Flashy Fins

No idea if I need to worry about any poison released from his demise, but the tank otherwise looks as it did before.

Seriously, I’m going to rip all my hair out before year’s end. Just came home to find this disaster in the display. I was standing there admiring how a few corals are starting to bounce back, focusing on the positive... then noticed this. 😢

My poor forktail blenny, one of my best/favorite fish. And of course, his body was wrapped all the way around, so trying to pull him out only got me the body and left his decapitated head inside. I could only see the fangs from that side and had to use tweezers down his mouth to remove.

I guess I jinxed myself with this thread title. Ugh. 

6 hours ago, youcallmenny said:

Did you test salinity/alk to see if something was out of whack?  Too late for those corals but forewarned is forarmed in the future. 

No, because even if one was out of whack, I wouldn’t know why, and I don’t plan to reuse the water or rock in case it’s contaminated. I’d be surprised if either was off, though. 

Edit: checked the salinity (haven’t emptied the tank of water yet, just rock in there), and it’s pretty high. 1.030 😑

Yesterday, the kids got their second fish! Thanks to @CuttleFishandCoral for the deal on this cutie:

Another thank you to @stylaster for helping @Gumby with the lights. Tank is looking good!

Sorry if the font size appears large in some spots and small in others; whenever I copy and paste to rearrange paragraphs, it happens.

Came home to a disaster tonight. 😫

A day ago, my QT tank looked like this, just with a bit more algae on the glass (pic taken a few weeks ago):

I left home before the lights came on this morning, so I didn’t pay it any attention and can’t say what it looked like then. Came home around 7 to this:

If you’re having trouble making much out, that’s exactly the experience I had. I noticed it was incredibly cloudy and discolored, then noticed corals stripped of their flesh. Sure enough, a closer look reveals skeletons of a lobo, trachy, & scoly; the ones that appear to have some tissue left did not really; it slid right off as soon as I went to grab them out of the tank. 

I was able to yank out (and put into a bucket of clean water from my display) the sun coral, a grab bag frag (acan’ish, not sure what it is), the candy cane coral (half the polyps dead, half hanging on), a fire shrimp, an urchin, and 2 of 3 rock flower nems (the 3rd is lodged in the rock; can’t get him off). Dead are the lobo, trachy, & scoly, the largest of the colorful corals I bought on Black Friday to spruce up my tank after the last disaster, a move that went poorly and killed most of my corals (more on that below). The starfish melted in the middle and felt lifeless when I picked him up, so he’s presumed dead. 

I don’t know for sure what happened, but I have a guess...

There is a laundry basket next to the tank, and I remember I sprayed a sweater with stain remover last night. I was very careful (or so I thought) to move several steps away from the basket and to spray in the other direction, but I can’t imagine it would do a tank good if any got in.

The other possibility is that it was a problem with the tank not being fully cycled. I started with live rock from a local shop and determined it cycled when a couple of weeks of heavy ghost feeding (dumping in tons of pellet food) failed to raise the ammonia level (I figured the live rock was working and processed it; I should’ve double-checked by testing for nitrates but admittedly didn’t do that). I removed all the rotting food, did a massive water change (90%+), added a HOB filter with carbon, and went coral shopping.

I lean more towards the stain remover being the culprit, because the corals looked perfect up until today. Would a non-cycled tank look fine between Black Friday and now, then suddenly crash in a matter of less than 24 hours? I don’t know. Almost no food has gone into the tank during this time.

Accidents/mishaps/dumb mistakes during my move in early November:

Container leaked water all over my car (unbeknownst to me) and left some corals without water for hours (a tube nem actually survived this, although it still looks rough)

Temperature mismatch between the buckets that had been in my freezing cold car (long night; moving sucks), versus the overheated water in the new tank. I filled it the day before and overlooked the high temp setting on a heater I tossed in to warm freezing ro/di water, so corals went from 68’ish to 80’ish; I tried to cool the new water and acclimate corals slowly, but that meant they were in shallow floating trays snuggled up next to one another for a day, which some did not handle well

Salinity mismatch - in my frazzled state after discovering the problems above, I started panicking that everything was going wrong and forgot that I was supposed to use water in buckets from my old tank to fill the new tank the rest of the way (10 gallons in a 40 breeder that holds around 46 gallons); instead, I dumped in too much freshwater, not only lowering the salinity too much but also forcing the corals into entirely new water (stupid mistake, 100% my fault) 

 & a few other things I’ve either forgotten or blocked from memory. I was so tired after a long night of cleaning my old place and packing up the rest of my crap (my furniture was moved on a prior day, but there’s always a lot of last minute stuff your last day in a place), I think my head was not clear, but mostly it seems I’m just really freaking terrible at this whole reefing thing. 

That’s not to say I’m giving up. The silver lining here is that some corals I bought today were not in the aquarium. I had too many things going on and no time to dip and acclimate, so they’re still in the bag. I’ll deal with them tomorrow when I figure out what my plan is. Unfortunately, they’re nowhere near as flashy as that scoly or trachy, but what’s done is done and what’s dead is dead, so I’m trying to shift the focus to what I can save. 

Long day. Had several mishaps unrelated to reefing, as well, and I just needed to vent about this one to people who understand how much this kind of thing sucks. Even when it’s our own stupidity, we don’t intend to flush money down the toilet when we buy corals or kill living creatures. It’s frustrating. 

Time for sleep. Tagging @Gumby since it’s too late to text, and he’ll hopefully have some ideas for me tomorrow. I think I should probably not use the tank or rock this disaster happened in, if the chance of contamination from the laundry spray is likely. Perhaps I’ll pull old rock from my display and stick it in a new tank.

@WaterIsLove the meeting is open to all, no membership required.

Tank is coming along! Kids got their first fish yesterday, a red firefish they voted for (beating out other choices of a Banggai cardinal and pearly jawfish). The plan was to take a photo of the fish in the tank, but of course he hid under a rock as soon as we dropped him in, so you’ll just have to imagine. 

Thanks for the deal on the fish & hermits, @CuttleFishandCoral. The kids are ready for their next voted upon fish when you get an Aurora goby in stock.

Because full QT isn’t feasible here, we flash medicated using Safety Stop. The process was easy, and the fish handled it like it was nothing. He disliked being caught and moved from bucket to bucket more than he cared one way or the other about the dip. This approach is much better than nothing, as the last thing we want to do is introduce any major pathogens. This is the plan going forward for all fish we add to TFT setups, unless a teacher wants to QT his/herself. 

Kids will see their fish for the first time on Monday, so the little guy has the weekend to settle in before their faces are all against the glass checking him out. 

1 hour ago, albertareef said:

I would just add that you should save any Justin Bieber related items for Scott @spectra - he is a big fan.

That singing toothbrush is finally out of circulation at our parties! I won it and regifted as my white elephant at a work party. The owner’s boyfriend, a rich and stuffy guy with no sense of humor about these kind of things, shot us all the death glare when he opened it. 😂 

3 hours ago, lewisriverfisherman said:

So typical white elephant gifts are kinda gag gifts so to speak so with this event should they be more reef related and usable? 

Either. We see aquarium items, reef themed non-aquarium items (like socks with fish on them), and completely unrelated items (like lotto tickets). Whatever you feel like bringing! 

Looking for dragon soul favia, the classic color pattern. Would like a few eyes. Upscales fixed me up!

Long shot, but fruit loops zoas? I haven’t seen them in ages and don’t even know what they go for anymore, but they were always a fave of mine.  Golden Basket to the rescue! 

$ for trade, because I don’t have enough healthy corals right now to frag/trade anything. Recently moved and had multiple things go wrong; long story short, killed some corals and made the ones that lived very mad. My tank is in recovery mode.

 Already bought my white elephant gift in anticipation! It’s my favorite part of our holiday meeting each year. 

Looking forward to the frag swap thread, as well. Moving my tank didn’t go so well, and I lost quite a few things. Working toward replacing some favorites. I have frags of $ to trade. 😂

@SuncrestReef they can be trained to open during the day. It takes feeding them slightly earlier each day till you reach the results you want, but I find it’s worth it. 

3 hours ago, jayteab said:

Please put me in line for either model, thanks!

The USB model is available now. I’ll PM you to schedule meeting up. 

36 minutes ago, youcallmenny said:

Very, very nice score!  That a sun coral in the bottom left?  Digging the starfish too. 

Good eye! Sun coral, indeed. Another favorite of mine!

Quick crappy pic of my QT, newly loaded up after Black Friday. Hard to pick out everything in there, but the 3 items that stand out the most are my favorite scores, anyway.

bleeding apple scoly from All Things Aquariums

red & green brain coral from Cuttlefish

nuclear candy cane cluster from Upscales

Also ordered an Icecap gyre from Marine Depot, which was discounted for the holiday. Excited to give it try!

Got my best Black Friday deal at his store! Thanks for the sweet deal on my new bleeding apple scoly! 

14 hours ago, Jfruity24 said:

 

This is the piece I got. I’m not much of a gambler and only purchased a $20 bag. Looks nice!

Very generous, @Mchums

Do you know what size tank it’s rated for?

& where are you located?

Anyone selling or wish to donate a HOB skimmer that would work on a 40 breeder? The club is setting up a new school tank in Hood River and could use one.

Love the recap, Bert! It was quite an adventure, and I’m proud of the job everyone did. Way to go, PNWMAS! 

Do you have more info?

you may have attached something, but this is what I see:

That box had LAYERS of tickets in it! It literally rattled when we picked it up. 

Congratulations! And yes, definitely a good choice in Roy for holding your ticket. Honest guy. 

Did you lose this at Frag Fest? Some towels in the bag, too. 

All prizes were claimed! Easier than editing the post above.