Maroon Lagoon V2.0

[Piper27]

Other corals look ok though! Keep it up.

Sent from my Moto Z (2) using Tapatalk

 

[Gig 'em]

Wow it's been a long time since an update. Over 7 months of struggles ever since my tank randomly started having troubles while I was out of the country on vacation. A lot of losses, then half a year of stagnant growth and poor coloration. Now things seem to finally be turning around, better colors and corals started growing again. I lost all of my large colonies, including my red dragon.

The red dragon bone yard:

Here's some more upbeat photos of my survivors

Green slimer

Oregon tort

I neglected the frags on my frag rack this whole time, the montis didn't skip a beat it appears

RR The Vinh

 

[reefmutt]

Sorry to hear about the troubles..
nice to see the recovery is well under way!
Do you think there is anything you did/changed to help the recovery?

 

[Gig 'em]

Sorry to hear about the troubles..
nice to see the recovery is well under way!
Do you think there is anything you did/changed to help the recovery?

Not really. I knocked out my GHA outbreak that occurred when corals were dying and not removing many nutrients. Then after that it was just patience.... a lot a lot of patience.

 

[reefmutt]

How did you knock it out? Vibrant or fluco?
It’s interesting how quickly the hair algea takes over, the minute the corals take a hit and stop thriving..

 

[Gig 'em]

How did you knock it out? Vibrant or fluco?
It's interesting how quickly the hair algea takes over, the minute the corals take a hit and stop thriving..

Right? The GHA was always present in small patches, but it got to plague proportions at the peak of my woes. I tried vibrant and it did nothing but anger the system as a whole even more. Fluco is what finally took it out, but I should have ran it for a couple more weeks, some little sprouts have re-appeared here and there. Luckily it's so small my CUC has been keeping it at bay.

 

[reefmutt]

I have heard many accounts of dinoflagellates appearing after fluco treatments.. did you see any dinos after treatment?
I never really did in my system.. I’ve treated twice with fluco.

 

[Gig 'em]

I have heard many accounts of dinoflagellates appearing after fluco treatments.. did you see any dinos after treatment?
I never really did in my system.. I've treated twice with fluco.

I don't remember seeing many. If there were any, it was a small amount and it didn't cause much of an issue in the tank.

 

[Gig 'em]

I went to LA this week and made a (expensive) trip to UC! Excited to have something new to google at.

 

[reefmutt]

Mmmmm.. yummy box o candies.
What’s upper right?

 

[Gig 'em]

Mmmmm.. yummy box o candies.
What's upper right?

This one? It's the UC Night Walker. It's a bright purple acro in white light, reminds me of ARC Fireworks

 

[reefmutt]

Yeah. Nice!

 

[berlin-riff]

:beer::eek2:

 

[Gig 'em]

I haven't posted in a while, it's hard to get excited about the hobby when you've been struggling with mysterious coral deaths for nearly a year with no major culprit or solution. Yesterday though I may have *possibly* found a smoking fun. I was performing a water change and noticed the magnet holding my PH was slipping a bit. Pulled it off and noticed my hand was covered in black and there were some bumps on the magnet

Needless to say I tossed the magnet immediately, changed 20 gallons, and put new carbon in the reactor. Really really hoping this has been the cause of my most recent coral struggles.

 

[Gig 'em]

When you get home from a week in Wyoming and your CO2 cylinder is bled dry and your alk dropped from 8.3 to 5.2, you use what CO2 you have until you can swap out the 20lb cylinder [emoji23]

 

[Gig 'em]

My alk is still very low and I'm trying to bring it up, but it seems to keep dropping. Corals appear happier now that I've performed a couple of water changes. Colors looking good too.

Left is Vivid Solar Flare and right is ASD Rainbow Mille

Front is Oregon Tort, behind it is RCA Baton Rouge, right is Arctic Aspera

Left is RRC Pink Cadillac, to the right is Pink Floyd finally taking off after over a year of stagnation

Z's Blue Floyd. It was completely brown a year ago, finally a gorgeous yellow

These two montis (sunset and chili pepper) have lived in the back corner for years. Can't really see them from the front, but grabbed this photo from above and thought the inter growth was interesting

 

[Gig 'em]

I guess I have a vacation curse, because every time I take a vacation some disaster befalls my tank. Last year there was a power outage while I was gone and following that I lost several thousand in SPS and my coral health never really rebounded to what it was pre-trip. This year an anemone somehow found its way out of its cage and into a powerhead within days of me leaving.

This anemone was in a cage for months and somehow got out within a couple days of me leaving the country? Really?! I leave town for work every other week and something like this happens when my wife and I are on the other side of the world?! [emoji36]Luckily an extremely good friend and reliable hobbyist in my neighborhood was available to perform an emergency water change and removed some dead fish. From my count I only have 3 fish left in the tank and I used to have over 20.

I returned home last night and was too tired to perform water tests, but without my grazing fish anymore, ulva exploded. I tore out what was growing near the surface of the tank and it was pretty substantial. Probably going to tear everything out and re-aquascape while I'm essentially fishless. [emoji58]

 

[Alex Costa]

What a bummer.
I'm very sorry to hear that.
I've been in your place, with a power failure during a trip, and it was the most frustrating moment that I ever had in this hobby.

 

[Gig 'em]

I broke down and couldn't take this slow mysterious death any longer. I drained the tank, dipped all the corals in witches hazel, Lugols, and potassium chloride. Then I ripped out all the palys and algae I could find, stirred up the sand bed, and replaced 100% of the water. I expect some coral losses, but if it resolves my phantom issue, it's a cost I'm willing to pay.

Ready to tear everything out and start dipping

9 hours later, rocks, corals, and fish are back in.

 

[reefmutt]

I’d pull out the sand if I were in your shoes..