I don't want to sound like an Aussie wannabe so I'm gonna start with . . .
Yo Dude, That sucks!
I'm afraid you can't blame Bello though because the truth is I had tank envy back when I first saw the wonderful photos of your Radium lit tank, and I am certain that it was my evil Joey Karma jealousy voodoo that caused this unexplainable loss. Now seeing as I have such a guilty conscience I felt a need to offer a suggestion or two, but given how I was so clearly the cause of your dilemma to begin with I would understand totally if you simply choose to ignore my thoughts. Anyways, my suggestions are 1) if a coral starts to die immediately remove it 2) put sand back in and make it live sand if you can 3) turn off some of your flow so the sand doesn't blow around 4) make heavy use of carbon 5) don't do any more water changes for at least one month. My guess is that you had an infection and then you compounded the problem by making your water too sterile and triggering a type of mini-cycle.
Like I said I'm no biologist so feel free to ignore or use the advice as you see fit but at least you can enjoy the knowledge that I'm gonna need years to clean up my Karma after having my evil Joey jealousy voodoo hit your tank like that.
Good luck Dude! Don't give up.
First, it's only a thought from a fellow reefer so I wouldn't take it as overly important, but in general I am a believer in bacterial balance and ecosystem biology as being the basis for a healthy reef. It doesn't hurt that a recent article in Advanced Aquarist supports my belief that sand is an important additive to the nitrogen "cycle" of a successful aquarium:
Nitrogen Cycling Revisited
My underlying premise is a belief that Biggle's tank is suffering from a lack of healthy biology because of too few bacteria caused by too many and too large water changes in combination with an infection of some sort so my advice is geared towards improving bacterial balance and bringing the reef back to equilibrium. As reefers we have no antibiotics we can safely administer so the best we can do is provide an optimal environment with the least amount of stressors.
I think adding sand will improve the overall biology of the system.
BUT,
the truth is I hate looking at a bare bottom unless it belongs to my wife
Hey Joe, i appreciate the input mate. I have to say i've made all the mistakes one can make over the years with my tanks but what happened this time was a new one for me. For 4 days last week the house was continually stinking of that RTN dead acro smell and the sump had slime on the surface requiring manual removal yet i could see no sliming and no new tissue loss. It was a real hit in the face each day after work when i walked in the door and you'd expect to see a total RTN wipeout associated with the acro stench levels in the room. The skimmer stopped producing anything but watery yellowish skimmate and i had to turn it up a lot to get foam up to the top of the neck. The smell was suddenly gone after 4 days and the skimmer has settled back into its normal skimmate production so i'm really baffled as to what was going on over those days.
1 - Lol great minds think alike, a few days back i decided to rip out everything dead and actively losing tissue as watch and wait hasn't worked too well. I've seen no new outbreaks of tissue loss since and the water has a cleaner crisper smell as it should have rather than the swampy taint that's been there for weeks. If anything suddenly spits the dummy and starts dying i'll be ripping it out immediately :thumbsup:
2 - Can't get real live sand but i'm already over the BB look lol - to me the reef just looks unfinished and weird without a white sand bed and i want the reflected halide light bouncing around the undersides of the acros back that a white sand bed allows.
3 - Re scaping the display so i can drop the crazy high flow i currently have trying to remove dead spots.
4 - Running lots of carbon and nothing else at the moment.
5 - I have no problem agreeing with a suggestion that involves less work lol. I think letting everything settle for a month and recover without any more drastic changes to water parameters is the best thing i can do mate.
I have sterilised the tank and water recently and the pale wash over everything is obvious to my eye. The glass needs cleaning every 3 days atm and for my methods that's way too long i think. Things look best when i have to do it daily so i've started pumping a lot of fish and acro food into the water again recently to feed the you know what out of all my bio filtering critters etc. I expect and want to see algae growing excessively before i'll back off the food a bit. My old tanks had hundreds of snails breeding like rabbits, i think i've missed the fact that i don't have enough nutrients going in to support a large population of algae eating snails with this system but i intend to change that asap.
The surface area a sand bed of only shallow depth makes available for bacteria is huge and i agree entirely with your views Joe. For the 'old fashioned' way i run the system trying to let the natural bio filtration take care of the majority of the water cleansing i think i need the sand just as much as the live rock. I've never mentioned the word infection even though the 6-8 week slow death of many acros whilst others seemed almost unaffected has made me think lol. Added to the positive outcome from removing everything that was looking 'sick' i do wonder if i didn't stress the corals so much that something normally handled easily by the acros was able to get a hold on some of the more touchy species i have.
No idea tbh mate but the way things went this time is a first for me so perhaps 'infection' isn't just a reefer excuse for stuffing up their water lol - hopefully this is my first and last experience with whatever took hold on some of my acros.
Washed out blahville.......
I tried Sahin but i have to cover my bottom for everyone's sake including mine, i lasted less than a week before looking at all that glass made my mind up lol.
The yellow tang is wondering what new acro is going on that ledge......... boy is he in for a big surprise......... You should always keep your fish guessing otherwise they'll think they own the bloody place. :smokin:
