Snow's 10G Critters of Chaos (TOTM)

[Snow_Phoenix]

Fed the tank some liquid BBS today. The fungia exhibited full PE:

 

 

And some of the zoa polyps closed up as well:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Duncan:

 

 

You might have noticed a bit of flesh missing on the lepto in the first pic. It wasn't stung by the fungia. I accidently dropped that whole piece on a rhodactis shroom while cleaning the tank yesterday. I didn't realize it had fallen until ten minutes into cleaning, by which the lepto had lost a bit of flesh around the rim. 😕

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Well, Pickle has been rescaping my tank lately. Today she decided to move the rainbow brain back for some reason, and has been repeatedly throwing one of my yumas on the bicolored lobo. 🤦‍♀️

 

Anyway, here's a few FTSes sans the rainbow brain, which is now hidden:

 

 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

The latest shroom pile:

 

 

 

 

Weeping willow getting larger:

 

 

Sunny Ds cluster:

 

 

Metallic palys:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Lastly, the Zoa Garden:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Took more FTSes today. The green yuma is slightly shrunken because Pickle yeeted it into my lobo again. 

 

But at least the rainbow brain looks better today! 👍

 

 

 

 

 

FTS today on 08/07/22:

 

 

 

 

 

For monthly FTS progression shots, you can look through the very first post of this journal to see how much this tank has changed. 😊

[Snow_Phoenix]

Shrimpy popped out to say hello today. 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

I woke up today to the start of a slow crash of this tank. I noticed something was off yesterday when my duncan was mostly closed up - but because the glass was covered in a thick algae film, I couldn't really see how off everything was on the inside. 

 

Topview was no good either because of the surface film which made everything cloudy. 

 

But today I took one look at the tank, and I knew I'll lose everything if I didn't act quickly. 😕

 

I wasn't sure what went wrong where at this point, but the quickest thing I could do was do a major clean up, including washing out all the equipment (filter & wavemaker) and do a major WC.

 

It took me 2.5 hours to get everything sorted out, including completing an 8G WC. Tank looks reasonably cleaner, some pieces have indeed deteriorated, but otherwise, my shrimp and fish are all fine.

 

I discovered a few things while scrambling to fix this mess:

 

1. Salinity was way off. I topped off too much water day before yesterday (I think) and salinity was close to 1.021, and it's a miracle everything wasn't dead sooner. 😕

 

2. The HOB filter was not working at full capacity. It was actually badly clogged and circulation was quite poor, which could have been the reason for the major algae buildup (more so than usual) on the glass and water surface. I only found out because a huge wad of yucky algae came squirting out on the end of the intake tube after I manually pulled it apart, plugged some vinegar and soap into it, then tried to loosen up any dirt using a tiny scrubber (the type used for baby bottles). It was quite...gross. 🤢

3, The wavemaker was clogged with a calcium & algae buildup too! The tiny rotors were spinning well, but once again, it wasn't functioning at full capacity until I soaked it in vinegar and scrubbed it out, bit by bit. I'm quite sure that this, plus the HOB's clog resulted in very poor circulation in the tank.

 

4. I moved several limpets from the fuge of my 60G to this tank a few days ago. Although I didn't pour water from that tank into this tank, I should have swirled the little buggers around in a fresh cup of SW first before tossing them in. At least to dislodge any algae strands that *might have hitchiked on their shells.

 

I wish I had reacted sooner, but I have been feeling off lately - had mild flu, but was feeling unusually lethargic for a few days. Also, I tired myself out doing full WCs and filter clean ups of both of my FW tanks outdoors - and each tank is around ~70G. So that's ~140G worth of work done in the space of 3 days, and it left me very exhausted. 

 

Usually the nano holds steady if it misses a few days of WCs. This tank can actually go without WCs for a max. of ~2.5 weeks before the corals become sulky/moody, since I dose elements daily. But it's been only <9 days since the last weekly WC, so for the tank to be this filthy and show this much stress, it is very unusual. 🤔

Although I do wish I had caught this sooner, and pushed myself to get it WCed last night, my body couldn't handle it. Even today, I'm bone-deep tired but I exerted myself to save as many critters as I could. 

 

Right now, most of the coral colors are quite off - they're drab and in the case of my valida, poop-brown (!), and a few pieces have lost flesh/melted a little - like my fascination favia, rainbow brain, leptoseris etc. 

Nursing everything back to health will take time. I'm not sure if my valida can make a comeback - both color-wise or growth-wise. I just discovered it had begun RTNing from the base this morning, so I quickly trimmed off the yellow yuma next to it (on the same rock), placed the yuma with its other fellows, then angled the valida slightly more to the left to give it some space to (hopefully) recover. 😞

 

It's a bit of a mess. But at least my equipment are now working fine, and I'm grateful both my fish, shrimp and crab made it through alive. I'm skipping feeding the tank today and letting it settle for a bit. Everything is still quite shrunken, sulky and some are still discolored. Trying not to look at it too much because it'll literally make me cry. Just hoping for the best now. 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

The current state of my corals: 😭

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This hobby can be wonderful and rewarding. But it can also break you sometimes. 😭

[Nano sapiens]

So sorry to see the difficulties, but the corals don't look so bad.  The Acro may take a good while to bounce back to it's former glory, but with stable conditions and time all should recover just fine.

 

It's always difficult to go from 'Wow, the system has been doing so well!' to 'Oh crap, what's wrong now?'.  Good thing is that the corals can go through quite a bit and still bounce back if the issues that caused the decline are identified and resolved in time. 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

12 minutes ago, Nano sapiens said:

So sorry to see the difficulties, but the corals don't look so bad.  The Acro may take a good while to bounce back to it's former glory, but with stable conditions and time all should recover just fine.

 

It's always difficult to go from 'Wow, the system has been doing so well!' to 'Oh crap, what's wrong now?'.  Good thing is that the corals can go through quite a bit and still bounce back if the issues that caused the decline are identified and resolved in time. 

 

 

 

I truly hope I'm not too late. Things are still pissed, but a few more of the less-hurt corals opened up a bit more before I closed the lights for the day. 

 

Looking back at it, I do agree with you that it's not a total disaster - I have gone through major tank crashes with previous tanks in the past. The kind where everything dies and nothing could be salvaged. 😔

 

I'm actually not confident at all in keeping SPS. The montis and pavona seem forgiving enough, but with acros - I'm just not sure. Any suggestions on how I should deal with the dying base though? I know the stick looks intact in the pic, but the underside is completely white with no polyps or flesh. Not sure if I should trim off the base alone, then re-attach it to the rocks - or should I just wait and see? 🤷‍♀️

[Snow_Phoenix]

My YCBS, Shrimpy, has just molted and is now in hiding. Corals are all mostly closed up for the night. Bottom of the acro is still whitening - I'll observe it for another day or two. If the whiteness keeps creeping up, I'll trim off the dead fringe at the bottom, remove that encrusted dead part from the rock, then re-glue the brown stick back at its original position. 

 

This particular frag grows incredibly slowly in my nano, and it'll be a real pain to trim off any part of it, but I rather have an unsightly poop-brown stick than no stick at all. Unlike my other pieces in this tank - the acro was quite expensive since it came from Singapore (indirectly). 

[Theshallows]

very party-tastic - so many colors it almost hurts the eyes

[Snow_Phoenix]

2 minutes ago, Theshallows said:

very part tastic - so many colors it almost hurts the eyes

I'm sorry - I do not understand. What is 'part tastic'? 

[Theshallows]

Just now, Snow_Phoenix said:

I'm sorry - I do not understand. What is 'part tastic'? 

Sorry I meant to say party-tastic, just making up words. I haven't had my coffee yet this morning

[Snow_Phoenix]

3 minutes ago, Theshallows said:

Sorry I meant to say party-tastic, just making up words. I haven't had my coffee yet this morning

Ah, ok. I thought it was a new reefing term that I somehow missed out on. 😅

[YHSublime]

Tank looks awesome, sorry to hear about the issues, but like mentioned above, everything should bounce back with time and stability. Doesn't take much of a reefkeeping history to check the "get kicked while being down" box, just gotta' put in the work and have the patience. 

[Nano sapiens]

3 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

I truly hope I'm not too late.

 

Most of your corals are quite resilient types, so I'd say most (if not all) should be okay given proper and consistent parameters and care.  As the old saying goes 'Time heals all wounds' 🙂

 

3 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

I'm actually not confident at all in keeping SPS. The montis and pavona seem forgiving enough, but with acros - I'm just not sure. Any suggestions on how I should deal with the dying base though? I know the stick looks intact in the pic, but the underside is completely white with no polyps or flesh. Not sure if I should trim off the base alone, then re-attach it to the rocks - or should I just wait and see? 🤷‍♀️

Acropora are a finicky coral and even the most experienced reef keepers have their occasional struggles with them.  In a small system it's even more difficult to keep them healthy and vibrant over the long term. 

 

I used to frag off a branch or two once they became established so that I'd have at least two colonies going of the same Acro.  In your case with progressive bleaching from the bottom up, I think fragging a healthy looking branch is a probably a good idea.

[Snow_Phoenix]

10 hours ago, Nano sapiens said:

 

Most of your corals are quite resilient types, so I'd say most (if not all) should be okay given proper and consistent parameters and care.  As the old saying goes 'Time heals all wounds' 🙂

 

Acropora are a finicky coral and even the most experienced reef keepers have their occasional struggles with them.  In a small system it's even more difficult to keep them healthy and vibrant over the long term. 

 

I used to frag off a branch or two once they became established so that I'd have at least two colonies going of the same Acro.  In your case with progressive bleaching from the bottom up, I think fragging a healthy looking branch is a probably a good idea.

I agree with the finnicky part. I tried a tenuis once in this tank. It worked well for a few months, even sprouted some branches - then one day it began receding and no matter how much I trimmed off the dead edges, I lost it eventually. 😕

 

This one has receded more overnight, so I'll be trimming off the base later:

 

 

Overall, it still looks brown, but when I looked closer, I was surprised to see hints of purple and green returning to the tip of *some of the branches:

 

 

I was thinking of fragging it into 2 different pieces and place them in 2 different areas of the tank. I'm curious to see if the difference in height and flow will affect the growth, PE & color in the future (that is, if the 2 pieces make it at all). 

 

I'm not to keen on trying any fancy sticks after this - although I do love montis in general, so I might cave for one of those. 🤔

 

Speaking of resiliency, remember the pic of the lepto with pieces of flesh missing which I posted yesterday? 

 

Here it is, less than <24 hours later:

 

 

 

Second larger piece at the bottom has a bit of flesh missing too, but the main piece bounced back fully. I was quite amazed - was expecting it to take a full week to heal, at least. 😅

 

The pavona frags might take more time, but I *might lose the bottom frag in the 2nd pic since it is whitening from the base. I have 3 other backup frags though!

[Snow_Phoenix]

Tank is bouncing back. 👍

 

Just turned the lights on so the shrooms are still shrunken, but the lepto has bounced back fully overnight. 

 

Acro stick is still brown and receding, so I'll be fragging it. The tips have started to color back up again, so that is a start. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So thankful my Zoa Garden wasn't impacted too badly yesterday:

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Trimmed the acro. Accidently broke off a few forest fire sticks in the process, so I moved those to the 60G. Tank overall is getting better. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Looks terrible, but here's one of the acro frags. I had to clip off the edges completely and seal it off with glue to prevent it from RTNing further. It's still brown, but I can see hints of purple as well:

 

 

The tip is on the main ledge which hosts the majority of my SPS:

 

 

 

^Virtually nil PE, but color appears to be returning a bit. 

 

Some of the zoa polyps are still closed up and shrunken:

 

 

But the Zoa Garden overall appears intact. The weeping willow toadstool is still cranky though:

 

 

 

Mostly glad that I still have most of the morphs. I *think I lost the Peacock blues, kamikazes and mohawks though. 😔

 

Red nuclear death palys are fully closed, but I *think it's because my GSP is irritating them. I'll try to trim back the GSP tomorrow and see if they'll open up.

 

Ironman discosoma has opened up fully. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Most of the shrooms have begun to open up fully:

 

 

 

 

 

 

i made a mini archway for Speedy the talbot damsel to swim through. My green yuma isn't actually attached to that rock, but I simply positioned it that way:

 

 

I tried to remove as much of the GSP as possible in this area because it was too invasive. There are a few leftover polyps which I've missed out, so I'll have to tweeze those out later. 

 

Also accidently broke a whole bunch of digi sticks while I was eradicating the GSP, and I transferred most of the fraglets to the 60G because I didn't know where else to put them. 🤷‍♀️

[Snow_Phoenix]

Mushroom Mountain:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Random mix:

 

 

 

 

 

 

I'm quite happy that the duncan is back to being fully open again. 👍

[Snow_Phoenix]

Pickle and her comfy rainbow pillow. 🥰

 

 

 

 

Harvey the saron shrimp: