Jump to content

I give up, anyone wanna rescue some sps?


catdoc

Recommended Posts

Are you sure your temps only peaked at 79.4? this time of year a lot of people do not have their air conditioners on, and house times rising just a few degrees can have a HUGE temperature rise on a tank, even just for a short period of time.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, actually the tank being COLD has been a bigger problem. I wonder if the long period of cool temperature has been another factor stressing the system. Now, since I bumped the heater up (trying to get up to 80-82, ideally), the tank is running 79-82 (low at night, higher at the end of the MH cycle). With the sump in our unfinished basement, it's been keeping things pretty cool. All winter the tank has run at a very steady 77 to 78, in spite of my warming efforts (had the pipes wrapped in the basement and the sump covered to hold in heat). Twice I had the circuit trip and the tank actually got to 75-76--that probably didn't help at all, although at the time nothing looked stressed. An accumulation of stress probably was my downfall.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Trying to pinpoint the source may be difficult. It sounds like there was definatly a swing of some kind, especially if you are seeing bleaching of your coralline, and other types inverts don't look good. Have you checked your water parameters? You might want to start following them (if you aren't already) just to make sure everything stays in normal ranges, especially if you are experiencing big die offs.

 

With the clams, I know with my larger crocea, at times I was able to see the rock on the other side, then the clam would close it up later...right in front of the byssal gland it would open and close it, when looking through the incurrent siphon hole. This may have been a sign of stress, but I'm not sure. The most important thing with your clam is that it still responds to shadows and movement. That will tell you when it isn't going to make it....the response slows then stops....or if it bails off the rock and the byssal gland is left behind.

 

Are you performing large water changes?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've only done the one 50 gal water change on Tues, but doing 5-10 gal changes daily to replace what I'm pulling out as I move corals to my other tank. I want to do another big water change but it took one night to draw the fresh RODI, then another day to mix it (and find out it needed more salt) , I have 30 gal mixed and ready to go right now--just put in another 5 gal as I have 2 more buckets of corals that I'm moving today. I'm now moving any invert that isn't attached or dead, getting desperate to get all livestock out. My tank at work is going to be overflowing w/corals.

 

Haven't checked the water again since Tuesday, need to, but haven't had time with all the other chaos going on with the tank. I imagine the ammonia has skyrocketed. pH is holding steady at 8.05 to 8.12, temp running 81.1 this morning.

 

All sps are completely dead or rtn'ing so I tried to pull out every bit I could. Anything with a hint of rtn is now in the trash, I'm beyond trying to frag them to save them.Some is encrusted onto the rock, so I'll need to get my fragging shears out and chisel them off. Two of the monster turbos I got at the swap died overnight. At this point, I'm not trying to stop the process but trying to save what I can by moving it out of the system. I desperately need to get the fish out of there!!! If nothing else, I'll shut down the return pump and put the fish in the sump--at least there's no invert life in there to keep fueling the die-off and it'll buy me a day or two.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have almost all corals out of the tank--just a couple of rics, mushrooms, a plate coral, and my sun polyps. The fish and 2 rbta are still there too, but I'm taking them to Inland tomorrow. I'll just let the tank run as is over the weekend b/c we're leaving to visit my in-laws. Then, try to get it cycled again. I'll probably add more LR to the sump, I think it's going to need a boost after all of this.

 

My poor 29 at work is crammed full of frags! The monti that I thought was rtn'ing looks like it stabilized for now. The p.o.'ed frogspawn actually has a lot of tissue recession at the base of each head, but it did expand nicely within a half hour of moving into the healthy tank.

 

Thanks for all the support and advice. I don't think I'll be able to pinpoint the cause b/c I think it was just a multitude of little things that accumulated.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks, everyone. Not giving up, just rethinking things.

 

The fish are all safely moved to Inland. I couldn't fit all of my surviving corals into my other tank, so I traded a few of them in as well. (I know where someone can find a gorgeous sun polyp colony, if anyone's looking.) I figure it's going to be a good while until I can fully restock, so I also asked them to take a couple of fish in exchange for store credit (namely, my mandarins since it's going to be a while before the pods rebound).

 

In the process of pulling out rock in order to catch fish (always a treat!), I think I found the main problem. It's not the only problem, but I think it's what pushed my already stressed system over the edge. In running a bare-bottom tank, I thought I had set it up so that I could get to the detritus. I knew I needed more flow (hooray, Tunze!) but didn't realize just HOW badly! Ugh, the crap that got stirred up when I was moving the rock was absolutely foul! I think the addition of the Tunze stirred up a lot of detritus and that just overwhelmed the system. Not enough room for error and I had a lot of errors that ambushed me.

 

So, part of the rethinking of the tank is that I'm not cut-out for sps. I don't have the time to spend on the details and intricacies, so it's time to simplify. Going back to a dsb and going to correct a couple of deficiencies I had with that on the first go-around. It'll be a mostly LPS tank, maybe toss a few monti caps in just b/c they have seemed fairly rugged for me. I'm still debating whether to continue with the metal halide, since I had good results with my vho-run system.

 

Anyone know where I can find some southdown? :wink:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would suggest staying with the metal halides. I found that when I went from PC's to MH, my algae dropped to almost nothing. Although IMO PC's seem to produce the most nuisance, VHO's are probably second.

 

Good luck in getting things back up and running. Perhaps by the time you are ready i'll have a extra green polyp Sarco waiting for you. :wink:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 1 month later...

Just an update. Still no corals or fish in the tank (except for a couple of rics and mushrooms that were growing on some humongous rocks), but it's looking better. The coralline algae has colored up again (it had bleached), the snails are doing their snailish business rather than hiding in a crumpled heap, and the pod population has EXPLODED!

 

When I checked water params last week, things look good. DSB has been in place about 3 weeks now and I've been stocking the sand with critters from other hobbyists (pod/fuge packs and bristleworms). I added some snails last week too since most of mine had died with the crash.

 

One of my fish (the swallowtail angel) died last week at Inland. They report that it was eating fine, they just found it dead one morning. It was in a tank with my other fish and no other fish, who knows what happened there. I'd like to bring my remaining fish home soon (2 maroons, LMB, yellow tang). Anyone have opinions on whether to put them all in at once or not? After all the fish have been back for a few weeks, I'll start adding the corals back from my other tank.

 

Still discouraged and not sure whether the tank is ok or not. The critters look happy, so I'll take that to be a good sign.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SO glad to hear you are getting it back to normal. Also glad to hear you are going back to the dsb! I have always prefered that method.

 

Best of luck to ya. I am planning on getting up to inland sometime, I'll get ahold of you when I do, I can give you some frags to get you going again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 5 weeks later...

Just an update, for those who might be wondering. I still have just the 3 fish in the tank (maroon pair and yellow tang) but I have 2 more in QT (pearly jawfish and royal gramma). I haven't added any corals other than a few LPS that had been temporarily relocated to my tank at work. Everything (snails, LPS, pods, fish) look normal but one rose bta is still honked-off about something. It's not moving, but it just doesn't open up like it used to. It will eat and clowns are still hosting it some, but they prefer the "happy" bta. I've noticed that a couple sps remnants that I couldn't get off of the rock have actually started to color and grow again.

 

The coralline is off and running, had to get out the razor blade last week to scrape it. I have really been avoiding putting my hands in the tank for ANY reason (I'm a bit skittish now!) so the coralline was pretty thick by the time I scraped it.

 

Pods are absolutely thick in the tank, chaeto is growing like mad in the sump which suggests to me that there is still a high amount of organic matter in the water. I'm only feeding twice a week though, it must be crud shedding from the LR. The xenia isn't happy though--I only have so-so luck with the stuff, but I hear that it doesn't like clean water. Is this true? I'd like to believe that my tank is on the upswing, but it's so hard for me to have any confidence right now.

 

So for now, it still looks pretty barren in there since I don't have many corals. Coral list: frogspawn, mushrooms, rics, open brain, fungia, Caulastrea, two teeny frags of acan, and the survivor montis that are trying to make a comeback. Oh, and the two rbta.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I would take it as a good sign that the encrusting portions of SPS are beginning to color up again. I'm sure you will be keeping an eye on the BTA - how long has it been back in the tank?

 

Right at 4 weeks, I think. It's just not been happy since it got home. It wandered for a week or so, even went in the overflow chamber once. Now it's perched on the outer wall of the overflow just looking withdrawn. It's not deflated, just looks closed up. The mouth is closed but the tentacles look small/short. I do notice the rbta (both of them) have bubbles, which is new in this tank. In my other tank, they're always bubbled (same parent clone). Odd, isn't it?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...