Snow's 60G Secret Predatory Sanctum 🐲🐉 - Shutting Down

[Snow_Phoenix]

Last night's shenanigans:

 

All inverts enjoying a good meal of diced raw shrimp:

 

 

 

 

 

Poseidon still has a full belly from yesterday: 😊👍

 

 

 

Had to pull out a few leftover shrimp pieces this morning - I think my cynarina threw up last night. 😨

 

I noticed I have two aiptasia in this tank. One is in the shade under the LR ledge (yuma bridge). Will have to lift up the whole rock just to zap it. ☹

[Snow_Phoenix]

The dreaded aiptasia. 🙄 :

 

 

Bubble coral is nice and bubbly today morning:

 

 

 

Thanos looking over the reef:

 

 

Bullseye rhodactis:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Hey forum friends,

 

My tank crashed ~2 days ago. My father sprayed bleach all over his room (which is just a few feet away opposite from my own), and used chemicals to oil the hinges of his bedroom door, as well as other liquids to remove stains etc etc. Basically, there was a pungent odor of chlorox throughout upstairs for a few hours - the smell even permeated my bedroom very badly, and I had to ventilate/aerate the room as much as possible. I'm not sure how *much bleach and chemicals were used, but it was a lot. 

 

Around ~48 hours after spraying bleach, I noticed my large reef had began to crash and a lot of my LPS were dying - especially my symphyllias. I lost my orange frogspawn (whatever that was left of it), my purple/green symphyllia and my rainbow symphyllia. I also lost my red brittle star, Marco, and my GCBS, Zanipolo, still hasn't shown up until today, so I fear he's gone too. 😞

 

The surviving coral are in terrible shape. Most have lost flesh and appear skeletal. Only a few pieces like my Candy Canes and my cup coral seem unaffected. *All my fish survived, so thank goodness for this small blessing. 

 

I WCed 40G of SW and ran fresh carbon in the reef - I was already nursing a sprained knee, so I couldn't do a full 100% WC - simply put, I was in pain, and not strong enough to do anymore lifting. 

 

As for the picoreef - you'll notice this little reef somehow seemed unaffected by the bleach fumes. This was simply because when my father was busy cleaning up his room, I had removed everything (all rocks, corals and livestock) from the Pico, drained out all of the water and added sand to it. Then I re-added everything back and put some Prime in. So indirectly, I saved my little tank from crashing itself from contamination. 

 

Tbh, I truly felt like giving up on this tank (I mean, 2 crashes in 3 months? That's a record, even for me) but I'm still holding on to it, because I have over a dozen fish left in this thing, and I'm hopelessly attached to them. 

 

Fast-forward a couple of days, tank is slowly recovering, and the pearl bubble coral made it through (it looked quite deflated earlier). My cynarina is quite shrunken and might not make it, and neither will my mini maxi nem or my large, dual-toned symphyllia. In a time where acquiring corals is almost an impossibility, I do consider the losses heavy. Atm, I'm just focusing on keeping whatever I have left alive and once again, will focus on re-stabilizing the tank. 

 

My takeaway from all of this: Be very careful with spraying bleach, or any other pungent chemical all over the house. My father was very apologetic over it, but lesson learned. I'm mostly glad my dog and bird didn't die, and are both okay. 

[ECLS Reefer]

33 minutes ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Hey forum friends,

 

My tank crashed ~2 days ago. My father sprayed bleach all over his room (which is just a few feet away opposite from my own), and used chemicals to oil the hinges of his bedroom door, as well as other liquids to remove stains etc etc. Basically, there was a pungent odor of chlorox throughout upstairs for a few hours - the smell even permeated my bedroom very badly, and I had to ventilate/aerate the room as much as possible. I'm not sure how *much bleach and chemicals were used, but it was a lot. 

 

Around ~48 hours after spraying bleach, I noticed my large reef had began to crash and a lot of my LPS were dying - especially my symphyllias. I lost my orange frogspawn (whatever that was left of it), my purple/green symphyllia and my rainbow symphyllia. I also lost my red brittle star, Marco, and my GCBS, Zanipolo, still hasn't shown up until today, so I fear he's gone too. 😞

 

The surviving coral are in terrible shape. Most have lost flesh and appear skeletal. Only a few pieces like my Candy Canes and my cup coral seem unaffected. *All my fish survived, so thank goodness for this small blessing. 

 

I WCed 40G of SW and ran fresh carbon in the reef - I was already nursing a sprained knee, so I couldn't do a full 100% WC - simply put, I was in pain, and not strong enough to do anymore lifting. 

 

As for the picoreef - you'll notice this little reef somehow seemed unaffected by the bleach fumes. This was simply because when my father was busy cleaning up his room, I had removed everything (all rocks, corals and livestock) from the Pico, drained out all of the water and added sand to it. Then I re-added everything back and put some Prime in. So indirectly, I saved my little tank from crashing itself from contamination. 

 

Tbh, I truly felt like giving up on this tank (I mean, 2 crashes in 3 months? That's a record, even for me) but I'm still holding on to it, because I have over a dozen fish left in this thing, and I'm hopelessly attached to them. 

 

Fast-forward a couple of days, tank is slowly recovering, and the pearl bubble coral made it through (it looked quite deflated earlier). My cynarina is quite shrunken and might not make it, and neither will my mini maxi nem or my large, dual-toned symphyllia. In a time where acquiring corals is almost an impossibility, I do consider the losses heavy. Atm, I'm just focusing on keeping whatever I have left alive and once again, will focus on re-stabilizing the tank. 

 

My takeaway from all of this: Be very careful with spraying bleach, or any other pungent chemical all over the house. My father was very apologetic over it, but lesson learned. I'm mostly glad my dog and bird didn't die, and are both okay. 

Oh nooooo!!!! 😱😢😢😢 I’m so sorry Snow!!! Hang in there!

[Snow_Phoenix]

I visited both my primary and secondary LFSes today. These were some pics and videos I took from my secondary LFS:

 

One large green frogspawn colony left:

 

 

Their DT:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another DT:

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Bubbly:

 

 

 

Miko:

 

 

Odin:

 

 

Casper:

 

 

Morning, NR. 🤗👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Mugshot: 😅

 

 

Lurking under the Yuma Bridge:

 

 

Cup coral:

 

 

Trumpet coral:

 

 

 

Miko perching on the favia:

 

 

Am planning on shifting the favia up, because it's too close to the bubble coral and I suspect a part of it is getting stung at night. 

 

My secondary LFS has an assortment of leftover mushrooms, but they are a bit expensive. When the time is right, I will collect some new shrooms to repopulate mushroom mountain. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Starting to think I have my gobies mixed up, and Freida is the male while Odin is the female. Unsure, but you can see Freida has developed yellow speckles and blue outlines on his/her dorsal fin here:

 

 

🤷‍♀️

[Snow_Phoenix]

Macroalgae in my refugium:

 

Dragon's breath:

 

 

Fern caulerpa:

 

 

Cheato:

 

 

Cotton Candy:

 

 

Blade Caulerpa & Grape caulerpa:

 

 

Red Grape:

 

 

Overall fuge:

 

 

Tried my level best to get rid of the film algae but it's nearly impossible. Am considering adding some turban snails in there to *try and clean it up. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Cubert the conch:

 

 

Thanos taking refuge under the bubble coral:

 

 

Casper with a full belly after a hearty meal of pellets:

 

 

Goblin lurking on one of the symphyllia:

 

 

Miko alert:

 

 

The 60G has an assortment of hitchikers. One of the most notable ones are a pair of banded spaghetti worms in my LR:

 

 

One of them has developed a routine habit of snacking on pellets: 🤗

 

 

 

Tank's overall recovery from the chemical contamination is slow, but some of the healthy frags are regrowing. Both my leopard discosoma and red spotted discosoma have popped out a new head each, which is great. 

 

I was thinking of upgrading my lights, but I held back. Will most likely end up purchasing a 2nd AI Prime (HD) by the end of this year though. 🤔

 

We shall see. 🙂

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Breaking the next update into several updates - pic heavy! 😄

 

Update #1: The Third Dragon. 

 

So yesterday turned out to be an interesting day. I had a large green frogspawn colony on hold at my 2nd LFS, but when I dropped by for a visit, the coral appeared very unhealthy. In fact, one of the guys working at the store told me directly it was unhealthy. I noticed there were smaller frogspawns available - but one of them was smothered in brown goop! 😱

 

After battling BJD in my own tank and losing many wonderdul LPS pieces to it, I decided to pass on on this. So I dropped by my 1st LFS (primary store) to pick up zoas for my picoreef. 

 

Since the store is preparing to shift premises, a lot of their frag tanks and fish tanks had been left empty, except for 3 large frag tanks at the back of the store which holds leftover/random mix of corals. 

 

There was one fragtank in the front of the store that had 2 starfish, a few RBTA and...a single dragonet. 

 

Well, all of you should know me by now. And what I tend to do. 🤐

 

Long story short, I've seen this fish in the LFS since Jan 2020 (it arrived with the same batch of Mandys as Poseidon) and it was on a stable diet of frozen pods. 

 

I hesitated at first. This was the last scooter at the store, and theoretically, the last fish on sale. I passed...until I saw it flare its lil' dorsal fin and realized it was *female. 

 

Whoa, there. 😳

 

It's actually rare to get females - most of the wild-caught dragonets are often male. And since I have a male scooter at home  well...😏

 

Anyway, everyone meet Bella:

 

 

 

She has a lighter complexion than Illaron, and can actually camouflage pretty well. 😊

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Update #2. Pairing dragons. 

 

I was very nervous introducing Bella to Illaron. But I have to say, my male's got game: 😄

 

 

 

 

 

They were following each other around yesterday. But I notice my male is a bit too pushy, and he's trying his best to impress her a wee bit *too much. As of now, they're mostly hunting on their own, not together. 

 

I think it'll take time for them to truly pair up. For now, I fed them some frozen pods, and all fish seem content enough. 👍

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Update #3. Other fish & inverts. 

 

Everything else is doing okay. Still recovering from the crash, but I think we're over the worst of it:

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Coin-sized RBTA I picked up last week. It's too small to be added directly to the rocks, so I kept it in a breeder box. Fed it a small chunk of shrimp today, and it seemed happy enough):

 

 

I *might be picking up another bubble colony from my 1st LFS. It's a regular bubble - green with purple streaks. Very large and healthy, and beautiful when open. Pricey too, so I'll try to get it in 2 split payments.

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

The Big Guy found a new perching spot:

 

 

He's not amused that I took pics of him:

 

 

🤣

[Snow_Phoenix]

Good morning! 😊

 

Miu & Bo out together:

 

 

My three dragons:

 

1. Poseidon:

 

 

 

2. Bella (she's *not skinny - the angle of my shots makes her look stretched out for some reason):

 

 

 

 

3. Illaron:

 

 

Bonus: 

 

This is how Bella looked like yesterday - she can fade out pretty well to blend in with the sandbed at night:

 

 

 

😊

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Can't believe how large this guy has become in this reef - when I first bought him, he was only 3" across, arms included: 😮

 

 

 

Comparison with my hand:

 

I have another one in this tank, but I don't know if it's this large yet. A third one resides in my pico, but it's significantly smaller. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Lights are out for the night and I just returned to my bedroom. Spotted this guy lurking in the shadows:

 

 

He's around ~2-years-old, I believe. Quite big now, too. 😊

 

Also...can you spot the dragonets?

 

 

😃

[Snow_Phoenix]

Kicking off the day with some pod-hunting: 😊👍

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Bella started eating Formula One pellets today. 😮

 

Quite frankly, I was so stunned and captivated that I didn't catch her on film the first time. She's actually a more aggressive-eater than Poseidon. I kid you not. 

 

I did manage to take two short vids of her slowing down after her first few voracious bites - she's facing away from my phone, but if you look closely, you can see her take a quick peck every now and then:

 

This spot, where I drop the pellets - it is one of 4 dragonet 'hotspots' which I have identified in my tank:

 

By 'hotspot', I mean it's an area where my dragonets always, always circle back to, to feed - kinda like clockwork. Think of it as a mini-feeding ground, which is perfect to dump/scatter a lot of prepared food - especially pellets and frozen pods. 

 

I truly hope Bella continues to eat pellets, or at least develop a strong-enough liking for them that she'll be able to gain more weight. Weight-wise, she's okay and better than Illaron, but I'd love it if she becomes chunky (with fat rolls) like Poseidon. 😊

[WV Reefer]

On 6/3/2020 at 8:31 AM, Snow_Phoenix said:

Lights are out for the night and I just returned to my bedroom. Spotted this guy lurking in the shadows:

 

 

He's around ~2-years-old, I believe. Quite big now, too. 😊

 

Also...can you spot the dragonets?

 

 

😃

They are so cute peaking out of the sand like that....  makes me miss Rico.  They always look sort of ashamed. 😄

[Snow_Phoenix]

37 minutes ago, WV Reefer said:

They are so cute peaking out of the sand like that....  makes me miss Rico.  They always look sort of ashamed. 😄

Aww...you should get another Rico. 

 

We need more dragonets in reeftanks here. 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Check out what came in the mail today! 😊 :

 

 

 

Seachem Prime & Prime Reef flakes for the SW tank(s), Sanyu Algae Wafers & Tetrabits for the FW tank. 👍

 

The amount of bubble wrap the vendor used was nuts:

 

 

But at least all the items arrived safely. 🤗

[Snow_Phoenix]

Dragonet food fiesta: 😊

 

Poseidon eating some pellets:

 

You can see how deteriorated both my symphyllias and my cynarina is after the crash in the background of my videos. I honestly have no idea how to restore them because they appear to be dying slowly. I was thinking of removing those 3 large pieces and set up a hospital tank downstairs, do tri-weekly WCs and see if there is any improvement. Otherwise, I think the dying tissue is causing a nutrient imbalance in my tank and currently stunting the growth of my other coral pieces, including my chalices. Will try to pull over my PAR38 bulb from the nano as a source of light over the hospital tank. And give regular iodine dips for all 3 corals, if I must. 🤔

[Snow_Phoenix]

So, I removed the 3 large unhealthy LPS from the sandbed and transfered them to a hospital tank downstairs. Prognosis is poor - there were holes in the flesh of my symphyllias, and one of them even harbored a rather large bristleworm which *might have been snacking on the remains of the coral. ☹

 

I caused a bit of a ruckus in the tank when I removed those 3 pieces though. For starters, the sandbed is completely coral-free, so my little gobies immediately started posturing at each other as the old territories are no longer valid. 

 

I also accidently disturbed one of my sleeping wrasses - my yellow coris, Helios, had a fright and bumped his head against the rocks and lost some scales:

 

 

He was breathing heavily for a bit, but the went back into the sand at the back of the tank. ☹

 

I hope he's okay tomorrow morning. 

 

Goblin gave me a mini-heart attack. I thought he developed ich, but it turned out to be loose sand particles from all the dust I stirred up while removing the symphyllias and cynarina:

 

 

 

Right now, my greatest concern is finding a way to block the direct line of sight between all my sand-dwelling fish. I was originally thinking of picking up my new bubble coral tomorrow/the day after and placing it on the top ledge, at the back of the tank, but now I think I might temporarily place it in the center of my sandbed. That way all my gobies and dragonets won't be able to come face to face *all the time. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Update #1: Meet Spyder! 😊

 

I dropped by my LFS today to pick up the giant bubble coral - and I spotted something large scuttling around one of the corners of their frag tanks. 

 

Turned out to be a very large decorator crab - I recall seeing it in one of their other tanks last year - can't believe how huge it has grown! 😮

 

I was pretty fascinated by it. I've never owned a decorator before, because it isn't exactly reefsafe. But I do have a large fuge with plenty of tunicates, sea sponges and macro (and okay, okay, I admit I did feel bad for it because it has been at the store so long that they even forgot it existed until I pointed it out today) - anyhow, I bought it, acclimated it, then released it into my fuge:

 

 

 

(And yep, that's actually GHA on its limbs 😂)

 

He's actually very cool to watch. And he blends in very well with the rocks (sorry for the dirty glass):

 

 

 

 

One of his limbs:

 

 

Such a strange and unique critter. Will feed him a small slice of chopped shrimp shortly. 😊👍