It's been a busy few days. It had been a few weeks since checking parameters (very atypical for me), and I finally got to it:
S.G. 1.027
pH 8.06
Ca 400
alk 8.8/3.14
I was very pleased that no correction was needed for Ca and alk, but maybe this is because my SPS were being ravaged by flatworms and red bugs and, consequently, not consuming much. I also changed the bulb in the refugium as the previous one was 9 months old, and I could tell that it was losing its intensity and that the chaeto was growing much more slowly than in the past. I'll put myself on a six-month change schedule for this bulb in the future.
In preparation for clearing out my tank of all acropora, I bought a really nice open brain coral (Trachyphyllia geoffroyi) as well as a Montipora danai (I think). They're both doing really well, and I'll get pics tonight after I clean the glass. These were dipped for about 15 minutes in a concentrated Lugol's solution before going into my tank.
I've also wanted a cleaner shrimp for some time now, and I got one a few days ago. No sooner than it hit the water, my sixline wrasse attacked it. I turned my back for a minute and the next time I looked in, the shrimp was being swept away in the current, listless. Once the snails pounced on it I realized it was a goner, and I removed it. The next day I got another one, and acclimated it over at least 45 minutes before putting it in the tank. 20 minutes later it was fine, so I went to take a shower and when I returned, it was dead as well. Do you think the sixline wrasse is killing these shrimp? Should I never put another one in this tank? I've never seen any of my sixlines behave aggressively toward the peppermint shrimp.
So to treat the AEFW, 2 days ago I removed all acropora and montipora digitata corals from my tank. I know they're called Acropora Eating FlatWorms, but thedude had seen them on digis, so I thought it safer to go ahead and treat these as well. All of them were cut away from the aquascape, and I prepared an Interceptor dip (1/3 tab in 4 gallons tank water) to place them in while they would be transported to the house of fishypets, where we would carry out the treatment and quarantine. As much of the encrusted acro tissue was cut off of the aquascape as possible, and areas that I couldn't cut out were covered with putty to hopefully seal off any AEFW eggs that may still be present.
Here's my sad bucket'o corals.
This represents 18 acropora and 3 montipora digitata frags.
Actually, if anyone is OCD and has taken the time to count the frags, you'll only come up with 20 since 1 acro was still in the tank when I shot this picture.
Here's all of the corals, bagged in Interceptor and ready for transport.
Upon arriving to fishypet's house, we prepared some large containers with Fluke-Tabs (4 tablets/5 gallons water), as well as a rinsing container that the corals would be placed into after treating them for 30-60 minutes. The treatment containers were heated and circulated with powerheads. My corals represented only a small fraction of our entire load, as he has probably 60 or more very nice colonies that we treated as well. Before putting the corals into the Fluke-Tab dips, we carefully inspected each one, and all visible eggs (and algae) were scraped off. We clearly saw clusters of eggs on his montiopra digitata colonies, so whoever is in charge of nomenclature might need to change the name of these flatworms. Note was made where AEFW bite marks had occurred, and we'll look for tissue healing in the weeks to come. Happily, all of my frags survived the treatment and location change into the quarantine tank, and all of fishypets' corals continue to improve as well. Hopefully fishypets will add some pics to this thread of his QT and of our treatment setup.
... my tank looks empty without SPS :sad1:
My 125 looking very empty.
