Shadow's 16G Disaster. Fumigation Poisoned the Tank and Crashed It.

[Snow_Phoenix]

I'll make this update quickly. A lot has happened within the last 72 hours, and none of it was too good.

 

I am in and out of hospitals, got out today, and might return again within few days and the diagnosis isn't as good as we hoped - my mum is especially wrecked and having a hard time accepting it. I'm coping better though, but I won't go down without a fight. As some of my friends have said, you can live past expectations - even my specialist recommended I pursue my PhD, meet someone, heck even go get married first if that's what I wish. Live everyday like it's my last. And before you ask, it's inoperable. That's all I have to say about it, and please respect my privacy. Thank you.

 

As for fish related stuff, 3 days ago I retrieved Michael from the store and temporarily housed him in my tank for a day before selling him off to a local reefer who claimed to have an established 120G tank (4' long). That same reefer also purchased my baby clownfish.

 

These are the last pics of them:

 

 

 

 

I received an SMS today, just moments after my scan that both fish had died in his tank. If that isn't bad enough, I was discharged from hospital and came back to find Cosmo my YCG trapped and grinded in the powerhead.

 

The only survivor of this whole mess is Scooter, my blenny. To say I'm devastated beyond words is just...I can't even think right now. I have so many problems on my plate in RL, and I lost not one, but three of my fish, two due to my stupidity of trusting the wrong person with their care, and one for me not being cautious enough.

 

I honestly am going to leave the tank to sit as it is for a while. I'll be going in and out of hospital, going after test after test and it's chaotic. I can't even think straight anymore - I'll probably take a break from NR as well.

[FlowerMama]

Shadow, you do what you need to do for yourself first and foremost. Spend time with your family. Do whatever makes you happy. Sorry to hear about all that happened in the course of the running around in/out of hospitals. I agree with your docs, proceed to do whatever your heart and mind desire. Thinkin' about ya.

[enderturtle]

Sending prayers and good vibes your way. Hope things improve with both you health and the tank.

[Simone]

So sorry to hear to hear this, will be thinking of you.

[Dr.Brain Coral]

Sorry to hear Shadow.

[Snow_Phoenix]

I'm still alive. Barely, and severely medicated, but definitely clinging on. My mum convinced me to continue reefing. She said I needed something to keep busy with, and to focus my mind on rather than any physical or emotional pain. It took a lot of persuasion on her part since I sold off a lot of tanks and equipment within these past two weeks - so I scraped up a few bits of leftover cash from my coral sales and got a curved glass Dophin 8G tank. It has been set up since 30/8/2014, but I just didn't think of mentioning it earlier. I wet it on 1/9/2014, got fresh Caribsea Aragonite Grade 3 live sand, used one large piece of dry-rock-turned-live-rock as a centerpiece and began the cycle. Used the Resun-4000 as a wavemaker, a freshwater ghost shrimp to kick-start ammonia levels and converted a mini worm-feeder into a media basket of sorts to hold some activated carbon and PhosBan.

 

The Pico was torn down after my starfish literally was found ripped apart into five different pieces, and after I caught two bearded fireworms crawling on the sand. The Pico was sold just a few days ago, and all my CUC was housed at the LFS until their major display tank crashed for some reason. They lost 99% of their fish stock, and through sheer dumb luck, my whole CUC made it through their crash. So I brought them back home, stored them in a pail for a few days and did daily WCs to keep the water fresh. Scooter the blenny made it through as well.

 

The 8G finished cycling sometime early this week and I had an outbreak of diatoms. Did a 80% WC, reintroduced the CUC and now the diatoms are dying down. Also had some mini clumps of GHA appearing, so I reintroduced my blenny and he's mowed it all down. Unfortunately he's taken to pecking at the siliconed sides of the tank as well. I've shooed him off it with a pipette whenever I catch him pecking at it.

 

All my previous corals have been sold and most of my previous livestock has gone off to good homes. However, 1/3 of the corals at the LFS have been purchased and reserved by me, and will probably be picked up one by one by the end of Sept until late Oct or early Nov. They're most softies with the exception of a brain coral, one mini maxi carpet nem and one unidentified hitchiker nem that came along with a frag of GSP. It's looks like a rock flower, but I'm not sure since it's roughly the size of a pea. It has however, escaped the eggcrate layer of the LFS holding tank, sunk to the bottom of the display and is an active roamer. It'll take at least two of the workers and myself to uproot the eggcrate grid and ferret him out, but it's not going to happen anytime soon.

 

Once everything is a bit more stable with my life, I'll upload some pics. I'm thinking of starting a new thread since it's a completely new build, but we'll see. Also, I'll be visiting the clinic (again) end of this month and my mum is going to be hospitalized the very same day for her surgery. We'll both be taking care of each other over the next few months, so I might not be as free to access NR as before.

 

Take care, all of you. And thank you for your support.

[Tamberav]

Glad to hear from you. Stay strong!

 

Edit: oh Sorry to hear about the starfish, I know how much you liked him. I picked up a small red brittle starfish this week because of you

[Dr.Brain Coral]

Im glad you are staying in reefing. That sucks about the star fish. Best wish's.

[Snow_Phoenix]

Glad to hear from you. Stay strong!

 

Edit: oh Sorry to hear about the starfish, I know how much you liked him. I picked up a small red brittle starfish this week because of you

 

Thanks Tam. I personally don't know what happened to him. I recall seeing him actively roaming around the tank at nightfall, but when I got up one morning, his central disc was completely missing and his five legs remained in five separate pieces. I initially thought it was one of my hermits, but they've coexisted well for the past 2 years with no issue, plus the starfish is triple the size of the largest hermit I have. I would love to see pics of your new star though. Red is a pretty color.

 

Im glad you are staying in reefing. That sucks about the star fish. Best wish's.

 

Thank you very much, Dr. Brain. Best wishes to you as well.

[FlowerMama]

Glad you're still doing some reefing, once it is in your blood, it is hard to let go. You've had so much happen lately and you need to keep the reefing, it was some normalcy in your life. Don't let go of things.

[Snow_Phoenix]

Glad you're still doing some reefing, once it is in your blood, it is hard to let go. You've had so much happen lately and you need to keep the reefing, it was some normalcy in your life. Don't let go of things.

 

I won't let go of this one, I think. I quit so many other things - writing, drawing, painting - and it's killing me on the inside. My parents are slowly encouraging me to write again, and one of my specialists actually told me to send her a few of my drawings. I was quite surprised, but we have to move on and keep fighting. If I wallow in self-pity all day, I'll get nowhere in life and it'll make me and everyone else around me miserable. A lot of my RL friends have already abandoned me when I fell sick, and I pushed away the remaining ones in order not to get hurt, but I ended up hurting them indirectly. I feel guilty about it, but it's just too difficult to explain. I don't even have the words for it.

 

This hobby still keeps me sane, frankly speaking. And since I'm pretty much slowing down for the time being, I won't be hanging around here as often as I'd like. Still, I'll try to give some updates every couple of days.

[Snow_Phoenix]

Hi, I know it's been a long time but just wanted to drop by and say I'm doing okay. I'm stabilizing - not improving or worsening, but petering along a fine line right now. Came out of a routine clinic visit two days ago, more meds added to the bunch but no more needles for the time being. My mum will be hospitalized tomorrow and undergo an op on Tues though, so I'll be returning back to the hospital (somewhat) to take care of her while she's sick.

 

In the meantime, I'm pretty much homebound and can only drive very short distances, even though this pretty much irked both my specialists and I had to undergo a nice lengthy lecture from them because of it.

 

So enough talk about me - how's everyone else been doing? How are your setups and tanks?

 

These are several teaser pics of my current tank btw:

 

 

 

FTS two days ago when I added some few pieces of coral. As you can see, most of them aren't fully opened yet since I took this pic just after I acclimated and added them. The other half of my corals are still at my LFS but I'll probably bring them back week after next.

 

 

 

This is my 0.5" baby clown. I wanted a True Perc initially, but I spotted this lil' guy being chased around by a Maroon clown at another LFS in this tiny 2G cube. He was quite thin - you can see his lateral line if you stare hard enough at this pic, and refused to eat for a whole day. Fed him my secret mysis mix and he went for that like a champ. Now he cruises the whole tank - probably the first clownfish I've ever had in these past two years that makes full use of the tank space instead of swimming around in just one corner. I named him Dusk, due to his dusky orange coloring. Also, he's not aquacultured. I took a risk purchasing a wild clown, and it did bite at me morally since I strive to buy aquacultured fish/livestock rather than wild ones in a bid to maintain our oceans. But Dusk has brought me great peace and joy. He greats me every morning when I wake up to turn the lights on. I'm planning on training him to be hand-fed soon if possible.

 

 

 

This was my soft finger leather coral that finally extended its polyps after 24 hours of sulking in my tank.

 

 

 

This is a colony of unknown zoas I purchased about 1.5 months ago. It was kept at the LFS for several weeks until I finally brought it back after I recently came out of the clinic. Looks like a weird fire and ice morph but I'm not too sure.

 

 

 

 

 

These are my Implosion Green Palys. The green is so strong that it practically glows under my actinic lights.

 

 

 

 

 

Top view of my current tank.

 

 

 

This was the very first day I wet this tank weeks ago.

 

 

P.S. Should I start a new thread for this new build, or just stick with this one?

[ninjamyst]

sorry to hear about your health issues. your tank is looking great and glad you decide to continue doing what you love.

[Snow_Phoenix]

sorry to hear about your health issues. your tank is looking great and glad you decide to continue doing what you love.

 

Thank you, ninja. It's nice of you to swing by my thread. Best of luck in the running for TOTM.

[Dr.Brain Coral]

Tanks looks Great Shadow!!! I think those zoas are Fire and Ice also

[Snow_Phoenix]

Tanks looks Great Shadow!!! I think those zoas are Fire and Ice also

 

Thank you, Dr. Brain. I suspect as well, but they seem to have an outer purple ring just between the white center and red skirt, so I wasn't sure. They are stunning though, and I really like them.

[Dr.Brain Coral]

They are Nice. I cant believe how Vibrant those palys are though.

[Snow_Phoenix]

They are Nice. I cant believe how Vibrant those palys are though.

 

Neither can I. They love to be fed mysis. But I need to target feed each polyp individually to make them spread quicker. Personally, I don't mind having them conquer my rockwork in the future.

[Dr.Brain Coral]

I think it would be beautiful to have them all over the rocks

[Snow_Phoenix]

So this is what I've been feeding my corals for the past three days:

 

 

 

Nice happy corals with PE after feeding.

 

 

 

 

 

This was my Red Bali Brain, which was brought back from the point of death. Many thanks to New Oasis Nusa Bestari JB for helping me nurse this coral back to life somehow - it was stretched thin and sunken down about a month ago. Now it's plumped up a little and has regained 25% of its original size. Still a long way to go recovery-wise, but it shows a strong feeding response so I'm taking that as a good sign.

 

 

 

I will be camping out at the hospital over the next few days to take care of my mother's post-op recovery. My father will be temporarily taking care of all five of my tanks in the meantime. I'm just hoping that he remembers the correct light schedule and knows when to turn the fan on and off. I admit I'm a tad worried, but it'll only be that way for a few days, so I hope everyone makes it through safely.

[Dr.Brain Coral]

Im sure The tanks will be fine with your dad watching them. That brain coral is a pretty cool recovery story. Hmmm maybe I will make my Next Doc.B's thread "Best Recovery Story" haha

[FlowerMama]

I really like that new set up you have now. I like the tower in the middle especially, rises up like a volcano. I agree, let the green palys go wherever they want, they're gorgeous!!!!!

[Snow_Phoenix]

Im sure The tanks will be fine with your dad watching them. That brain coral is a pretty cool recovery story. Hmmm maybe I will make my Next Doc.B's thread "Best Recovery Story" haha

 

Go for it.

 

 

I really like that new set up you have now. I like the tower in the middle especially, rises up like a volcano. I agree, let the green palys go wherever they want, they're gorgeous!!!!!

 

Thank you. Only downside about the tower is that nothing sticks or clings on to it. Have tried even putting my mushroom on it but it gets bowled over pretty quickly by my hermits. I'm currently looking out for Loctite glue to see if I can glue down some frags. I would definitely love for the Implosion Green Palys to take over my rockwork.

[ninjamyst]

i am surprised zoas can eat mysis! do you chop them up first?

[Snow_Phoenix]

i am surprised zoas can eat mysis! do you chop them up first?

 

Surprisingly no - I use Hikari Mysis, and my zoas love that. The next time a polyp ingests one, I'll be sure to snap a pic of it. I myself thought the pieces were too big for the fire and ice morphs, but several polyps actually managed to ingest individual bits of mysis without my intervention. The Palys are much larger though, and generally love meatier foods. I'm thinking of dicing some shrimp and trying it out with the Implosion Greens to see if I can garner a positive feeding response.

 

Also, in terms of personal life, my mom's OP was successful. Right now she's resting and recovering, and my father is in full care of all my tanks and pets at home - 2 crabs, 1 terrapin, 1 crazy terrier, boatload of catfish, bichirs and cichlids, and my marine crew. We'll be alternating out stay at the hospital so that one of us is always there to tend to her needs. I might not be fully available within the next few days, so I apologize in advance to everyone reading this. Will get back to each of you soon.