albertareef

Wife is a practical joker eh? Hope you didn't panic too hard!

So bummed that my tank still isn't in shape to take advantage of the mystery boxes. Missed out on these last time around as well 😂 This should be a blast - excited for you Jeff!

Just out of curiosity, in what particular way? As a host for undesirable bacteria, sink for organic or inorganic contaminants? Not saying it isn't the case but just wondering about the rationale.

Guessing you already have everything Jim has to offer - he has a really nice collection.

Whoa Daniel - you have been busy man! Congrats on the new tank, and the new house! That had to be a seriously heavy lift to get it moved in... hope you didn't hurt anything too badly. Can't wait to see this up and running in it's completed form. Maybe you should invest in some scuba gear for maintenance 😀

Always hard to lose a fish but, as Jeremy notes, you have provided a lot of clowns excellent care over the years with an awesome survival rate so lots of positives to help offset this case.

Hey - congratulations man! I've been so out of touch I didn't even realize you guys were expecting. Pretty exciting!

Hey John - really sorry to hear about the tank troubles and hope you are able to rebound soon. Wish I could help you out with some donations but, as you know, I had a very similar experience and lost most everything as well and still haven't been able to get things back in order. Not attempting a hijack here but thought I would throw in some details from my situation and see if there is any common thread - especially around the biome issue @EMeyer My initial crash was over 2 years ago now with likely culprit being some metal contamination of my Ca reactor media. After cleaning up from that, I started having some success only to face various rounds of die offs that took out all but one acro (a piece from Jim that appears to be indestructible) and damaged or completely killed lots of encrusting montis and caps along with a host of other SPS and LPS. I have tracked down a few other potential sources of problems - including a rusting out return pump - but water sample ICPs have failed to flag anything in particular except high phosphate (higher than my test kits for some reasons - 0.25 or so) and high lithium (not sure it's really a problem). So, massive water changes and incorporation of an algae scrubber (along with my refugium) have all led to nothing but short term relief. I am stumped to the point that I just left it alone for the last 3 months or so and finally am starting to see the return of color to a few corals and some growth starting again. During this time, I lost one fish but have seen no effect on inverts such as conch, starfish, various snails, sea cucumbers etc. or pods in the refugium that would suggest broader issues. Other than the addition of the home made scrubber, I haven't changed out any equipment or sources of food, water, etc. Parameters have drifted a bit as I dialed back my Ca reactor to account for the coral loss but no dramatic spikes or dips in the general parameters. As far as the phenomenology goes... the acros went by various routes - RTN, STN and what looked like "burning" of tips. For most corals, however, the damage (bleaching/tissue loss) appeared on the surfaces that were most exposed to light - typically those that were parallel to the light source. This had me thinking that it was, in some way, metabolically related (similar to running high PAR in low nutrients) but neither was the case in my tank at the time (probably 250 - 350 PAR, 4 Nitrate, 0.1 Phosphate). Now John and I probably are at almost opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of tank setups where he runs lots of automation including dosing, testing, water changes etc. and I am much more hands off normally so there probably isn't much to point to there BUT we both submitted water samples to Eli during our periods of struggles so maybe there is something to be learned there. I also had a fairly "stilted" distribution of bacteria if I recall correctly (over abundance of cyano variants and high level of denitrifying bacteria I believe). While this may not be the same as John's, I wonder if there are some parallels. Unfortunately, I don't have tests form "before" my initial issues for comparison but maybe Eli could add some context that would be enlightening? @EMeyer I actually did pick up some media from John to try and diversify my biome from his incredibly successful tank but I think it was right about the time he started to have some issues - I think one of your colonies had just started to STN at that time - so may have been too late. Would be interesting to retest my system with Eli and see how it compares to my and John's previous analyses.

Hahaha... had me puzzled for a bit 👍

Looking great! Wish I had such "problems" 🙂

Nice! Let me know when you have enough pieces to sell 😀 That is a beauty!

Someone should pick this up - add some biodiversity for free!

Nice piece - hope it does well for you. Yeah, I love the yellows but they seem to be pretty rare and some of the wild colonies I have seen come in don't seem to keep that vibrant color so I can see why this one would normally be an expensive item. Congrats!

This has been where I have been at for a while as well - still trying to trouble shoot the issue. Finally just left it alone for a few months and some of the Monti's are showing signs of improving - albeit slowly. Still have one acro I got from Jim that is hanging in there... one tough stick!

Bummer! I heard this is a "think" with some older Prius models that don't have motion sensing alarms. They even sell theft protection specific for those vehicles. Crazy.

Man - 9 years already? Congratulations on creating such a prosperous (hopefully) and well-respected business in a very challenging niche. So glad you and the shop are around to provide the hobby with such awesome livestock, advice and support. Wish we could help you celebrate with a big in-person bash but guessing you will be seeing a lot of us there individually for this event. I know those mystery boxes and grab bags are always popular and a killer deal - even without the surprise scoly. 👍

hopefully you have had a coral comeback and can put that to good use 👍

Oh geez... I was just admiring his work then I read this and can’t unsee it! Arghh!

Glad to hear it ended up being OK but I’m sure it was brutal losing all that work. Glad to see you are hanging in there. I think you should keep the name though!

Congrats Trevor! @Willapa Now I know who I can borrow from next time I need to attack the aphasia 😄

Well... technically a tape measure 🙂. (miss me?)

I actually always wondered about this one! Thanks for the reveal Chief.

Hey Brian, saw the ReefBox name pop up in my notifications a while ago and had to check out what you were up to. Those were some nice frag packs you put together - some lucky refers are probably pretty happy.

And here I was getting ready for the epic parting out sale!

Well, that was supposed to be "dicey" but I guess autocorrect didn't like that for some reason. Sigh.