Well I have not felt like updating in awhile, so I'll jump in. I lost 5 fish I had in QT to ich/velvet. I brought home 5 blue reef chromis and started to put them through my process. Two treatments of Prazi Pro then cupramine at therapudic levels for a couple weeks.
We had made it through the first treatment of Prazipro when we started to have some problems, I saw the mucus coat on the fish was looking odd was the best way I could describe it. Not milk, not stringy, just not as they were on day 1. This was on lunch on Wednesday. Thursday night I found one of the chromis dead, the other 4 remaining had white specs all over. This was either ich or velvet. I am leaning towards velvet because of how quickly they died, but also could have been ich if I did not see the signs quick enough. Following the advice from some select individuals on here I brought my cupramine levels up to therapeutic levels quickly, the goal was to raise the levels 6 hours apart by 25% to get there in 24 hours. I lost the remaining fish Friday afternoon.
These are the 3-7 fish I've lost in setting up my tank. A firefish to a spinal injury, a talbot damsel to disapearing, and then these 5 to illness. Along the way I've lost a frag of acans, 2 narisus snails, an emerald crab, three turbo snails, and an anemone that was eaten by my HOB filter in quarantine (Even after having a foam filter over the intake.) Its funny I can rattle off everything I have lost over the past year but if you were to ask me what is currently in the tank I would probably forget one or two pieces of livestock. I guess it just weighs heavy on me when I bring something home and it doesnt live the life it should. I still need to breakdown the tank which had the sickness outbreak. Its been running fallow for about 1o days now with the therapudic levels of copper running through the system. I am going to drain it, bleach it, and start clean with fresh media. I just have been putting it off due to frustrations with not catching onto the problem quicker.
As for the rest of the tank, my GSP and xenia are finally spreading like weeds. I'm glad I have them isloated on their own islands. My zoa colonies are continuing to grow. The utter chaos have grown to 5 polyps from 1 in January and the Armor of God are now up to 8 or 9 from 3 in January. My hammer has been status quo for about a month now, no visible growth or change in coloration. The torch is coloring up better and better every day but no growth. The two favias in the tank are probably my slowest growers, coloration is still good but almost no visible growth. My Mr Freeze lepto is doing quite well encrusting the whole plug thus far. Calcium has been consistent (450-460) however my Alk and PH have been dropping lately. Alk I just measured at 7.5-7.6 and PH was measured to be 7.4-7.6. I'm surprised by this. I'm preparing to do two 15 gallon water changes with Red Sea black bucket. One of the 15 gallon changes is my normal routine but I'll do a second one 48 hours later to try to slowly bring levels back up. Hoping this will cause the LPS to grow once the alk is back up.
My worm problems continue, hundreds of them come out at night all over the glass and free swimming. I think we're going to get an arrow crab to care for these guys. Other than that I think our LFS is going to replace our Blue Reef Chromis with good ole fashioned blue/green chromis whenever we want them. Establishing a good relationship with your LFS is key to success in this hobby.
Enough text here are a couple photos to make the post worth it.
First two photos are of the doomed Chromis after the white spots spread like wild fire
Here are my armor of god zoa's; the heads keep growing however they've began to umbrella? or look a little phallic
and finally our first mushroom; its a dippin dot mushroom or so I've been told. It looks big and happy.
Happy Reefing everyone!
We had made it through the first treatment of Prazipro when we started to have some problems, I saw the mucus coat on the fish was looking odd was the best way I could describe it. Not milk, not stringy, just not as they were on day 1. This was on lunch on Wednesday. Thursday night I found one of the chromis dead, the other 4 remaining had white specs all over. This was either ich or velvet. I am leaning towards velvet because of how quickly they died, but also could have been ich if I did not see the signs quick enough. Following the advice from some select individuals on here I brought my cupramine levels up to therapeutic levels quickly, the goal was to raise the levels 6 hours apart by 25% to get there in 24 hours. I lost the remaining fish Friday afternoon.
These are the 3-7 fish I've lost in setting up my tank. A firefish to a spinal injury, a talbot damsel to disapearing, and then these 5 to illness. Along the way I've lost a frag of acans, 2 narisus snails, an emerald crab, three turbo snails, and an anemone that was eaten by my HOB filter in quarantine (Even after having a foam filter over the intake.) Its funny I can rattle off everything I have lost over the past year but if you were to ask me what is currently in the tank I would probably forget one or two pieces of livestock. I guess it just weighs heavy on me when I bring something home and it doesnt live the life it should. I still need to breakdown the tank which had the sickness outbreak. Its been running fallow for about 1o days now with the therapudic levels of copper running through the system. I am going to drain it, bleach it, and start clean with fresh media. I just have been putting it off due to frustrations with not catching onto the problem quicker.
As for the rest of the tank, my GSP and xenia are finally spreading like weeds. I'm glad I have them isloated on their own islands. My zoa colonies are continuing to grow. The utter chaos have grown to 5 polyps from 1 in January and the Armor of God are now up to 8 or 9 from 3 in January. My hammer has been status quo for about a month now, no visible growth or change in coloration. The torch is coloring up better and better every day but no growth. The two favias in the tank are probably my slowest growers, coloration is still good but almost no visible growth. My Mr Freeze lepto is doing quite well encrusting the whole plug thus far. Calcium has been consistent (450-460) however my Alk and PH have been dropping lately. Alk I just measured at 7.5-7.6 and PH was measured to be 7.4-7.6. I'm surprised by this. I'm preparing to do two 15 gallon water changes with Red Sea black bucket. One of the 15 gallon changes is my normal routine but I'll do a second one 48 hours later to try to slowly bring levels back up. Hoping this will cause the LPS to grow once the alk is back up.
My worm problems continue, hundreds of them come out at night all over the glass and free swimming. I think we're going to get an arrow crab to care for these guys. Other than that I think our LFS is going to replace our Blue Reef Chromis with good ole fashioned blue/green chromis whenever we want them. Establishing a good relationship with your LFS is key to success in this hobby.
Enough text here are a couple photos to make the post worth it.
First two photos are of the doomed Chromis after the white spots spread like wild fire
Here are my armor of god zoa's; the heads keep growing however they've began to umbrella? or look a little phallic
and finally our first mushroom; its a dippin dot mushroom or so I've been told. It looks big and happy.
Happy Reefing everyone!