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

[Snow_Phoenix]

Goblin loves the cynarina: 🤗

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Poseidon has beautiful orange eyes - they practically glow at certain angles: 🥰

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Dusky:

 

 

Blue discosoma shroom:

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

One portion of the hammer coral appears to be developing BJD, and I'm a bit baffled. It was doing great yesterday, a bit retracted today morning, and by evening I had a bit of brown slime sloughing off a melting head. 

 

The only thing that changed was my most recent WC. But my other corals appear unaffected, and everything else seems normal, I guess. 🤷‍♀️

 

So confused. And a bit worried/upset too. 😓

[Snow_Phoenix]

Managed to get some decent shots of Leopold, my leopard wrasse today: 🤗

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He still appears to be transitioning from female to male. 😊

[Snow_Phoenix]

Bo & Nero: 

 

 

Thanos:

 

 

Dusky and a snail: 😅

 

 

Dragonets! 🥰 :

 

 

Yuma:

 

 

Discosoma:

 

 

Tried to get a clear shot of my Ironman discosoma, but it kept coming out blurry so I gave up. 😕

 

Photography issues aside, I spotted 3 aiptasia on the rocks:

 

 

So I'll have to kill them quickly before they grow any bigger - or worse, start spreading. 😕

[Snow_Phoenix]

I'm planning on bringing my hammer coral to my primary LFS to frag off the BJD-affected section, and hopefully save the rest of the colony. I'm not sure if it'll work because my colony is a wall colony, not a branching one. But I figured I'd risk it to at least try and save the animal somehow. 😕

 

I'm supposed to pick up my frogspawn this Wed., but now I'm unsure if I should do so. Both my tanks are having issues atm, so I need to find ways to help the systems recover first before adding anything new. 

 

But I don't know if my LFS will be willing to hold on to my reserved pieces at the store for another 2 to 3 weeks. They've already reserved them for me for 2+ weeks. 🤔

 

I'll try negotiating with my LFS Manager. Hopefully we can come to an agreement of some sort. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Poseidon had a full dinner today evening: 💦

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Ironman shroom:

 

 

Finally managed to get an okay pic of it. 😊

[debbeach13]

6 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

So I'll have to kill them quickly before they grow any bigger - or worse, start spreading.

What is the plan to get rid of it?

[Snow_Phoenix]

31 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

What is the plan to get rid of it?

Boiling water + vinegar & smothered over with coral glue. So far that has worked before. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

A limpet:

 

 

So this is the state of my hammer coral atm:

 

 

I've lost a full head due to BJD, and it looks like the second head will die off too. I'm taking it to the LFS tomorrow to get it fragged - hopefully I can still salvage the untouched areas. 😓

[Murphs_Reef]

3 minutes ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

A limpet:

 

 

So this is the state of my hammer coral atm:

 

 

I've lost a full head due to BJD, and it looks like the second head will die off too. I'm taking it to the LFS tomorrow to get it fragged - hopefully I can still salvage the untouched areas. 😓

How the hell did that come about? It was lovely a couple of days back 👎🏼

[Snow_Phoenix]

5 minutes ago, Grimes said:

How the hell did that come about? It was lovely a couple of days back 👎🏼

I have no idea. It detriorated in a matter of hours two days ago. Slightly retracted in the morning, then by afternoon, one corner of it was smothered in disgusting brown goop. Until now, I'm still not sure what caused it. I haven't added any new LPS in months. Been only adding shrooms, and even then, the shrooms are located on the opposite side of the tank, and are dipped before entering. Plus, my primary LFS QTes all their corals. I find this deeply upsetting. Nothing is off with my parameters either. 😓

[Snow_Phoenix]

More bad news - just lost Doc the cleaner shrimp to a bad molt. He was struggling to molt the whole day and I honestly thought he would make it (he managed to get the top carapace of his head off) but then he just stopped twitching. I only knew he was dead because the bristlesworms and one of my Nass snails had come out and began to feed on his remains. I lifted him out of the tank and flushed him. 😞

 

As for the hammer coral, I tried to clean off as much of the jelly as I could in a separate bucket (took the entire coral out of the water, and gently scrubbed off all the goop), but by Gods - the smell was awful! Like a rotting dead thing and the stench permeated the entire upstairs - my mom actually poked her head into my room because she was wondering where on earth the ungodly odor came from. 😢

 

I put the coral back in the tank after cleaning it, but I'm not optimistic. I had to aerate my room and turn on the ventilator to get rid of the smell. I honestly won't be surprised if the whole colony is smothered in jelly tomorrow - it's deteriorating very fast. 

 

Besides the shrimp & this hammer coral dying, nothing else is affected. All other corals are wide open and responsive to food. Fish are all okay. Remaining inverts including all snails are okay too. 

 

This is definitely a huge setback for this tank, which was recovering well for the last few weeks. If I wake up in the morning and the hammer is covered in goop, I'll trash it and not bring it to my store because it'll be a waste of time. Not to mention - the car will reek like hell. I'll still drop by my store though and pay off for the corals I reserved during my birthday, but I'll board them at the LFS for another month or so (will pay for boarding if they request it as well). I'm quite heartbroken. I was planning on slowly adding several large LPS colonies back to the tank, but the way things keep going, I'm not sure if I should just stick to mushrooms only. (It'll be a boring, but colorful tank - I like corals that sway in the flow, and LPS are really good at that). 

 

I don't know what else to do. I'm thankful that my fish are all healthy, fat and eating - but I'd like to keep some corals too. 😞 

[debbeach13]

terrible news about the shrimp and the hammer. Nothing you can do about the shrimp. I hope the hammer improves and doesn't pollute the tank. 

[Murphs_Reef]

It's so strange that it happened. I get a bit nervous about LPS i have a good size hammer and Duncan's growing very well, but know that they could just melt for no obvious reason tomorrow.

[Snow_Phoenix]

2 hours ago, debbeach13 said:

terrible news about the shrimp and the hammer. Nothing you can do about the shrimp. I hope the hammer improves and doesn't pollute the tank. 

I hope so too, but I just looked at it - prognosis doesn't look too good. A lot of the flesh is retracted and pinched looking. Very poor PE and the BJD area is still sloughing a bit. Worse come to worse, I'll bin it. I rather lose a RM 200 colony over a whole tank which values at ~RM5K - all other livestock (fish, corals, inverts) included. Definitely don't want to lose any of my fish over this either. BJD really fouls the water. I'll run extra carbon tomorrow. 

39 minutes ago, Grimes said:

It's so strange that it happened. I get a bit nervous about LPS i have a good size hammer and Duncan's growing very well, but know that they could just melt for no obvious reason tomorrow.

My pieces are all wild, and from my limited understanding of the disease, wild-harvested corals are more susceptible towards BJD as compared to aquacultured pieces. This is the third (or was it fourth?) time that my tank has been hit by BJD. The first time was nasty because it wiped out all my LPS except the green cup coral. It's definitely not something you want in a LPS-dominant tank - ever. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

The hammer actually looks much better today than yesterday:

 

 

 

 

I think the Furan 2 dip + scrubbing + iodine & Vit. C dip helped somewhat. I'll still frag off the dead bit - it's not completely out of the woods yet. 🤔

[Murphs_Reef]

Just so weird isn't it

[Snow_Phoenix]

Several updates coming through. So, I went to the LFS and got my hammer trimmed. It's back in my tank, looking a bit better but still sulking because only 2/3rds of it remains. 😕

 

Anyway, I picked up several things from the store - including 9 (!!!) new shrooms for the tank:

 

 

 

And a one-year-old blue mandarin that came from another reefer's tank. There was a slight issue with the fish though - it was dying & upside down when I opened the bag at home. 😓

 

The 15 mins. of acclimation was quite stressful, because even though I managed to orient the fish the correct way, it was sliming and breathing hard:

 

 

 

As soon as the acclimation period was over, I dropped it into my tank and it settled in a rock crevice, which was unusual for a dragonet:

 

 

The dorsal fin appears to be damaged as well, but I suspect it's a male:

 

 

 

It's as long as Poseidon, but simply not as beefy. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

As for Poseidon, he didn't quite figure out there was a new dragonet in the tank yet:

 

 

 

 

 

For the large part, they ignored each other. But the new mandy eventually drifted away to the back of the tank:

 

 

And is now mostly lurking in the shadows. I think the travelling and near-death-experience really stressed it out. I hope it pulls through, because it has adjusted to captivity in the past. 😕

[Snow_Phoenix]

I managed to get a few close up pics of my new shrooms. Mostly 7 rhodactises & discosomas:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

And 2 yumas:

 

 

 

Basically, slowly trying to restock and repopulate Mushroom Mountain with various morphs:

 

 

My LFS had this unique red & gold rhodactis colony that just came in recently, but they haven't fragged the rock yet:

 

 

Also, I'm picking my frogspawn and a bubble coral in late Jan:

 

 

 

There was also a very beautiful (and ultra-expensive) elegance that caught my eye:

 

 

I think it would look gorgeous on my sandbed, but I'm just not sure if I should try another elegance. I do love them though. 🥰

[Snow_Phoenix]

Looks like Bella & Illaron are going to spawn again tonight: 🥰

 

 

The courtship begins:

 

I love watching these two. 😊