails

Harvested my first phyto today. Things are going well overall after a rough patch a couple of weeks ago. I’ve been running gac since then. I can’t decide if I want to continue that I definitely or not. I started it because I couldnt find anything wrong with my water but things were dying. I thought maybe gac would remove any present toxins. Things did stop dying but I haven’t been able to keep a flame angel or hippo tang alive. I’ve made two attempts with each. Also had a bubble tip and an emerald crab die in the same timeframe.

Keep an eye on the tang with the carbon just in case.

 

[ryany25]

Keep an eye on the tang with the carbon just in case.

HLLE potential?

 

[Rjukan]

Few pictures of the tank taken today.
Watchman and his pistol shrimp. Saw them for the first time in 10 days yesterday.

My diy surface skimmer/refugium.

The sailfin looks like it's fighting off something in this pic, the tail fin has definite cloudiness or spots.. also the clown looks questionable as well.
You mentioned losses, but you added more fish right away without waiting to see if there would be more?

Your tank is looking great, I'm just worried if you keep restocking without finding the cause of deaths, you're going to keep losing fish.

 

[ryany25]

The sailfin looks like it's fighting off something in this pic, the tail fin has definite cloudiness or spots.. also the clown looks questionable as well.
You mentioned losses, but you added more fish right away without waiting to see if there would be more?

Your tank is looking great, I'm just worried if you keep restocking without finding the cause of deaths, you're going to keep losing fish.

That condition that you mentioned seems to fluctuate in both fish as well as the other clown. Any suggestions? How long should I have waited after the losses? Things seemed to improve with the carbon so I thought it would be ok to add this last round. I appreciate the input.

 

[ryany25]

The sailfin looks like it's fighting off something in this pic, the tail fin has definite cloudiness or spots.. also the clown looks questionable as well.
You mentioned losses, but you added more fish right away without waiting to see if there would be more?

Your tank is looking great, I'm just worried if you keep restocking without finding the cause of deaths, you're going to keep losing fish.

I forgot to mention that I lost the hammer coral around the same time as the fish and bubble tip.

 

[ryany25]

HLLE potential?

I pulled the carbon just now.

 

[Rjukan]

That condition that you mentioned seems to fluctuate in both fish as well as the other clown. Any suggestions? How long should I have waited after the losses? Things seemed to improve with the carbon so I thought it would be ok to add this last round. I appreciate the input.

I'm the wrong person to ask, since my method is more of management with a wide array of foods, including black worms, white worms, frozen foods.. I have a very diverse bacteria colony from a few different live rock, live sand, live mud orders over the years.
If it was me, and this isn't going to be accepted by most here.. I wouldn't get another new fish for at least 4 months. And I would try my best to focus on water quality and fish diet. Ordering some live sand and live mud would be something I would do as well. I'm not saying this would be the answer, but it's what I would do.

 

[ryany25]

I'm the wrong person to ask, since my method is more of management with a wide array of foods, including black worms, white worms, frozen foods.. I have a very diverse bacteria colony from a few different live rock, live sand, live mud orders over the years.
If it was me, and this isn't going to be accepted by most here.. I wouldn't get another new fish for at least 4 months. And I would try my best to focus on water quality and fish diet. Ordering some live sand and live mud would be something I would do as well. I'm not saying this would be the answer, but it's what I would do.

Thanks. My approach isn’t much different. I feed the same foods you mentioned plus a couple and I’ve put water I got from the Atlantic in a couple times. My live rock came from 3 different places.

 

[Rjukan]

Thanks. My approach isn’t much different. I feed the same foods you mentioned plus a couple and I’ve put water I got from the Atlantic in a couple times. My live rock came from 3 different places.

Then the next step is mitigating stress between fish.

 

[ryany25]

Then the next step is mitigating stress between fish.

Seems like the tang picks on anything at all weak. I don’t see it but fish that are doing ok in the evening are dead in the morning. My small clown looks like it has had its fins nipped on lately. Thanks for the help.

 

[Rjukan]

Yw, I wish I could be of more help.

 

[ryany25]

Yw, I wish I could be of more help.

Do you think I should try to catch and move the smaller clown? I have another tank with just a few rocks and 2 pajama cardinals. Maybe for it to heal up? The smaller clown is the one that feeds the anemone. Bigger one doesn’t seem to care it’s there. Little clown is hiding under a rock today and a cardinal seems to like the anemone

 

[ryany25]

Wild weekend. Built a sump and in the process of getting that all set the water level fluctuated a lot and it got really cloudy. Several of my corals turned white. Then the Reef Octopus skimmer I got at the lfs wouldn’t turn on so I got a replacement pump. I got the next size up pump, which was a mistake. I made it work though and I made this gallon of wet skimmate in the first few hours. I’ve dried it up now.

 

[ryany25]

Phyto.

 

[ryany25]

Skimmer cleared the tank up beautifully. I need more rock.

 

[ryany25]

Life is upside down right now and it has affected my tank. My mother in law has cared for my kids (5&7) since they were born while my wife and I work. She became very weak a few weeks ago and went to the hospital by ambulance, where she stayed for several days. In the end, they said that she had Covid, UTI, and was dehydrated, and sent her home. She continued to be extremely weak for a couple of weeks and I urged her to go see her own doctor. She finally did and after much testing they found an aggressive brain tumor in the center of her brain, where they can’t operate. They said she will live for 4-6 weeks. Her husband has a broken foot and is wearing down in general, so we invited him to move into our basement. It is fully setup as an apartment and has the nicest bathroom in the house. I believe he will take us up on this offer. So I moved my tank from down there to my office. I don’t know why but 90% of my corals look dead, and my snails, anemone, and starfish died. I’m pretty sure the anemone was eating fish anyways. The shrimp and fish are happy as can be. I think some of the zoas may come back and the GSP and a couple others look ok. I kept everything and everybody wet during the move, which I did overnight in about 8 hours. Not sure where I went wrong but I think I’m going to let it rest for awhile until I see good algae growth. At this point I am happy with my scape, sump, flow, parameters, etc. now I have 2 clowns, 2 cardinals, a sailfin tang, a coral beauty, a fancy wrass that I can’t remember the name of, a flame goby, yellow goby, neon goby, 2 cleaner shrimp, 2 pistol shrimp, an emerald crab, and a peppermint shrimp. I cleaned up my other 75 gallon tank and canister filter so I can offer it up to my father in law as something to occupy his mind after his wife passes. They plan to put her ashes in a wooden box I made her a few years ago, which is very humbling to me. As always, I welcome input from anyone.

 

[tbrown]

Life is upside down right now and it has affected my tank. My mother in law has cared for my kids (5&7) since they were born while my wife and I work. She became very weak a few weeks ago and went to the hospital by ambulance, where she stayed for several days. In the end, they said that she had Covid, UTI, and was dehydrated, and sent her home. She continued to be extremely weak for a couple of weeks and I urged her to go see her own doctor. She finally did and after much testing they found an aggressive brain tumor in the center of her brain, where they can’t operate. They said she will live for 4-6 weeks. Her husband has a broken foot and is wearing down in general, so we invited him to move into our basement. It is fully setup as an apartment and has the nicest bathroom in the house. I believe he will take us up on this offer. So I moved my tank from down there to my office. I don’t know why but 90% of my corals look dead, and my snails, anemone, and starfish died. I’m pretty sure the anemone was eating fish anyways. The shrimp and fish are happy as can be. I think some of the zoas may come back and the GSP and a couple others look ok. I kept everything and everybody wet during the move, which I did overnight in about 8 hours. Not sure where I went wrong but I think I’m going to let it rest for awhile until I see good algae growth. At this point I am happy with my scape, sump, flow, parameters, etc. now I have 2 clowns, 2 cardinals, a sailfin tang, a coral beauty, a fancy wrass that I can’t remember the name of, a flame goby, yellow goby, neon goby, 2 cleaner shrimp, 2 pistol shrimp, an emerald crab, and a peppermint shrimp. I cleaned up my other 75 gallon tank and canister filter so I can offer it up to my father in law as something to occupy his mind after his wife passes. They plan to put her ashes in a wooden box I made her a few years ago, which is very humbling to me. As always, I welcome input from anyone.

Sorry you're going through all this!

 

[ryany25]

A lot of corals are showing signs of life finally after the move. I was in there again today moving things around. I’ve been adding rock for more 3 dimensional spaces for the fish. I slowed down my return pump more than half due to an abundance of bubbles.

 

[ryany25]

Pods

 

[ryany25]

I found a guy on Facebook willing to give me chaeto so I brought him some pods. He also gave me this hammer that was laying in his sand. I am thrilled about both. My phosphate is way high and is affecting my sail fin I think. Please correct me if phosphates (poor water quality) could not be the cause of the HLLE on the fish in the picture.