The first Chalice I ever came across was my Red Planet Chalice (Oxypora sp)
I was in a wholesaler in LA, looking down on corals through the water surface. There was a slight ripple blurring my view into the tank, and I saw what appears to be a red/pink Montipora plater. I thought it was an odd color for a capricornis so I stopped. Once I touched it, I new instantly that it was something different. It was thick, with a dense heavy skeleton. The parts of tissue that I touched was extremely slimey and farm more expanded than an sps like a Monti. I had honestly never seen one before, nor was there any craze about them. I picked it up and went about trying to ID it. I remember my long hike back from LA, I was on the phone with one of my employees who was extremely knowledgable. I woulf routinely tell him about the oddities or corals that I was excited about buying, and that one was a definite topic of conversation.I would guess that this was 2002 or 2003. The coral became a hit at our local frag swaps in LA and soon I was trading chalice frags for other chalice frags. The best thing about them is how hardy they were. Tyree and I traded quite a few of our chalices.
I had a bleach incident, no not bleaching, chlorine bleach!!! I suspected it was caused by a disgruntled employee (who was about to be fired) for theft. I came back in my shop after a haircut next door and my tank looked a little cloudy. I noticed immediately by the dying purple tang in the corner that there was a major problem. The tank had been doing great leading up to this. It was jam packed with over 400 different species of coral ranging form softball and salad plate sized colonies to 1" frags. As I approached the tank I noticed the cloudiness wasn't hazy water, there were free floating amphipods, mysid shrimp, etc in the water column. All the fish were severely stress and dying right in front of me. I immediately reached in and started grabbing the fish with my hands and moving them into my neaby reef systems. At this time I had a 2x30 gallon specimen system attached to a 125gallon sump/refugium, 2 4 x 60 gallon reef systems with 2 x 55 gallon sump/refugium/cryptic zone on each. The fish that I could get to were not fareing well i nthe new system either but there were not alot of immediate options. I immediately directed the employee to start a syphon. All of the corals were sliming like crazy. I had 100 gallons of newly mixed saltwater available nearby and was able to get the other 100 gallon horse troph filling with new water from the DI system. . I was able to start a simultaneous syphon and water replacement and ran 300 gallons of new water into my show system. This show system was a 4'x2'x2' Leemar Flat Polish display with a 40 gallon ecosystem refugium below. It had a small skimmer and a Rena XP3 cannister attached to the 'fuge. I am getting ahead of myself... when I was grabbing the fish out, I caught a wiff of the suspected problem. I could smell the distinct smell of chlorine bleach on my arms. There was a regular customer in the store with their little boy, and my employee. Noone else had been in the store during the last 20 minutes. While we were doing this continuous water change, and after I had vainly tried to save my fish (every fish died), I was observing a literal snowstorm of dead microfauna flaoting throught the system. Millions of amphipods, copepods, mysid shrimp, and the likes were killed off and floating to their final resting place. My coral slime storm was further clouding this water, and my expectations were to see witness the demise of my prized aquarium display. I expected all 400+ species to follow the same fate of my fish. Quite simply I did not know what the #1 recommended solution was. The only thought I had was Dilution is the solution to pollution. By now my other employee came back from break, I was surprisingly calm, questioning the employee who was present and barking orders to the employee who just arrived. The cannister was loaded with fresh carbon and put into action. In what could not have been more than an hour we had successfuly added 300 gallons of newly mixed saltwater and while removing the overflow (obviously before it overflowed). Some corals were already shedding tissue. I decided at this stage to take a step back and think of the best solution. My thoughts led to the idea that my exosystem had been sterilized. I had to inject new life back into my fuge, live rock and sand. How much more change could these corals sustain. I decided to fill every possible tub that I had in the shop with water and make new saltwater. It turned out to be 400 gallons of new saltwater was able to sit. we were close to closing time and I proceeded to do 100 gallons of another water change using water from my other systems to replace the drained water from my display system. I replaced the water in the other system with the freshly mixed saltwater, and of course mixed a nother new bacth of saltwater. This ended up being my last bag of salt. I don't know what sparked the decision, but I was done for the day. I didn't know what else to do. I had a plan but needed to think it out. I left it in mother nature's hands for the evening.
The next morning, I headed into the shop expectings to see the whitest coral reef display setup I could ever fear seeing. I was plannin my ebay moves. You know "Rare White Acropora sp" Extremely limited." All kidding aside I was sick over what I was expecting to see. Years of collecting - GONE-...All he windos of my shop faced West, so at 8 am the part of the shop where the coral reef display system sat was dark. I couldn't see nto the tank from the front door, but I did see enough for my heart to sink. I could tell there was some extremly white patches in he middle area and at the top of the aquarium. I walked over o the main switched and turned them on. At this time I had confirmed my worst fear. I suspected a total loss, but there is a wall between me and the tank now and I cannot see the tank as the halides are warming up and creating hat sharp glow that illuminates from around the corner. I felt like a kid hiding behind his hands to avoid seing the evil creature in a horror flick. After some thought, I stepped around the corner to face my fear. To my surprise, the tank was alive. There was still color in my display. The water was a bit cloudy and things just didn't look right. I approached the tank and noticed that most everything seemed fine. Still a little sliming, but most everything was in living color. There was no noticeable polyp extension. I looked to see what the white spots were, and there was virtually no purple coraline algae. it was all white on all pieces of liverock and the back wall. There were some coral lossed, 7 or 8 small colonies of Acro's and a few frag (literally 2 or 3) were dead. They were all on the left side and in what I would later suspect was the "pour area." This was also the area where the water returned from the sump, so if the bleach was poured into the sump it would have come out in this spot highly concentrated. There was an excitement to this moment. A sense of relief that I can not explain. I started removing the dead colonies, and came to the main two chalices. I noticed that they were white but I wasn't looking at their skeleton. It was like they had a film over them. It was almost like a fungus that overed the entire colony. I decided to leave them and soon noticed that it wasn't just the Desert Sunset Chalic and Red Planet Chalice. It was also on my desert plate, Watermelon( type), Lemon lime, and other chalices. I went about my tank rescue which was geared towards some sort of instantaneous exosystem recreation. I attached my pump to fill one of my other reef systems, while draining my display system. I then gravity vacuumed (Just like a freshwater gravel vac) from the other system into my display. I was literally gravel vacing my sand from one system into my display. I did 200-300 gallons of this before letting it settle and adding the remaining new water to clear my display system from the cloudy mess it had become. That's it. That is how I resuced my tank from bleach exposure... now why did I post this here.. oh yes.. the Chalices.. After about a week the shed their fungi looking coccoon to reveal beautifully colored liveing corals underneath.
They are amazing corals and large or small, they can be some of the most brilliantly colored corals you will find.
