Cruel and Unusual Punishment; Majano Anemones and Ammonia -Warning Long-

new2u

New member
Hello there guys, I must warn you. This is a very long post. I've had quite a traumatic week and I could really use some external input if you can bare with my storytelling. If not, skip to the bottom. I wrote the pertinent questions there.

Background-

120 Reef
Closed Loop with Oceanmotions and a Dart
30 gallon refugium/sump
SWC skimmer, rated for like 200ish if I remember correctly
Mag 9 return
15-20 gallon refugium
Minimum 200 pounds of live rock

Fish-
10" Blue Tang
8" Magnificent Foxface
4" Melunaris Wrasse
2" Flame Angel
2" Clownfish


I have had a 120 reef running for about 5 or 6 years now, much of the rock and coral originating from my 58 gallon I had running 7 or 8 years ago. Unfortunately, starting a two or three years ago I began to encounter the classic pest anemone situation we're all too familiar with. At that point it was mostly aiptasia, with a couple of majano on a rock or two. I tried to resolve this infestation with Aiptasia X, and let me say it was a miracle worker on the aiptasia, but the majanos kept coming back.

At first I thought this was merely a fluke, and tried to keep treating them with the X, but they just kept coming back. And i n larger number. I had to return to school in the fall, and my mother who does a wonderful job taking care of the tank wasn't quite as religious about the X application. Well when I returned home for the summer it had become a full grown infestation. I tried the boiling water, I had a copperband (I know, i was just hoping) I went through just about everything I could until I found a story about someone who strait up boiled the suckers with a blow torch.

Well, I took a welding class at Vanderbilt so after exhausting my other options I figured why not, and went ahead and removed the infected rocks, boiled off the pests, and returned them into the tank. This was largely successful, however there were some rocks that had some hidden stow aways that over the course of another school year managed to multiply into a fresh crop of majanos for me when I returned this summer. Frankly, I have had enough with these nusances, so I decided to take the same course of action, but in a more through process.

Here is a breakdown of my process.


Monday-

-Drained 40ish gallons of water into a rubbermaid for the corals, a trashcan for the infected rocks and a "working tray" to fully remove the aptasia.

-Torched the suckers using a butane torch, dental tools and scrubbing pad. My rule is burn them until they stop writhing, and pop off. It is kind of fun, but they squirt all over the place. I wanted to find a cheap oxy-aceteline kit, so that I wouldn't run out of oxygen for the flame all the time like I did previously, but couldn't find one.

-Placed all the rock back into the main tank, and just put the rock back in, didn't do a bit of reaquascaping. I wanted to check again for the buggers before I made any rockwork choices

-Added Prime for saftey. I love my fish, I didn't want to risk anything.


Tuesday-

-I had a super busy day otherwise, and didn't get much done on the tank. I did however recheck everything, and identify a couple of new flame subjects

-Cleaned out the incredible amount of gross gross detrius in my skimmer compartment of my sump. This made me want to vomit, i filled up an entire cereal bowl with the stuff. I'm so glad I can breathe out of my mouth.

-Removed the skimmer (SWC 120 I believe? Its a good rig, made for a 200+ if I remember corectly), and soaked it. Put it back into the sump and everything was working fine


Wednesday (here is where the disaster starts)-

-I torched the few remaining nuisance anenomes I identified, and put the rocks back into the main tank

-I drained picked up an additional 40 gallons of water, and had 30 heated up and ready to go, and again put the corals in a rubbermaid and most of the rock back into another trashcan filled with water

-While starting to grab the rocks to put them into the trashcan I felt a strange round object. I removed it, and to my horrific surpise found it was my closed loop intake grate. I purchased this tank used, and apparently the previous owner/creator had not purchased the correct size intake screen, and had merely siliconed on a 2" grate to a 1.5" bulkhead. Great.

-I send my father to home depot (its like 830) and he can't get a correctly sized grate, but has some quick setting PVC cement (rain r shine or something). So, I put as many rocks as I could into my buckets and drain the tank down to about 4-5 inches of water to expose the bulkhead and reattach the grate. After about 20 frantic minutes of me jamming the two together it does actually manage to stay on, and while I certianly would NEVER want to drain a tank like that again, I did manage to get a fair amount of aquascaping done while the tank was dry. I needed something to do so I wouldn't flip out in my absolute rage and distress, so I worked on that.

-I refilled the tank, and fired up the closed loop and everything seemed to be working. I had like 4 rose anenomes, and 6 green BTAs. One of the roses managed to possibly suffer a torn foot during this whole process, and did the death expolosion of innards during all this. Luckily I was staring at it while it happened, and managed to pull him immediatly.

-Once all this was finished around 2 or 3 in the morning I dosed more Prime and went to sleep that night sure that I was going to wake up to the smell of low tide at the pier and a completely crashed tank.


Thursday

-To my surprise, when I awaken to the sounds of my father leaving for work I can overhear my father's voice, "I counted and found them all but the melanaris wrasse. I think we're going to be okay". I crawl out of bed and check the tank. I too manage to find everything as well, and breathe a sigh of relief.

-However, the skimmer was making a terrible noise. Typically this was something to do with the impller in the past, so I unplugged it but it would not restart after plugging it in. I could hear the motor trying to turn, and figured the impeller was caught on something so removed it to diagnose the problem.

-While trying to disassemble the pump, I managed to crack the darn venutri (or so I thought) on the pump. I was incredibly angry, and immediatly contacted the skimmer and pump companies.

-The next task was to polish the aquascape. Unfortunatly and unbeknownst to me I managed to smash one of my remaining roses against another rock and tear the heck out of his oral disk. Not wanting to risk his death and the possible chain reaction it could cause I decided to remove it. However, he was attached to a rock with another anenome on it. While keeping the other half of the rock submerged I managed to remove (aka murder) the anenome completely without leaving any foot or residue, and just make him release (I really don't want to go into detail on how I managed to do this. I still feel super terrible about doing it)

-While committing anonome-cide I encountered another terrible subplot to this story. My spoiled clownfish only likes hosting in rose anenomes, not the green ones. And the rose attached to the other side of this rock was his favorite. During this whole process he somehow managed to catapult himself out of the aquarium and onto the floor. All while I'm holding the rock covered with RBTAs. Thank the lord for my quick thanking mother who not only had placed a towel on the ground to prevent wetness but also swooped in and plopped him back into the tank.

-Once I remove the anenome and safely reposition all the remaining corals and rockwork, I tried to get to bed. I couldn't knowing that the skimmer was not functioning. While I had dosed some prime prevenativly and placed additional airstones in the tank for oxygenation, I knew the skimmer was going to be a a huge help if something went wrong. I had found out earlier in the day that the ventri had been crafted by the skimmer company and was simply glued in. Luckily, I had done nothing but crack the glue. I had ordered new pieces earlier that day to repair it, so I decided to patch the sucker and see if I could get it limping.

-Thankfully the same rain r shine that fixed the grate managed to fix the pump, and I got the skimmer limping. However, since I wasn't sure on the bubble level I babysat the skimmer until 4 or 5 to make sure it wouldn't overflow.


Friday-

-I wake up off the floor (Had been staring at the skimmer for too long I guess) and after I hit the gym I come home to see what I can do. The skimmer was at a pretty good level, and somehow nothing new has died. I guess god loves me. I do a final polish on the aquascape, and nap for most of the day.

-At this point I finally get the cahones to test the ammonia in the tank. I had really just been assuming I had a spike, and dosing prime and aggresssivly changing the water (2 40 gallon changes, and one 30 during this whole time). I wasn't sure if the prime was masking it (I hadn't added any in about 12 hours) but the test was reading either 0, or between 0 and the first mark. From my experience I know that it at least developed something. I likely still had a spike. I added another dose of prime before going to bed.


Today (Or yesterday for the people who notice what time it is)

-Somehow everything is still alive. I had a massive frogspawn (150-200 heads) and I'm probably down to 100-125, and they're all in frag form but I'm really just thankful they exist.

-I finally place all of the frogspawn and most of the remaining corals, hoping that the anenomes won't roam too far and go on more killing sprees (can you see how I lost the frogspawns?)

-Just now I checked the ammonia again, it seems to still be something, but again between the 0-.25 range. I added another dose of prime.


QUESTIONS

-I assume this ammonia spike is due to the fact that my rock is encrusted in sponge, and I likely killed it during my removal. How long can I expect this sponge death to go on for?

-How exactally can I tell if a sponge is dying? I have one large one I suspect may be the main culprit, but can't really tell. I'll get some pictures in the morning.

-I'm not removing the rocks again, not happening. Should I attempt to remove as much of the dead sponge as possible?

-Is dosing this much prime harming my biological filter? I really just don't want the fish to suffer, or die from any of this. I haven't lost any anemones independently due to these events, just to my own stupidity.

Thank you to all of those who managed through this Odyssey of a story, I've honestly been freaked out about this entire thing since about tuesday, and need some help on what to do with this slight ammonia level. All the livestock is fine, but I do keep neutralizing the ammonia. I don't want them to have to live through a cycle.
 
I don't have any answers to your questions. But you have quite a story, it seems like it's been a very busy week.
 
Well, one of my major questions was answered today. The sponge I suspect was dead was indeed dead, as I noticed it "dropped" a piece of smaller rock that it had been affixing to the larger rock.

I didn't think to snap a picture before this started but I managed to remove roughly a baseball sized amount of the sponge from the rock using my hands, and now all that is left is the tiny pieces in holes and film on the actual rock. I'd say at least 80% of it is gone (it was huge) so hopefully this will help the situation.
 
I personally wouldn't ever be concerned about ammonia once a tank is cycled and nitrifying and denitrifying bacteria is established. just my 2 cents but I'd say you're tests are correctly reading 0..
 
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