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The Continuing Adventures Of Skifletch

wish i had your bouncebackability im giving my main tank up and going to get something smaller amd put 1 fish in so it cant be bullied and if i do get whitespot only one will go at a time.

good to see the mystery wrasse is still there, qt for 8 weeks is prob a good option better then going through this it is!!! lets hope ur lfs can pick up soem nice wrasses to make ya feel better :p

get saddleback clowns :D
 
Well, all fish are still doing just fine in QT and corals are flourishing in the display. Oddly in the absence of the fish I've got a cyano outbreak forming :eek:. Looks like it's time for a water change tomorrow before I go camping. Anyways, today's stats that I test for:

sg: 1.025
Temp: 80
pH: 8.2
Calc: 480ppm
Alk: 11.8 dKH
Mg: 1210ppm
Nitrate: 20ppm

So Calcium and alkalinity are high with low magnesium. At least Mg is coming up and more importantly calc and alk while high are balanced :D. This makes some decent sense since coraline algae growth is through the roof lately. At this rate my rock's gonna be purple within a month :lol:
 
Well, if it aint Ich, its "white bugs"... Been noticing over the weeks that my Euphyllia genus corals (2 frogs and a hammer) have been slowly retracting their tentacles more and more. Couldn't figure out why until a recent close-up visual inspection shows tiny white microinvertebrates swarming all over them. These "white bugs" were present before, but always in small numbers. However since the fish have been removed it seems they've exploded in their numbers. My guess is that either one of the wrasses or my little psuedo were predating on the microinverts to keep the corals healthy. Now that they're gone, the white bugs have free reign and are growng like wildfire. The corals are retracted to their skin almoast all the time now which is not good...

So I'm going to treat with a combination of 3 different dips in hopes that one of them kills the bugs; Lugols (Iodine), Flatworm Exit (salifert for worms), and Inteceptor (a common medication used normally for dogs but has had success killing acropora eating redbugs). Hopefully one or more of these treatments will be successful.

On the other hand, the fish in the QT tank continue to be symptom-free after two weeks. I'm letting the QT tank evaporate to allow salinity to return to nomral gradually. Survivors are still as above.

As for chemistry,

sg: 1.025
Temp: 80
pH: 8.2
Calc: 470ppm
Alk: 12.2 dKH
Mg: 1290ppm
Nitrate: 15ppm

Dosing finally coming in-line on all three major chemicals. I've started spot-feeding corals with mysis/brine to hopefully produce enough waste to keep the biological filter going for the fish when they eventually do return. In doing so, my P. grandis (giant palythoa) are exploding in size. Man those things like to eat :D
 
That must be annoying to find out you have another problem :rolleyes:
I hope all goes well :good: !
 
are those whitebugs only capable of living in corals tissue? if not its gonna be like clearing a tank of copepods by removing a few pieces of rock at a time. dipping them might do more harm than good imo. how long have your fish got to go until they are back in the display?
 
rictheredneck said:
are those whitebugs only capable of living in corals tissue? if not its gonna be like clearing a tank of copepods by removing a few pieces of rock at a time. dipping them might do more harm than good imo. how long have your fish got to go until they are back in the display?
Click to expand...

6 more weeks, far too long. It's only been 2 weeks with the display empty. There are prolly plenty of lurking dormant Ich parasites in there around where the fish used to sleep... Not re-introducing them anytime soon.

As for if the bugs live elsewhere... Dunno. They're SMALL, so finding them anywhere else in the tank is going to be difficult at best. I know Acropora eating redbugs only live on their colonies, so I'm just hoping these bugs are the same. Its really my only other option as fish are out of the question.
 
Well, finally some good news :D

4 weeks of QT down, 4 to go. Remaining fish still surviving and doing well in QT. Sg is up to 1.014 in the QT since I'm just letting it evaporate slowly. However the good news is I figured out what's wrong with my Euphyllia genus corals. All methods of proposed extermination (Flatworm Exit, Iodine, and even Interceptor) had no effect on the white bugs, whatever they are... Then one night I had an epiphony, if the bugs are there on the corals of others in my local reef club but they're fine, maybe it's not the bugs, maybe it's something eating the bugs.

So I built the good old red-film covered flashlight and whent spelunking at night time. And what did I see... A little freaking hitchhiker crab crawls out of a hole at the bottom of the tank and starts nipping bugs off the corals. Checked a couple times during the weekend during hours I'm not usually there, snuck up on the tank, and saw him there too. Soon as I moved quick though he darted back into his hole. So, I moved the Euphyllia into my nano where they are slowly recovering. Slightly more polyp extension every day, but it's gonna be a while till they're all better.

Keep learning lessons of diligence here. Now I have to figure out how to get the little SOB out of there. He's of course in a load bearing rock at the bottom of the stack, so I'm gonna have to try trappin him. Wish me luck :)
 
Well, the crab has now for some reason disappeared... He isn't living in the same hole anymore and I'm not entirely sure what to do with him. The bug-stricken euphyllia are in "qt" in my still mantis-less nano tank and recovering nicely though. Methinks I'm gonna have to find him with a red-light again. Maybe he's moved into a rock I can actually remove this time :crazy:

On other news, the algae cycle continues, cyanobacteria slowing down, hair algae speeding up. Something must have died in the tank and its rotting body is clearly feeding this bloom. Oh well, I'll just keep waiting it out and syphoning away. At least the cyano's on the ropes.

And on the fish front... Week 7 of QT is almoast over. And I have a new order with my LFS to hopefully commemorate the re-introduction of fish into the reef. Too bad the newbies will have to play in QT to make sure, but I'm excited to get some new fish again.

And edit: With the algae and the constant water changes it requires my chemistry's never been better :lol:
Temp - 78
pH - 8.2
sg - 1.025
alk - 10dKH
calc - 410ppm
mg - 1350
nitrate - 0
phosphate - 0
 
My apologies :)

Week 8 of QT came and went, so I returned all QT'ed fish to the display tank a few weeks back. Since their return, not a single spot on them; all survivors are OK. It's been a few weeks and the fish are still getting used to seeing me again :). Since my last update I've bought a few more frags as well... Another australian Acanthastrea Lordhowensis, an Australian Acanthastrea Bowerbanki, and a new blue skeleton green polyped plating montipora (not sure of the species). Will try and get some pics up later this week including a current FTS hopefully with PAR meter readings.
 
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