New tank, sump location question

[jcw]

It's been hard getting the calcium up
410 this am

Mag at 1350
Alk about 9


I am convinced that redbugs are causing most of my acros to fade. It's not a nutrient issue. Not a feeding issue. Not the nitrates. Not the phosphates. Not the lights. I have been doing mental somersaults trying to figure what i was doing wrong.

I took pics of three corals that have slowly turned pale and have stopped growing. When i magnified the pics all had redbugs. Dozens of them seen. The ones that had the most, looked the worse.


I went to the vet with some info off the internet on redbugs and pics of my corals. They were kind enough to ok the interceptor and even had one last in stock!

I am going to dose ASAP tonight...

 

[jcw]

My redbug gallery...

This poor guy is supposed to be a blue tenuis!!!

 

[jcw]

Some acros (very few) are OK...

Most montis are doing fine. As are the birdsnests.

 

[jcw]

OK I did it this AM.

Crushed 1/2 tablet and mixed in some saltwater. poured most of it into the DT and a little into the sump.

Turned off the skimmer, GFO, took out the filter sock.

Said goodbye to the crabs.

All of this for you darn Acros...



I hope I don't "get" AEFW after this.


Calcium at 420. Finally getting up there. I think I'm going to shoot for 450+.
Alk at 9.3.

But spec grav is down from all the two part I'm adding. I wonder if you can mix calcium in salt mix in the calcium top off container??? Probably not...

Maybe instead of adding more mix, I can add straight calcium powder to the sump.

 

[jcw]

just turned the skimmer back on.

about 1/2 the hermit crabs aren't moving or are twitching. cleaner shrimp is mia. arrow crab is still kicking.

serpent star ok, urchin ok.

amphipods on the glass in the fuge unchanged, planaria unchanged. maybe the small copepods are less in number

corals unchanged except MAYBE a little better polyp extension on a couple. On my test colonies with the greatest infestation visible, no redbugs seen tonight.

Fish seem unaffected.

Water changes are in order i guess...

 

[jcw]

One day post interceptor treatment.

Did about a 10% water change. cleaned 1/2 the sump while I was at it. including the skimmer and pump. Found out I bought an ATB skimmer pump with one stripped volute screw hole. There was some sort of sealant on the threads of that screw. I SWEAR!!!!!!!!!!!!! you can't trust anyone. (I think almost EVERY used product I purchased had some sort of defect from mp40's, mp10's, ai sols, two ATB skimmers, Tunze HOB skimmer)

Plan on doing another 10% and cleaning the other 1/2 of the sump in a couple days. Back on with the GFO and carbon. Filter sock back in place.


Can't say I see a huge difference in the corals. Maybe a little more polyp extension on a couple frags that were really looking bad. But on a couple test corals I put right up against the glass, I don't see any red bugs...

1/2 emerald crabs and most of the remaining hermit crabs look dead. arrow crab alive, serpent star alive, urchin alive.

 

[jcw]

power went out. lost some water from tank. heater malfunctioned. chemistry levels droping, and...


Ich is back on the tang.
I'm not sure if it was the stress of low lights, lower flow for 48+ hours or somehow related to the interceptor treatment.

Corals look fine. The oregon tort almost looks like it's been growing! some of the others have great polyp extension. waiting for the color to come back on the heavily infested ones. These aren't night and day differences but are becoming noticeable. Waiting on the red planet to take off. There's a hint of green on the tips.

Someone has to come up with a reef safe treatment for cryptocaryon irritans. I'll be waiting for it.

 

[sammy77]

I'm just north of you, and that was a real bad storm that rolled thru here on Sunday. Hopefully everything else is ok for you and your family. Sorry I can't add any help to your issues with your corals. Good luck.

 

[jcw]

I'm just north of you, and that was a real bad storm that rolled thru here on Sunday. Hopefully everything else is ok for you and your family. Sorry I can't add any help to your issues with your corals. Good luck.

Thanks. Good luck with your tank!


It's this tank that's cursed. I have a 29g and maintain a 72g that are doing fine.

 

[sammy77]

Thank you. I'm sure you'll figure it out in time.

 

[jcw]

The ich on the tang is looking better. (I know about the life cycle. This is the third round dealing with this in my tank.)

Found a flatworm on one acro frag with a bunch of bite marks on it. :thumbdown:thumbdown:thumbdown


I think I have had every single pest in the course of this tank's short life.

Treated and gone for now
redbugs

Treated and gone but returned
ich
aiptasia
bryopsis

Active pests (but controlled at this point)
ich
aiptasia
bryopsis
bubble algae
hair algae
hydroids
turf algae

Active but unknown virulence
flatworms


I even think I had a eunice worm that didn't quite make it into the tank. I purchased about 15 pounds of LR from a guy breaking down his nano. he brought it to work in a bucket and i met him after work. needless to say, many things were dead in the bucket. INCLUDING a small 5-6in worm that looked something like those pics that show up around here of much larger eunice worms.

 

[jcw]

While I'm fighting the flatworms, I wanted to post pics to show most frags are doing OK.

 

[jcw]

Finally got around to fixing my $470+ piece of junk pump.

Looks like the screw basically stripped off the shaft and let the magnet pull against the backing plate scoring the backing plate and the magnet.

I'll be da@#ed if I send ecotech another red cent for an overpriced pump that lasted me only one year of use. So, I cleaned everything up as best I could and superglued the nut to the shaft. Pump is back in the tank and working well so far while I look to replace them with Tunzes.


Lost a blue reef chromis. Not sure what happened. Can't find him anywhere. At the same time, my green birdsnest retracted all it's polyps which it had NEVER done before. I wonder if the tank had a smal nitrate spike. Also, the serpent star is looking rather full...


Thinking of running a polyfilter just for the heck of it.

Monitoring closely for flatworms. None seen yet. The tricolor and the other flatwom infested acro have got their polyp extension back. Color slowly coming back as well.


The siphoning of the crushed coral sandbed continues. I'm taking out a couple handfuls at a time with water changes. Overall, I think it's going well.


Haven't had to change the settings on the dosing pump in about 1 week. Finally, I'm getting into a groove with the alk and calc.

Corals look good except the ones hit by flatworms. Overall I'm glad I did the interceptor treatment despite the aefw rearing it's ugly head.

 

[jcw]

Update

After tossing two heavily infested frags, dipping one tricolor and another maybe secalae and scraping and lasering any eggs that appear, I have failed to find anymore evidence of bite marks on the other acros.

Not to say they are gone, but so far so good...

I think I'm just on the cusp of something good here. SPS are growing. the high nutrient/low nutrient issues I think I've finally figured out. Colors are coming back on many frags...

Here are some examples...

I thought this was a granulosa or a multiacuta when I got it.
April 2012

Now I'm not so sure. The branches on the right side accidently fraged in a rock slide.
July 2012

At night with improved PE

Here's a DD strawberry shortcake- Acropora microclados
The frag is finally picking up the green base with red tips and red polyps.

Here's an echinata (I think) that is finally getting purple tips

left side of tank

 

[jcw]

something happened in the tank today.

Came home from work and the skimmer was overflowing and really foamy bubbles covered the one section of the sump.

Tried to adjust the skimmer down but no luck. it still was skimming way wet.

I thought maybe something died, maybe there was a huge snail spawning event, maybe my 4yo decided to add something to the tank? Who knows.

However, the DT itself looks the best it has in months. OK, there's still a patch of HA here and there. And turf algae in some parts. But the water is clearer and the colors in the frags are showing up.

Here's some examples...

Polyp extension has never been better on this mint green acro

same with this oregon tort. color is still not there but from what this came from, i am elated...

blue base is finally coming up on this meteor. its been brown for MONTHS...

behind the oregon tort, this is my second favorite frag, red planet. It's fairly common but I've seen some pretty cool growth forms of this coral.
I recently put an mp10 smack dab in the middle of the front pane to blow just off the side of this frag trying to stimulate some growth. You would NOT believe what this thing looked like from DD. But the skin of this acro is looking much healthier and I'm getting a little more polyp extension.

So back to my original point. I have never been a huge carbon doser. Mainly because I could never get a nitrate reading on the API kit. Phosphate is the same, almost always undetectable on salifert. But based on the rate of growth of my chaeto and the HA in the DT and the brown acros, I decided to just ignore the test numbers and go by how the tank looks.

GFO restarted, Carbon dosing increased. I added vinegar to the the vodka and dose 2-3cc of vodka in the PM and 5-6cc of vinegar in the AM. Still not much, but I wonder if I reached some type of "breaking point" and this caused the skimmer to overflow and the water to look clear and I'm fairly certain it's contributing to the color and polyp extension in the above.

 

[jcw]

These came out OK tonight. Macro setting on a fairly basic Lumix digital camera.

This frag was covered with big and little AEFW. And had eggs at its base. Now it's recovering.

DFS strawberry shortcake continues to color up slowly.

Tricolor valida also had one large AEFW munching away at it. Recovering slowly.

Blue tenuis healing NICELY after redbugs.

red dragon continues to grow.

one of my favorite acro growing through the edge of a monti.

 

[jcw]

1+ months since first finding and removing the acro eating flatworms and no more thus far. fingers crossed.

Growth of the corals has slowed a little. Not sure why. It seems whenever there is a lighting change, I get a spurt of groeth then back to slow again.


Here's a shot that come out nicely. Blue tenuis. Not sure what the blob is on one of the corallites to the right.

Ich is gone again on the tang for the last few weeks...

 

[jcw]

well, I can't win. aefw bite marks on my copps bonsai.

took it out and dipped it. not looking very good today.

growth is there but very slow. shrug

 

[jcw]

Acro's not doing well. I think I'm calling it quits with the acropora. Other SPS and the Monti's are doing very well and look fine to me.

I stopped running gfo because everything was VERY pale. carbon stopped, too.

then, after about 2 weeks several frags and some small colonies started slow necrosis. Funny thing is that it started on the tips and base on my green slimer. and on the base on most other pieces.

Alk climbed up to about 9.8 (from 8.0-8.5), I think because of the lack of growth, but never any higher. calcium has been stable at 420.

Admittedly, I have been neglecting my daily water changes this past month although I did clean the sump once this past month and did a 15 gallon change.


Anywho, I'm not spending any more $$$ on acro's just to see them turn brown or pale white and die.

Fish are doing fine.


I finally got around to hooking up the airstar 1800 and a manifold system for gfo and carbon run off an Eheim 1250. That was a pain dismantling and rebuilding. No wonder I was procrastinating. But I like the new setup and the airstar is super quiet.

I still would like to drill the tank, but at this point, it would have to be drilled on one end of the 125g as I can't get behind the tank anymore.

 

[jcw]

Almost 2 years later...
Gave up the fight with the aefw and redbugs. Lost $100's if not $1000 in acropora. Green slimer survived only.

The tank was very stable otherwise. Recently lost a larger genicanthus angel that had been with me for at least 2-3 years. Always had a lower gi problem with large stools stuck coming out. don't know why?

All the other tank inhabitants have been fine. No ich for 2+ years.

Since I lost the largish angel in my tank, I wanted to add one of my favorite angels, a regal angel. I set up this tank divider because the bellus angel was not a friendly neighbor.