Sleeping with the Fishes [a pe(s)t project]

[holy carp]

Ha. Well, to celebrate the 1 year birthday, I overfed my fish! They swam around like crazy for 10 minutes and then started crying.

 

Here's the cleaned glass birthday FTS:

[teenyreef]

Happy birthday to the tank! Good luck with the bubble algae, too.

[holy carp]

I changed my dosing programming.

 

I used to have it dose Alkalinity in 4 increments during the day at 10am, 2pm, 6pm, and 10pm (red box shows noon-noon) and now changed it to 12 hourly doses throughout the night (blue box).

It seems to make a big difference in stabilizing the pH...

(the tank may actually have slightly less pronounced bumps from dosing, since the pH probe is right downstream of the dosing area)

 

That said, I have no idea if it really matters.

[holy carp]

Valonia update:

 

I took out the slimer rock (right side) and it was a bit more affected than I realized. I had it out of water for about 10-12 minutes and used 1oz of 35% h2o2. Rinsed it a little with some tank water and put it back in. Only blunder was putting a squirt of the peroxide right on my leptastrea. It foamed like crazy. I tried to rinse it off ASAP, but I think part of it may die. Time will tell. I also couldn't avoid the edges of the orange setosa, but that one grows fast, so I'm sure it will recover quickly.

 

Slimer was a big old snot machine. I think Mariaface made a good point. After putting it back in the tank, all the other corals' polyps started retracting. This isn't unusual when I remove a rock. They seem to sense the disturbance - perhaps flow alterations or chemicals released from the corals that had been removed. Nonetheless, I let it bubble in the tank for about 15 minutes and then did a 4g water change. Then added MB7 and turned on an airstone to help accelerate dissolved gasses returning to regular partial pressure. I haven't studied physics in decades, but it seemed to make sense at the time...

 

This is what came off the rock. Probably got between 2 and 3 dozen clusters typically between 3-8 bubbles each.

 

 

After the other corals closed up, I used the opportunity to treat the elegance rock, since that coral rarely retracts enough that I am comfortable removing it from the water. It's sad to see it drooping and dripping. That rock fortunately didn't have as much, and was only out of water 5 minutes.

 

I'm going to give it a little more time to stabilize before pulling the left rock. Then it's back to regular valonia hunting. Has anyone ever truly and permanently gotten 100% rid of this in their system

[holy carp]

Bad news. I was apparently overzealous with the peroxide.

 

Treatment was around 5:30. Water change at 6:00.

I left for dinner at 8:00. All the polyps were pretty retracted, but the peroxide bubbling had stopped, and apart from the slimer having some mucus, things looked OK. Came back at 11:30 and my acros are bleached and montis are faded. All the corals' polyps are retracted except for one of the acans and the war coral. I guess I'm really recreating nature here, mimicking the bleaching events around the world. Hopefully they'll recover, but right now I feel pretty awful about this. I'm thinking I'll do another water change in the morning, and I guess I'll turn down the lights for a few days so they don't sunburn.

 

Ugh.

[holy carp]

H2O2 OD Impact analysis (Sad Tank Status after 20hrs):

 

LOST:

Sammy the Blue Coral Banded shrimp died. No doubt related to h2o2, but appears to have half-molted. Empty tail shell, but body in torso section remains.

 

VERY AFFECTED:

Green Slimer bleached nearly white, polyps still green, slight PE

Unidentified green acro also bleached nearly white, polyps still green

Blue Tort almost white, but has good PE. (this one never got color back since browning out a while ago, so maybe it will if it pulls through)

Optimus Prime very light colored, polyps dark, but little fluorescence.

Setosa lost most of its color and looks light pink, but polyps remain orange. Negligible PE

Leptoseris has evident tissue damage and shows a little bone (this one is always a wimp)

 

AFFECTED:

Porites coloration is muted

sunset monti is slightly paler

 

SLIGHTLY AFFECTED:

Bam Bam's - most remain closed. Open ones look normal

RDE zoas - most remain closed. Open ones look normal

Leptastrea tissue is retracted, but coloration looks normal

elegance is slightly less inflated/extended

Dendrophyllia is still closed, though coloration looks normal for now

Cyphastrea seems slightly less fluorescent, but polyps look normal

 

UNAFFECTED:

Torch is open and colored as usual

Acan and Micros are as plump as ever

Yuma family are all open and colored as usual

Red War coral barely blinked

Unfortunately, digitate hydroids are out in full force, and unremoved valonia are fat, dumb, and happy

Birdsnest was nearly dead for the past few weeks, but the remaining living sections look as healthy as previously.

Purple Death palys are open and normal

Green Protopalys opened this morning as usual

Pink Monti looks unfazed

Fish, crabs, snails, and other shrimp are active and behave normally

 

IMPROVED?:

Unknown Acro was Lavender colored when I bought it, but had since turned completely boring green. New growth tips now look original color. Not sure if that's good or bad, actually, but looks OK. Perhaps it wasn't healthy when I got it...

 

 

 

Valonia leads 1-0

[metrokat]

Happy Birthday Tank!

Bad news. I was apparently overzealous with the peroxide.

 

Treatment was around 5:30. Water change at 6:00.

I left for dinner at 8:00. All the polyps were pretty retracted, but the peroxide bubbling had stopped, and apart from the slimer having some mucus, things looked OK. Came back at 11:30 and my acros are bleached and montis are faded. All the corals' polyps are retracted except for one of the acans and the war coral. I guess I'm really recreating nature here, mimicking the bleaching events around the world. Hopefully they'll recover, but right now I feel pretty awful about this. I'm thinking I'll do another water change in the morning, and I guess I'll turn down the lights for a few days so they don't sunburn.

 

Ugh.

oh shoot

[Mariaface]

Oh, no! ;~;

 

Remind me to only pick up corals under your 'unaffected' list..

 

I hope everything recovers well. Be sure to feed and dose bacteria, since they won't be able to rely on photosynthetic energy for a little while. If the valonia likes it, so be it. You can fight that battle another day. Maybe try removing them but not dipping, just rinsing to dislodge any spores?

[holy carp]

Oh, no! ;~;

 

Remind me to only pick up corals under your 'unaffected' list..

 

I hope everything recovers well. Be sure to feed and dose bacteria, since they won't be able to rely on photosynthetic energy for a little while. If the valonia likes it, so be it. You can fight that battle another day. Maybe try removing them but not dipping, just rinsing to dislodge any spores?

 

I was thinking along the same lines. There are still at least a dozen valonia, and unfortunately, they are not that easy to spot, so they still exist everywhere - including the rocks I already treated. I'm going to rest everything under lower lights for another day or two, and maybe midweek do what you suggest of removing valonia without h2o2. So far, I've dosed 2 capfuls of MB7 and I plan to feed some coral dust food daily so they can get something from the water column.

 

I had planned another water change today, just in case there are residual toxins from coral panic in the water that might irritate others, but I opted to just swap out the carbon instead. I think another WC might just be more stress, so I'll do it mid-week. I might even try to siphon some of the valonia off during the WC without removing the rocks at all. At least that way the corals don't get stressed.

 

At this point, I'm just hoping the damage is done and they don't deteriorate further.

 

 

It's pretty hard to believe that after not spotting a single valonia for a month before vacation, that this much springs up in only 2 weeks. What gives?

 

And for those with a strong stomach:

 

 

 

 

 

but at least this:

 

[ninjamyst]

sorry to hear about the problems =(.

[ReefWeeds]

OMG, I'm such a bad parent. The 15th was my tank's 1 year birthday! Ha... Here's the filthy birthday FTS...

 

such a bad parent

 

Happy late tank birthday

Oh no! I just caught up and read about your troubles sending lots of coral mojo your way.

[holy carp]

Dendro opened today. Yay. It looks unaffected and was hungry!

 

And when I saw it, I spotted this little guy building a room with a view:

 

[teenyreef]

I'm sorry to hear about the peroxide problems! I've found everything other than sps and inverts can tolerate a lot of peroxide. Even when I've overdone it with zoas, they opened back up after about a week. Unfortunately I've also found sps are super sensitive to peroxide - I hope yours bounce back!

[holy carp]

I'm sorry to hear about the peroxide problems! I've found everything other than sps and inverts can tolerate a lot of peroxide. Even when I've overdone it with zoas, they opened back up after about a week. Unfortunately I've also found sps are super sensitive to peroxide - I hope yours bounce back!

 

Thanks, teeny. Tough lesson, but I'm hoping it's just a matter of time before they can color up again. It'll be interesting to see the progress on the time-lapse photos.

[metrokat]

Those photos made me sad.

[holy carp]

Imagine it in real life...

 

---

 

This morning something occurred to me, and I'm glad I thought of it. If the corals are injured, and I have the lights lower, then they will be less active and I might have to adjust my dosing, or else I'll boost Alk too high and burn them.

 

Tested Alk when I got home. Normally I run around 7.5. The test read 9.5 dKH. Typical Alk consumption had been about 2dKH per day (13ml ESV in ~15 gal). It's been 48 hours since the water change, so that tells me that the corals are consuming half of what they had been before. I'm wondering if the change is caused more by the reduced lighting or the reduced zoox - probably both. I'll have the lights back up to normal by the end of the week, so I'll test again to see. For now, dosing gets cut in half.

 

[teenyreef]

Imagine it in real life...

 

---

 

This morning something occurred to me, and I'm glad I thought of it. If the corals are injured, and I have the lights lower, then they will be less active and I might have to adjust my dosing, or else I'll boost Alk too high and burn them.

 

Tested Alk when I got home. Normally I run around 7.5. The test read 9.5 dKH. Typical Alk consumption had been about 2dKH per day (13ml ESV in ~15 gal). It's been 48 hours since the water change, so that tells me that the corals are consuming half of what they had been before. I'm wondering if the change is caused more by the reduced lighting or the reduced zoox - probably both. I'll have the lights back up to normal by the end of the week, so I'll test again to see. For now, dosing gets cut in half.

 

I've seen the same thing - they're either dying or slowly recovering (hopefully option B!), so they aren't growing. Which means almost no alk uptake.

 

When I was going through SPS disaster, I had to monitor alk almost every day to see what was happening.

[holy carp]

Things still aren't pretty, but at least there's a sign of improvement:

The Slimer is showing some PE again this morning. It's all relative... but still a good sign.

[metrokat]

It expelled zooxanthellae which corals do when stressed. Hope is not lost.

[holy carp]

Little update on the recovery:

 

Did a 4g w/c this evening. Interestingly, the valonia that I had spotted after the peroxide overdose were all either gone or virtually dead (like empty husks). Now the spores are likely in the system, but somehow they continued to die while the corals seem to be slowly reviving.

 

The green slimer is white with green polyps that are extending relatively well today. The orange setosa is starting to get a little color back in the body, but some of the edges are still paper white - perhaps tissue loss or more severe bleaching. Other acros are tougher to judge. GSP is about 30% open, and zoas about 50%.

 

I've been feeding some sort of coral dust every evening in hopes they don't starve. After 2 days low, and 2 days medium, tomorrow the lights go back up to normal intensity.

[metrokat]

You're doing everything right.

[holy carp]

I hope so.

 

While many things are definitely picking up:

• Zoas are 100% open now
• Leptastrea on which I directly dripped 35% h2o2 shows no visible signs of tissue damage in that area
• Leptoseris tissue has covered the previously exposed bone
• Setosa is picking up a little more orange body color every day
• Slimer PE is good, and the body is getting a pinkish hue (I hope that's good, anyway)
• GSP shows a little more PE every day (but who really cares, I know that think won't ever die - it's even begun to grow branches and shelves over the past few weeks. Sometimes I think it's almost more interesting closed up)

 

Other things not so great:

• Porites that seemed to lose only a little color at first has continued to morph into a chunk of chocolate with white circles. At least PE seems OK.
• Purple bonsai that also seemed to do well at first has lost tissue on a few tips and now has cyano growing there.
• Blue Tort now has green polyps and a pinkish body

 

And speaking of cyano - all this overfeeding is fueling it on my sandbed. But interestingly, I have seen virtually zero diatoms on the glass. If the cyano becomes more of a problem, I'll lower the whites and leave the blues, but for now, I just added more MB7 and am staying the course.

 

This emoticon has new meaning to me , even though I always think it looks like he's flipping the bird.

[Mariaface]

Ahem.

 

 

New map, please.

 

 

How're things looking in here?

EDIT: I accidentally made a frag of the purple haze from Absolutely fish when I was taking it off the plug. Assuming I don't murder my tank, I'll let it grow out and you can have it! I almost brought it with me Sunday, but decided to let it heal instead.

[holy carp]

Cool. I destroyed my rainbow montipora when snipping it off the plug. It was on a really brittle ceramic or aragonite that just crumbled - almost like it had encrusted over a lump of sand that they glued to the frag plug. It broke into 3 pieces - 1 died already, 1 is very promising, and 1 is hanging on with slight necrosis along the edge on one side, but healthy on the other side. It might pull through for you.

 

No new map until I glue the stuff down. I need help figuring out where things should go. Right now, I have to find a home for a blue tort, lavender acro that turned green (temporarily?), a yellow leptoseris, the utter chaos and purple hornet, a cyphastrea, a rainbow monti, and 2 RFA's. and decide if I ever want that war coral on rock. Also, my half dead birdsnest - they don't seem to encrust, just grow, but it's all dead except for the tips... so do I have a dozen little birdsnest frags? I'll try to sort it out next weekend if I don't leave town for the fourth.

 

BTW, that yellow lepto is just a beacon of brilliant golden yellow, I just hope it keeps its color in my tank.

 

In coral recovery news:

• Green slimer has great color in the polyps, and they're very extended, but the body is still almost all white. Some green has appeared at some of the tips.
• Blue Tort is getting some color back - the polyps are green, the body is light red/purple, and the tips are turning blue again
• Orange Setosa is getting body color back, but is still pale and diatoms (or spirulina?) grow on it in a few spots during the day, which I baste off in the evening.
• Other green acro is turning light reddish brown with some green at the bottom.
• Optimus Prime is getting reddish again and shows some green and purple along the encrusting edges.
• Purple Bonsai looks great under actinics but is still pretty pale under whites

 

[Mariaface]

So you win some, you lose some?

 

I think you're doing alright - consider what COULD have happened if it had gone any worse, you know? Just focus on keeping the water clean (forget about the valonia for now; it won the battle but not the war), feed them and throw in amino/fatty acids to complete metabolic processes, and lend them a hand if they get into any trouble (say, if any tips start to grow algae).

 

Good luck finding homes! I'm going to need suggestions for mine, too. Everything's either on the bottom on flat square discs, or hanging in the frag tree. Maybe I should upload some pictures...