Snow's 2.6G Little Monsters Picoreef - Retired!

[Snow_Phoenix]

7 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

When are you expecting the furan 2 to arrive? If possible can you take a before treatment picture? I did pick up some furan 2 Sunday at the local store and today will be the 3rd day of treatment. The good news is the treatment has not had any bad effects on the zoa's. They are still opening and look fine. The other news is I can still see spots. The spots seem to be limited to the stems. I can not seem to get any good pictures with my crappy phone camera.

I'm not sure when it'll arrive, but it might take a while because my vendor seems to be swamped with orders. 

 

I'll take some pics tomorrow - it's 11.05pm on my end and I'm tired. Going to head off to bed shortly. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

I found Midnight lounging on the lobo - managed to sneak up on him for a couple of quick pics before he spotted me:

 

 

 

Montihat still getting greener by the day:

 

 

The zoa pox is definitely tearing through system - I can forsee some casulaties in the upcoming days: 😭

 

 

So far 3 frags now have it. My furan 2 order is still 'processing', so I might only get ahold of it next week. 😔

[Snow_Phoenix]

So this is what I'm currently facing right now: 

 

 

It looks quite nasty. And it appears to be spreading. 😔

 

I'll perform another WC tomorrow, but I won't add Prazi in the new water, and will add a small sock of carbon in the HOB. 

 

I think the Prazi is stressing out my leptastreas and fungia too much. There was no PE from 3 of my corals today, and I am worried that I'll lose them. 😔

 

The fish seem much better though. They still prefer live over frozen - Midnight accidently snorted up a frozen pod today and coughed it out, then glared at me as if it was my fault. (Which it probably was, since I'm the one who dosed the system with frozen pods today. Oh, well.  )

[Snow_Phoenix]

I think they're slowly warming up to me. At least, they didn't swim off when I came close: 🤗

 

[debbeach13]

I glad to see the fish are adjusting so well. They are so cute. I hope things improve coral wise. Coral is so expensive now it almost hurts to loose a single polyp. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

6 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

I glad to see the fish are adjusting so well. They are so cute. I hope things improve coral wise. Coral is so expensive now it almost hurts to loose a single polyp. 

I know. 😞

 

That frag cost me RM 50. It's honestly a big 'Ouch!' to the wallet whenever I see it, and I keep cringing. The pox seems to be spreading quite quickly though - yesterday I had two affected pieces, today I woke up and a third frag looks like it's on its last legs. I'm so worried I'll lose my Tubbs blue. I love those zoas - and it's so hard to get anything blue/purple here. 

 

I'm debating if I should try fragging some of the zoas to save them - but I keep holding back because I don't know if my actions would just kill them faster. Wish my vendor would hurry up and post the Furan 2, though. 😕 

[debbeach13]

I know you already have 3 tanks going so I won't suggest a QT tank. Are all of the infected coral all in the 2.6? If all the polyps on a certain frag already have pox I am not sure if fragging will do any good either. But if you think smaller frag will be easier to treat that might be worth it. I think my largest frag has maybe 6 polyps. I finished the first round of treatment yesterday and all the videos I watched say to let them rest a week. Then decide if another round of treatment is needed. Several people that had a lot of zoas infected treated the tank instead of dipping. I hope you get the furan soon!

[Snow_Phoenix]

Both the Tubbs Blue and AOGs have started to show early signs of the pox - tank's in a really bad way, guys. 

 

I did an emergency dual-full WC today - added carbon, changed the floss, stirred the sandbed, basted the rocks etc etc. I gave the worst pox-infected frags a strong iodine dip (also dropped some Vit. C for good measure), but I've pretty much lost one frag. I was really, really hoping it would not affect my tubbs blue because I love it so much, but I honestly have no control over the spread of this thing. 

 

I *might lose my entire zoa collection before the furan 2 arrives. It's crushing me to even imagine such a loss, because some of those zoas are very difficult to find here. 

 

The corals are still a bit mad after the WC, but I'll try to take some pics later - when everything is a *bit better.

 

I'm hoping my leptastreas and fungia will bounce back also. They haven't lost their colors, but the PE is minimal. I'd like to see them all fuzzy and flowery again. 

 

One slice of good news - the meteor shower cyphastrea is finally turning blue, as it was meant to be. It's not fully blue yet, but the tinge is more obvious now. If everything goes okay, then I *think it should return to its full original colors by the end of this month. Fish are doing okay too - but I *think Nox has lost a little bit of weight. I have far less pods and flatworms on the glass though, so I'm assuming those are being eaten to a certain extent. 

[ECLS Reefer]

21 minutes ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Both the Tubbs Blue and AOGs have started to show early signs of the pox - tank's in a really bad way, guys. 

 

I did an emergency dual-full WC today - added carbon, changed the floss, stirred the sandbed, basted the rocks etc etc. I gave the worst pox-infected frags a strong iodine dip (also dropped some Vit. C for good measure), but I've pretty much lost one frag. I was really, really hoping it would not affect my tubbs blue because I love it so much, but I honestly have no control over the spread of this thing. 

 

I *might lose my entire zoa collection before the furan 2 arrives. It's crushing me to even imagine such a loss, because some of those zoas are very difficult to find here. 

 

The corals are still a bit mad after the WC, but I'll try to take some pics later - when everything is a *bit better.

 

I'm hoping my leptastreas and fungia will bounce back also. They haven't lost their colors, but the PE is minimal. I'd like to see them all fuzzy and flowery again. 

 

One slice of good news - the meteor shower cyphastrea is finally turning blue, as it was meant to be. It's not fully blue yet, but the tinge is more obvious now. If everything goes okay, then I *think it should return to its full original colors by the end of this month. Fish are doing okay too - but I *think Nox has lost a little bit of weight. I have far less pods and flatworms on the glass though, so I'm assuming those are being eaten to a certain extent. 

I’m so sorry the tank is struggling! It’s kind of how I feel losing fish this last week for no good reason. Like come on hobby throw us a bone!!

[Snow_Phoenix]

12 minutes ago, Dirté Sanchez said:

I’m so sorry the tank is struggling! It’s kind of how I feel losing fish this last week for no good reason. Like come on hobby throw us a bone!!

I know. It was doing very well until the pox appeared out of nowhere. I'm quite devastated, actually. Mostly because I've read enough past online posts from other reefers who battled this thing, still did the furan 2 dip, and *still lost all their corals. 😞

[Ratvan]

This is why I don't think Zoas should be recommended as "Starter" Corals, honestly the amount of pests and diseases that these things get is uncanny. Its up there with BJD for me. Do you think it is an imbalance thing like Dino's and its always in the tank just need some small damage for it to take hold?

[Snow_Phoenix]

Update #1: 

 

I think the WC and dipping finally *kicked in. My tubbs blue are finally open, and the pox-infested frag on the left of it is partially open too:

 

 

I'm also secretly glad that the zoas on the pillar rock haven't caught the pox yet - so I may still have time to save most of them:

 

 

 

I also absolutely adore my metallic green palys. They're very pretty in RL: 🤗

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Update #2:

 

This was the cyphastrea I posted about earlier - you can see the blue tinge coming in: 😊

 

 

My rainbow acans from above:

 

 

Rainbow brain isn't super puffy after the WC - it might still be mad at me: 😅

 

 

And here are my little gobies, Midnight & Nox: 🥰

 

 

 

I saw Harvey up and about earlier, too. 😊

[Snow_Phoenix]

6 minutes ago, Ratvan said:

This is why I don't think Zoas should be recommended as "Starter" Corals, honestly the amount of pests and diseases that these things get is uncanny. Its up there with BJD for me. Do you think it is an imbalance thing like Dino's and its always in the tank just need some small damage for it to take hold?

With regards to pox, I have no idea because this is my first time encountering it in my system. 

 

But I do agree that they can tag along with a lot of pests. I remember catching a zoa spider from one of my frags when I was putting it into the water - it looked so creepy. 

 

I wonder how people keep large zoa gardens long-term. I've seen a few pics of other tanks online, and the garden concept is beautiful, if done right. 🤔

[Snow_Phoenix]

There's a new tiny tubbs blue polyp growing under the skirt of the large polyp in the far left of the frag. It grew overnight. 🤐 :

 

 

One of my radioactive dragon eyes had a loose polyp that settled on the LR and it's slowly growing there. Hope I'll get a nice zoa mat over the rocks in the future:

 

 

Blasto garden is still recovering. The red and orange/gray ones are growing back quickly. The purple/green ones are taking their time:

 

 

Zoa pox is still on the loose - you can see I lost half a frag of zoas on the sandbed so far:

 

 

I'm going to shoot my vendor a text to get an update on my package. Mostly, I'm trying to find out if it has been posted yet. 🤔

[Snow_Phoenix]

Hey everyone,

 

A quick update. I *think I've found out the main reason why my fungia and leptastreas have had poor PE these past few days. I spotted both my clown gobies perching on various corals - usually when they do this, the coral retracts its polyps a bit, then re-opens when the fish swims off to perch somewhere else. But then I caught Nox nipping the areas around some of corals, and also occassionally taking pecks at the coral itself.

 

I *think this indirectly stresses the coral to the point that they close up and are unhappy. 

 

That's not the main problem. I noticed Nox had a very large tear in his dorsal fin today afternoon. It made him seem like he had *three fins at the top of his body, instead of *two. I initially thought he got caught up on the grates of my filter intake, and was debating inserting a sponge over the intake, but then I noticed he was getting chased around by Midnight. I observed both fish for a while, and something in their usual interaction has changed - it appears Midnight has become more dominant (as the larger goby of the pair, I'm not surprised by this) and no longer gets along with Nox.

 

I was concerned over Nox. He's slightly smaller, injured, and a bit paled out. 

 

So I sat down and debated the merits of inserting him into one of my other two reeftanks which I have up and running. My 60G has plenty of tiny gobies and blennies, including a small GCG which was has been with me for years. And it's also overstocked with fish. But my nano, currently has a lot of macro in it (which is perfect for a tiny fish trying to blend in), and can host another small fish.

 

In order to catch Nox, I had to remove 5 pieces of LR heavily encrusted with corals - and I accidently knocked off my green leptastrea, blasto merletti and the zoa frag that had my green metallic palys on it. 😞

 

I managed to catch Nox with a brine net and put him in a cup, but putting everything back into the tank certainly pissed off a lot of corals - and I think I accidently squished the largest polyp of my green paly too. 😢 

 

I transferred Nox to the nano and watched him for a while - he immediately took up residence in my caulerpa jungle, and both my clownfish and blenny are not troubling him (so far). I *think he'll actually do well in that tank.

 

As for Midnight, I did catch him pecking the rocks - probably in search for flatworms and pods. I'll observe him and the rest of the corals. Some of them might need a few days to recover fully from being handled and moved around (I was a bit rough), but if I catch him actively pecking at the polyps, I'll probably have to rehome him. 😞

 

I've kept YCGs and GCGs before, and I've only seen this coral-pecking behavior once, in a YCG I kept years ago. That fish bit the polyps of my Pocci (at that time) so much that it killed the frag. But none of my other clown gobies have done this before. Like my current GCG - he's with different mixes of coral and never hurts a thing. 

 

Midnight could *just be hungry, but this is my first time keeping BCGs, so I'm not sure what exactly to expect, really. 🤔

 

I'll keep this journal updated, just in case. 

[Snow_Phoenix]

I took some topview shots to document growth/lack of growth in some corals. 

 

First up are my purple death palys, which have popped out a couple of new heads that I feel like I can frag them very soon, and grow some palys out in the 60G:

 

 

The sunflowers haven't exactly put out more polyps recently, but their colors are still intense:

 

 

The meteor shower cyphastrea is still changing. I was thinking of making a coral-progress timeline for this frag, to document how much it has changed when I first got it. But first, I'd like to see it turn completely blue/red: 

 

 

The Jack-O-Lantern leptoseris is one of the rebound pieces that actually regained its full original colors in this tank: 👍

 

 

The red pavona is growing and has darkened, which is good, I suppose: 🤷‍♀️

 

 

This teal striped discosoma recovered, then slid back, and is now recovering again: 😊

 

 

Most of the other corals are still pissed at being handled earlier, but hopefully they'll open by tomorrow. I turned off the lights and fed a few pellets to the tank for Harvey the saron. Midnight the BCG still refuses to touch anything prepared. 

[cheesesteak]

I'm sorry to hear about the goby 😕 I hope everything recovers! 

[Snow_Phoenix]

6 minutes ago, cheesesteak said:

I'm sorry to hear about the goby 😕 I hope everything recovers! 

Yeah, well - it was my bad. They were a pair of gobies - not a *paired up pair of gobies. And despite all the hiding places in the 2.6G, the tank overall is pretty small, so it's not enough territory for more than one fish. Nox seems happier in the 10G though. I checked up on him, and he's doing great in there. 

 

I hope everything bounces back swiftly too! 😞 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Large update ahead! 😊

 

Red blastos are regrowing quite well: 👍

 

 

Still no full PE on the orange leptastrea, but at least I can see a *bit of PE after Nox's removal:

 

 

Tricolor blasto is still recovering. It receded a little bit last week for unknown reasons, but is bouncing back again:

 

 

Caught Harvey wearing the montihat: 😅

 

 

 

Duncan coral looks extremely happy in this tank. It has colored back up pretty nicely too:

 

 

And lastly, I'm not sure what this is - lympho? Ich? - but Midnight appears to have develop black pustules all over his body. 😔 :

 

 

 

I also caught him actively pecking the heck out of my red fungias. I'm actually quite torn, atm. I want what's best for him - but not at the cost of seeing my tank and all my work (at nursing these corals) ruined. 

 

If he keeps at it, I'll have no choice but to rehome him, and reconsider my options of ever getting a fish for this little reef. 

 

Maybe I should just stick to fancy inverts and leave it at that. 🤦‍♀️

[debbeach13]

That's too bad. He is such a cute fish. Well not so much right now he looks uncomfortable. I think you might have to move him your corals got enough going on with out being pecked at. Where can you put him?

[Snow_Phoenix]

24 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

That's too bad. He is such a cute fish. Well not so much right now he looks uncomfortable. I think you might have to move him your corals got enough going on with out being pecked at. Where can you put him?

I have no idea - I can't transfer him to the nano because Nox is in it, and they'll fight again. And my large reef is currently disease-free, and I'd like to keep it that way. 🤔

 

I thought of setting up another QT - just for him, then rehome him via my primary LFS once their store re-opens. Another option would be to rehome him via my secondary LFS (where I originally got him from), but I'm unsure if they'd allow me to return the fish (I've never asked or done this before through *their shop). 

 

I'm trying to think of other options, but right now, those are what I have in mind. Do you have any suggestions? 🤔

 

Also, it looks like I'll have to let the pico go fallow for ~8 weeks anyway, just in case he has Ich. If I'm getting another tiny fish in the future (most likely not, but I *might fold for a shrimp goby like a Yasha or Hi-Fin), I don't want it to get infected. 

[debbeach13]

12 minutes ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Another option would be to rehome him via my secondary LFS (where I originally got him from), but I'm unsure if they'd allow me to return the fish (I've never asked or done this before through *their shop). 

This makes the most sense to me if they will take him. If not and you can QT would be next. I hope he is feeling better soon.

[Snow_Phoenix]

11 minutes ago, debbeach13 said:

This makes the most sense to me if they will take him. If not and you can QT would be next. I hope he is feeling better soon.

Yeah, I was thinking of setting up a small QT for him downstairs, help him get better first, then rehome him. 

 

I think that would be the best course of action. I'll try to set up a QT tomorrow/day after. Removing him is going to be difficult, and piss off all the corals again - but I don't think there's any other way to go about it. I'll treat him with prazi first, then use the TTM method - I think he *might have Ich as well, although I'm not entirely sure. 

 

I'll Prazi all the occupants of my nano as well, since I added Nox directly to it, and he was in the Pico with Midnight earlier (I'll just assume he has everything that Midnight has as well). 

 

It's shame though - if not for the coral-pecking behavior, I'd keep him. He's like a ninja fish, and I actually enjoy watching him. 😞 

[debbeach13]

Good plan. I will be hoping for the best results