SuncrestReef

Wow, this is way more background info than I thought I'd get when I posed the question. Thanks for all the replies. I've only been into reefing for 11 months now (I bought my tank last February) and only on PNWMAS for 6 months, but I've already received a lot of good advice and definitely enjoyed the camaraderie of this group. I'm planning to stick around!

Has anyone been to Clancy Supply? I haven’t tried them, but their web site says they stock PVC fittings. Might be worth calling them to ask if they have what you’re looking for: http://clancysupplyinc.com/pipe--nipples--fittings.html

If you save the specimen, I'd be happy to photograph it under my microscope for you.

That makes for a nice dining table centerpiece. 🤣

It's difficult to gauge from the photos, but it looks like you might have more than 160 gallons of sump alone!

So how many gallons of display tank(s) does this sump take care of?

Unfortunately, no. I don't have a good place to put a long-term QT tank at the moment. However, I'm in the early phase of planning a house remodel to add a couple rooms, one of which will include a fish room and a large new tank, plus a bar and billiards room!

Could be a baby Stomatella snail. If so, it’s a good cleanup crew. Here's one in my tank:

Wow, what a difference in those photos!

No, I'm not sure what started it. I think I first noticed a problem on my birdsnest colony, but didn't recognize it as brown jelly syndrome at first. I thought there was just some detritus on the coral and blew it off with a turkey baster. But that spread it throughout the tank, and about a week later I started noticing problems on multiple corals. There was also some warfare between my lobo and Hollywood stunner, then shortly after the stunner was heavily infected. I don't know if the stinging caused it or if the timing was just coincidence as the brown jelly was spread throughout the tank. The birdsnest went from healthy to completely dead in about 9 days. The Hollywood stunner lost 50% of it's surface area in a week. Some of my small SPS frags went from healthy to dead in 2 days. Today I had to remove two more SPS frags that slowly deteriorated over about 3 weeks. I haven't noticed any others with problems, but I'm keeping a very close eye on everything just in case. It's heartbreaking and frustrating. Like I said, I'm just glad to have what's left in the tank looking good at this point.

Over the past few weeks my tank suffered a setback with the loss of about 10% of my corals to brown jelly syndrome. Things have stabilized, and I'm glad to see my fish, inverts, and remaining corals seem to be happy and healthy. In the big picture, I'm just glad to have such a beautiful piece of living art in my living room:

I don’t have the tools to do it cleanly, so I sent my Nyos lid to Avast and they installed it for me. They call it the Swabbie Retrofit on their website.

I customized my Quantum 160 with an Avast neck cleaner and skimmate locker integrated with my Apex to automate cleaning and turn off the skimmer when full. I only need to empty it about every 10-14 days. Let me know if you want any tips on setting up something like this.

Looks awesome! (except for the damage). What size Nyos Quantum to you choose? I love my 160. I was tempted to get a WaterBox. I'll be curious to see how you like yours. Following.

I just signed up for the digital-only subscription last night. Since the print edition includes the digital subscription, you may be able to see this months issue online.

I'm glad to report my frag is doing well. I'm lucky because brown jelly syndrome damaged and/or killed a dozen other frags in my tank over the past few weeks. I think things are stabilized for now. I have only seen about 1 cm of growth in height, and it's encrusting a bit at the base. Polyp extension and coloration look good.

The triangles appear to be Licmophora diatoms: The round moving one is likely an Esoptrodinium gemma dinoflagellate, letter D in this collection:

I'll hand out some aquarium scum next Halloween. Very popular with the kids. You know I have too much time on my hands when I'm spending hours researching microscopic triangular blobs.

Just for fun I like to take samples from my aquarium and examine them under a microscope. Today's sample was a bit of brownish algae from a Cypastrea that is showing some areas of polyp loss. To my surprise, I found several triangular objects and a small circular creature with a long tail swimming between them. It almost looks like something eating slices of pizza! This video shows them at 80x, 200x, and 800x magnification.

Thank you! I liked that first photo of Haystack Rock with the birds so much that I had it printed on a 60”x40” canvas and hung it in the entryway at my house. Such a beautiful scene!

I'd like to give a big Thank You to Brian @pdxmonkeyboy for the Melafix & fragging tools, and Jeff @CuttleFishandCoral for the house call & advice. I'm always impressed by how reefers go out of their way to help each other in this hobby. Here's to hoping 2019 is a successful year in reef keeping!

Thanks to all for your input. Unfortunately I came down with the flu, so my corals aren't the only ones who are sick. I spent 18 hours in bed over the past 24 hours, so it might be a while before I get out of the house to pick up any Melafix. Hopefully yesterday's dipping in Revive will at least slow down the progression. In hindsight I wish I would have examined the ciliates again under the microscope after dipping to see if they were still moving, but unfortunately I didn't take any additional samples. I'll post an update once I get back on my feet. Happy New Year!

I'm looking for real advice, please.

I'm still cleaning up the brown jelly syndrome in my tank. My Hollywood Stunner was very easy to trim off the dead areas. However, my Green Slimer has several branches with varying degrees of damage. Since I've never fragged any of my corals (still new to the hobby) I'm looking for guidance on what and how much I should cut off. Here's the full view of the damaged frag: And here's a close-up detail of some of the damaged areas: I'm wondering if I should just cut off the most damaged tips (at the red lines) or cut off whole branches (at the yellow lines)?

I'm assuming that was a typo in megacolor? 🤣