Good evening R2R. It's been about a month since my last update; probably too long...
I ended the last post with the sentence "let's hope my next update is a positive one". While I was doing all I could to stay positive, I fully expected to have some fish losses as a result of the ick. Here we are a month later and I am happy to report that the only losses were the red margin fairy wrasse, who died after the trigger bit its pectoral fin off and was subsequently killed by its tank mates. My wife saw him missing the fun in the morning and called me. I expected to get him out later that evening after work. By the time I got home there was not enough of him left to even pull a carcass from the tank [emoji15]. I also lost the red velvet fairy wrasse who jumped out while I had the canopy open. He could not have been on the floor more than a few minutes while I was in the garage. By the time I found him and put him in the sump, it was too late. He swam around a bit and died within minutes.
As for the ick, I used a combination of a DE filter (Vortex XL with mag drive upgrade) and Poly Lab Medic treatments to tackle it. I wont vouch for either of them as I have no clue which one worked or if the fish just developed immunity to the ick. Nevertheless it's been over a week since I last saw any white spots on any fish or any scratching against the tank floor or rocks. I now have to decide if it is worth adding any more fish and risking another outbreak or just leaving things as-is.
On the coral front, I am sad to report that I have discovered AEFW in the tank. Some eggs must have snuck in. We Bayer dip and check every frag. Oh well... such is life. I have started a regimen of using a maxi-jet 1200 to blow off all of the corals and fortunately the fairy wrasses are consuming all of the flat worms that are blown into the water column. These wrasses learn quick! They now follow the MJ1200 around the tank waiting for the meaty little morsels to manifest. Not sure I will ever eradicate the AEFW, but this is the best option I've got...
I also have what I think is a bryopsis outbreak. There are little patches within several acro and zoanthid colonies. I am strongly considering giving the fluconazole treatment a try. I may order the capsules this coming week. I'll post some progress photos if I do.
I added some macro algae to the refugium. A batch of dragon's breath, some more chaeto and a clump of caulerpa prolifera. They came in earlier this week. The chaeto and prolifera are looking great. The dragons breath, not so much. I have since moved it into the shade a bit as the 300w light may be a little much. I also added some additional dry rock to the refugium.
Finally, I added another larger rock to the middle of the tank. I wasn't loving that one rock structure and feel the addition looks much more natural. I glued several frags to the new rock and am looking forward to seeing it fill in a bit, both with some encrusting from the frags and with coraline.
Thanks for reading now on to the pics:
And a few chalice shots. Some are mine while others are being babysat for a friend.
Thanks again!
I ended the last post with the sentence "let's hope my next update is a positive one". While I was doing all I could to stay positive, I fully expected to have some fish losses as a result of the ick. Here we are a month later and I am happy to report that the only losses were the red margin fairy wrasse, who died after the trigger bit its pectoral fin off and was subsequently killed by its tank mates. My wife saw him missing the fun in the morning and called me. I expected to get him out later that evening after work. By the time I got home there was not enough of him left to even pull a carcass from the tank [emoji15]. I also lost the red velvet fairy wrasse who jumped out while I had the canopy open. He could not have been on the floor more than a few minutes while I was in the garage. By the time I found him and put him in the sump, it was too late. He swam around a bit and died within minutes.
As for the ick, I used a combination of a DE filter (Vortex XL with mag drive upgrade) and Poly Lab Medic treatments to tackle it. I wont vouch for either of them as I have no clue which one worked or if the fish just developed immunity to the ick. Nevertheless it's been over a week since I last saw any white spots on any fish or any scratching against the tank floor or rocks. I now have to decide if it is worth adding any more fish and risking another outbreak or just leaving things as-is.
On the coral front, I am sad to report that I have discovered AEFW in the tank. Some eggs must have snuck in. We Bayer dip and check every frag. Oh well... such is life. I have started a regimen of using a maxi-jet 1200 to blow off all of the corals and fortunately the fairy wrasses are consuming all of the flat worms that are blown into the water column. These wrasses learn quick! They now follow the MJ1200 around the tank waiting for the meaty little morsels to manifest. Not sure I will ever eradicate the AEFW, but this is the best option I've got...
I also have what I think is a bryopsis outbreak. There are little patches within several acro and zoanthid colonies. I am strongly considering giving the fluconazole treatment a try. I may order the capsules this coming week. I'll post some progress photos if I do.
I added some macro algae to the refugium. A batch of dragon's breath, some more chaeto and a clump of caulerpa prolifera. They came in earlier this week. The chaeto and prolifera are looking great. The dragons breath, not so much. I have since moved it into the shade a bit as the 300w light may be a little much. I also added some additional dry rock to the refugium.
Finally, I added another larger rock to the middle of the tank. I wasn't loving that one rock structure and feel the addition looks much more natural. I glued several frags to the new rock and am looking forward to seeing it fill in a bit, both with some encrusting from the frags and with coraline.
Thanks for reading now on to the pics:
And a few chalice shots. Some are mine while others are being babysat for a friend.
Thanks again!