The "She Said Yes!" 120 Gallon Build
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dangles
Well-Known Member
Long story short, the two tangs I brought home last week both died within 18 hours of bringing them home. Both in a qt setup. It doesn’t make sense because they both spent over a month at my lfs before I brought them home. They were completely fine!
That leads me to believe the issue was on my end but I can’t figure out what it was! Temp, salinity were fine. Ammonia was undetectable. Same saltwater I use for my display. Water was being oxygenated fine. I acclimated them with repeated scoops of new water into their bags before putting them in the qt.
First thing next morning I found the scopas dead. When I got back later that afternoon the yellow was also dead. No visible signs of stress or injury. Just… dead.
It was pretty freaking devastating. I was really looking forward to those two tangs in particular. And I did everything right! Or at least I assumed I did.
I have 3 theories….
1) stress of transfer (seems really unlikely though)
2) contaminated saltwater in my mixing bin (RODI filter failed?)
3) one of the items in the qt tank leached something awful into the water
I have a pending ICP test on the newly mixed saltwater. If that comes back clean, I’ll recreate the qt with all the same equipment and put a cheap fish in to see how it does.
Will update when I find out more.
In unrelated news, my branching cyphastrea seems to have recovered (finally!) and is slowly starting to encrust over the rock it’s glued to! I’m pretty surprised. I thought for sure my wild nutrient swings over the last couple of months were too much for it.
That leads me to believe the issue was on my end but I can’t figure out what it was! Temp, salinity were fine. Ammonia was undetectable. Same saltwater I use for my display. Water was being oxygenated fine. I acclimated them with repeated scoops of new water into their bags before putting them in the qt.
First thing next morning I found the scopas dead. When I got back later that afternoon the yellow was also dead. No visible signs of stress or injury. Just… dead.
It was pretty freaking devastating. I was really looking forward to those two tangs in particular. And I did everything right! Or at least I assumed I did.
I have 3 theories….
1) stress of transfer (seems really unlikely though)
2) contaminated saltwater in my mixing bin (RODI filter failed?)
3) one of the items in the qt tank leached something awful into the water
I have a pending ICP test on the newly mixed saltwater. If that comes back clean, I’ll recreate the qt with all the same equipment and put a cheap fish in to see how it does.
Will update when I find out more.
In unrelated news, my branching cyphastrea seems to have recovered (finally!) and is slowly starting to encrust over the rock it’s glued to! I’m pretty surprised. I thought for sure my wild nutrient swings over the last couple of months were too much for it.
Mikeltee
Valuable Member
That just happens sometimes with the fish. I picked up a flame angel today. I observed a trio for about 30min and picked what I believed was the best one. I got home within 30min and he was upside down in the bag. This is the second time I've purchased a fish from my LFS and brought it home a couple hours after they arrived at the store. While it's nice to have first pick, I think I'll wait at least 24 hours from now on. Poor little fella...
OP
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dangles
Well-Known Member
Ugh. Yeah it blows man. I like to pick one out, pay, and let my lfs hang onto it for a couple of weeks. Minimize transfer related stress, make sure they’re eating well, and give the copper in their system time to work.
OP
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dangles
Well-Known Member
I’m about 5 months into this tank now. It’s settling in nicely at this point now that I’ve got the fleece roller sorted and the refugium up and running. I’m starting to see coraline develop in spots
My pH has been consistently running between 8.15 and 8.25 which is awesome! I credit the refugium and to a much lesser extent the kalk I’m dosing. It really is minimal - I think I’m dosing less than 200 mL/night. All my current fish are happy and eating well (4x/day from my Avast Plank autofeeder which I LOVE). The AquaBiomics test I did that showed NO known parasites was super reassuring. I’m still trying to diagnose the issue with my 2 RAPID tang deaths in qt though. My ICP test just arrived at the facility.
Some more tank shots…
One of my gonis isn’t happy though. I’m going to take him out and dip him soon, and probably move him.
My happy goni:
And my happy hammer:
I posted this already but my branching cyphastrea has rebounded and is slowly starting to grow out over the rock it’s on!
My seriatapora have also recovered really well. Their base colors are still faded but the polyps are extending wonderfully again.
And of course my micro lord… one of my favorites at the moment!
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