Step-by-step account of my first reef (with lots of pics) - Page 35

jnarowe · #**851** 11/02/2006, 10:51 PM

I thought all my mythrax were dead until I saw them about 2 months later. They are very secretive to be sure. I am also fairly certain that hey have taken chunks out of a couple of fish...

Dudester · #**852** 11/03/2006, 11:41 AM

New emerald mithrax crab spotted last night - 100% viability confirmed.

I also got my hands on the Deltec MCE-300 skimmer. We (thedude and I) did a wet run at his store and, while there were a few imperfections with it, we eventually got it up and running nicely. It's very quiet and creates a hefty amount of fine bubbles considering it runs on a MJ1000 pump. I took it home but it was quite late at night so I didn't have a chance to hook it up. I'm going to have to see if it will fit behind my cabinet and on my sump; it's about the same height as my Remora but it's considerably wider. If it fits onto my sump I may just have to buy this thing, or at least convince my wife to buy it for me

.

fishypets · #**853** 11/04/2006, 01:08 PM

Mike,

Tell John to put the skimmer you want on my account. It is the least I could do you giving you the AEFW.

Dudester · #**854** 11/05/2006, 03:44 PM

Clint,
What can I say other than I appreciate the offer but NO WAY! It's my own fault that I have AEFW; everyone should take responsibility for their own actions or, in my case, 'inactions' since I did not perform due diligence and dip the corals you gave me. It's extremely nice of you to offer, but you're already doing more than you should by treating my corals for me in your quarantine and hospital setup. How's that going, by the way, everybody still happy (other than your pink birdsnest)?

fishypets · #**855** 11/05/2006, 08:28 PM

So far the loss since Wed. is birdsnest, two tables and a coral you brought over. I think more flow is needed. I will be adding another stream next week so that should help.

Dudester · #**856** 11/05/2006, 10:11 PM

fishypets · #**857** 11/05/2006, 10:25 PM

I'll keep my chin up if you keeps your's up....Deal?

Dudester · #**858** 11/05/2006, 10:34 PM

is that better?

fishypets · #**859** 11/06/2006, 07:12 AM

More bad news. Overnight we lost about 6 more corals including the biggest one you brought over and a few of my favorites. Something must have went way wrong during yesterdays treatment.

Dudester · #**860** 11/06/2006, 04:06 PM

Krikes, I hope this isn't the beginning of the end! Clint, please call me when you get home from work and let me know if there were any more losses today.

fishypets · #**861** 11/06/2006, 11:02 PM

The bad news keeps coming. Today I walked into my house and the smell of dead acro was so strong it almost made me gag. When I saw the QT tank I had to step back for a minute. The tank was so cloudy I couldn't see what had died and what was still alive. I snapped a few shots to show the devastation.

I changed 30 gallons of water with fresh salt H2O and another 30 from the main tank that is still up and running. John seems to think that a lack of bacteria in the tank is what triggered the RTN. We will have to wait this one out but it don't look good.

melev · #**862** 11/06/2006, 11:49 PM

This is horrible.

:cry: What are you treating the corals with?

jnarowe · #**863** 11/07/2006, 12:22 AM

wow...total meltdown. I would be devastated. About the bacteria; I keep corals in a QT all the time that I also clean out after I use it. I doubt it has much bacteria at all and I don't have, melt-downs like that. I do try to get corals into the main display quickly though because I feel the smaller water volume is just asking for trouble in my case.

Very sad indeed.

thedude15810 · #**864** 11/07/2006, 03:11 AM

Jnarowe,

I'd agree that 99 times out of a 100 you don't need much bacteria in a QT. In this case, the tables did not respond well to the fluke tab treatment and starting dying. That decaying flesh and deteriorating water quality is what I beleive triggered RTN in the other colonies. When we did a water change today, we used some filter pad from one of my established tanks and also 30 gallons from the 150 (still running with water and sand).

Everyone knock loudly on wood that the rest of the colonies make it.

Melev,

So far they've treated with fluke tabs (3 times now?). After talking with Clint, he agreed that we saw by far the most flatworms knocked off the coral with the initial TMPCC dip.

Bax · #**865** 11/07/2006, 07:30 AM

That sucks! .... It's just painful to read and see pics!

Dudester · #**866** 11/07/2006, 10:38 AM

Indeed, it is quite painful to look at the photos and see some of my favorite corals at the bottom of that trashcan. My losses, though, are only a fraction of what Clint has lost, and I truly feel for him.

As a minor update, and potentially some positive news, I spoke with Clint this morning and after removing the carnage and doing the water change last night (thanks Clint and John!!) there have been no more losses as of this morning.

jnarowe · #**867** 11/07/2006, 10:49 AM

I wonder if the tables excrete toxin as they perish?

fishypets · #**868** 11/07/2006, 08:53 PM

The bad news keeps coming. Today I lost my Oregon Blue tort colony along with 13 others. I will post pics later if I can. This is truly one of the saddest days in this hobby.

fishypets · #**869** 11/07/2006, 09:12 PM

Before shot of my Oregon Blue tort colony.

And what I found today when I came home.

It was sad going through my photobucket account looking at all the healthy corals I once had. Now I have a ton of white bone and a very unstable QT tank. If the RTN continues to run it's course, Mike and I will be wiped clean of any acro we once had.

jnarowe · #**870** 11/07/2006, 09:18 PM

wow! what a horrible site. Did you forget to put salt in the QT??? j/k of course. I think if I experienced that, some heavy drinking would soon follow.

fishypets · #**871** 11/07/2006, 10:00 PM

Just hope this never happens too you Jonathan. I've lost corals I can never replace and would wish this on no one. I'll post more pics tomorrow if I can.

melev · #**872** 11/07/2006, 10:24 PM

I'm devastated for you. Just seeing what all you guys did and still to suffer such huge losses - it is unbearable, and almost unbelievable.

Obviously you planned for everything, but I hope you don't mind asking if there was any chance this was a heat issue? I remember you had a chiller hooked up, but perhaps due the small water volume, the heat would spike quite a bit and chill it down too much? This incident looks like a heat swing to me.

Stoney Mahony was using Fluke tabs for his corals, but he was dipping them in separate buckets. Were you treating in-tank? I believe you are first people to treat montipora capricornis in Fluke meds, as everyone tends to believe AEFW are on acropora only.

Dudester · #**873** 11/07/2006, 10:30 PM

Even though I'm pretty certain that I will end up losing most, if not all of the 21 corals I removed from my tank to treat for AEFW, I can't even feel an ounce of grief for myself considering what you must be feeling, Clint.

If anything good comes out of this it is this: Clint has been EXTREMELY generous literally giving expensive corals away to people. There must be a dozen or more tanks out there with frags from his tank. This is not only a kind thing to do for people, but it also insures that, in the event of a total loss, one would be able to recover his/her stock and re-build. I have no doubt that when people learn of this, Clint's tank will be re-stocked with acros. Unfortunately mine were all frags and I wasn't able to initiate this practice, so I'll have to start from ground zero, but I'll definitely follow the example that Clint has laid out and once I'm fortunate enough to have colonies, I will distribute frags widely.

If anyone can think of a solution as to why these colonies look good one minute and they seem to perish within a few hours, please let us know so this downward spiral can be halted.

Quote:

Did you forget to put salt in the QT???

That's actually kinda funny

melev · #**874** 11/07/2006, 10:33 PM

It can be pure guesswork, but sometimes it is purely a lack of stability. As all the corals came in with bacteria upon them, I doubt there was a lack of it in the system. However, dying flatworms would release toxins just like red planaria do. That is why dip and rinse seems to be a good plan, to me anyway.

Dudester · #**875** 11/07/2006, 10:40 PM

Just saw your post, Marc. I'll have to let Clint answer the heat swing question. Actually the QT is 85 gallons, so I personally wouldn't consider it a "small water volume" tank (but then again I don't own a 280

). The treatment that seemed to spark all of this death was indeed an in-tank treatment; the previous 2 treatments that were well-tolerated were dips in separate tanks. The reason we went with an in-tank treatment was due to a fear that, upon return of treated corals to the QT, some AEFW might migrate to them from as of yet untreated corals, so we felt like a couple of in-tank treatments would be a method to prevent this. Since the corals were all in a QT, we thought that an in-tank treatment would essentially be just like a dip treatment, since the QT contained absolutely nothing else. The only difference was that after the treatment was completed, a very large water change was performed with newly-made saltwater as opposed to tank water. Could this have been enough to spark the fuse, I don't know?

Regarding the monti caps, I've never seen them infected, but we definitely saw lots of AEFW and their eggs on montipora digitata. I think Clint included the cap for 2 reasons. First, after removing all of his acros, he decided to cook all of his live rock, so he needed a place to put the monti cap. And second, just for security, he figured that if digis could be infected, then so might caps.

Marc, you may have hit the nail on the head with the notion that the dead AEFW may have released toxins, although I will say that Clint found very few worms during the second treatment, so I don't think the population would have been high enough to cause this devastation. This is so sad.