Re: The Official Asylum Reef Tank Thread
 

My clowns spawned again and I almost missed it as I can barely see into my tank. I haven't had time to do a major clean for a while. The hard to clean stuff is starting to build up. I can look forward to the four hour hard job of getting it clean.

Re: The Official Asylum Reef Tank Thread
 

my clowns just spawned yesterday, much to the delight of my cleaner shrimp and coral beauty

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MMMMmmmm.:)

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Mine protected their eggs viciously until they hatched, then they completely lost interest. Everything else in the tank would eat the fry. If you can figure out when they will hatch you can go to the tank just after dark and shine a light in a top corner and scoop the fry out. The have to be fed live microscopic stuff for a while. If they get in the overflow and make it to the refugium then they have a very slim chance of surviving in my system, in the main tank they have zero chance.

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Just upgraded to a 125:banger its about half full of water right now :D waiting on plumbng to fill her up.

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My Maxima clam just died. Maybe of old age. Maybe the Xenia growing on it toxified it. It was about 7 years old and made it through a few tank crashes. Everything else is fine. ???

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:np

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http://inlinethumb35.webshots.com/46...600x600Q85.jpg:banger

took the shots with too fast ISO so lots of noise, but Ill have more soon!

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I finally got a pic of the new 90 gallon tank. I'm uploading a video, too.
Here she is...

http://home.comcast.net/~shilala/fishes22.jpg

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Sweet!
That is nice Scott.

Good luck with that Rock Beauty.
I call them "dispose-a-fish".:r
The are so, so tough to have them adapt to captivity.
I see them all the time in the wild when I have gone diving but heck if I have ever had one more than 6 months.

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I love the Sailfin tang. Mine has a personality. It pays attention to what is going on outside the tank.
I can't even see inside my tank right now. I think I'll go clean it...

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Which one is the rock beauty, Carlos?
I've been killing fish for years, it really doesn't phase me anymore. :)

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The yellow and black Angel.

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Just set up my little 24 gallon again. Its looking good so far.

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It's an old girl, she was in the kid's tank for a couple years. She has ich bad. I have to start medicating the tank in the next couple days. I'm not looking forward to it. Everyone else is doing better, but she isn't. Good eater, though. I may just keep waiting it out. If I could catch her, I'd just dip her and set her loose.

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It's nice to see our fishtank thread revived. I sure hope some other brothers join in. :tu

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Wow!
That is a record for a Rock Beauty.
They are very finicky sponge eaters that just gradually starve in captivity as they never really take to the foods we give them.

Scott, diseases and parasites was my thing.
As far as the ick, on a reef, that goes hand in hand. Taking that fish out and dipping it will help relieve it of the cysts on his body but the moment he is back in the tank, all the larvea free swimming from when they bust up in the sand and go looking for a host will end up on him again. Each cyst that drops off him (the little salt you see on him) will eventually release about a 1,000 larvea looking for a new host and the cycle starts all over again. The ones that find a host eventually develop into the ones you see on his body. The ones that don't find a host right away, die quite quickly.
Given only live rock in there from what I recall seeing in the photo, I would lower salinity and raise the temperature.
Lower your salinity to around .012. Sounds crazy but trust me, won't hurt the fish at all. Long term studies have revealed they can be fine two years later at that level. That helps the cysts not reproduce as much and combined with the higher temperature, causes their life cycle to speed up considerably. I have done this salinity level with many fish and tanks worth thousands of dollars a fish and have lost none to it.
Crank the temperature to 82 and if still an issue a few days post lowering salinity and raising the temp, increase a couple of notches to 84. Make sure they have plenty of oxygen which will be the concern as at higher temps, it is much less available to them.

Re: The Official Asylum Reef Tank Thread
 

BTW,
Some fish can fight it well and in time, it all goes away.
Some fish need lots of manual help.

When you see the cysts on them, that is because their tolerance to fight is down or gone. When their slime coats are fine, no ich will affect them as the larvea will not be able to penetrate the coat to feed and grow into a new cysts. That is why some fish just don't seem to get it or if they do, it eventually goes away after only minimal amounts.
When their immunity is down, the slime coat does not produce as much and hence the parasites can multiply.
Their slime coats also serve another function most don't know. It helps filter salt, along with their organs (kidney). Salt water fish filter the salt via their organs and slime coat.
When they are stressed and infested, they stress yet more and produce yet less slime coat. Eventually, the gills get attacked very badly and they suffocate.

So......now go back to the salinity. You lower it, it helps them have to filter it less. Their bodies don't need to stress more by not only trying to filter all that salt via organs only and at the same time, you eliminate the cause (the parasites blow up in fresh water).

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Thank you, my friend. Consider it done.
She is an awesome eater. Loves brown algae and pellets. She's a big fat pig. I just fed her as I was typing, and she's eating everything she can get her lips on.
I was watching her today and she's not even itching. Usually they go nuts when they get ich. :confused:
I don't think it's going to be hard to manage. My salinity is already very low for the little coral I do have. I have lots of sponges growing, too, she just can't get to them. I hid them on purpose till they can grow out from the cracks in the rock. :tu

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Then based on this, go ahead and just crank up your temperature. That stuff will soon cycle out of there.
Trick is to make sure you keep the temperature high for weeks post when you see the last signs of cyst.
They can stay embedded in your sand for three to four weeks and start all over again.
By keeping the temperature up about a month, that should cover you from a new outburst.
When you buy new fish.........................QUARANTINE!!!!, for about a month usually, in copper, after a freshwater dip with formalyn.

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My salt is up around .025 right now, Carlos. I'll have to swap out a couple buckets of water in the morning.
She's really not in bad shape at all. I should probably not screw with it real fast. I'll bring the temperature up slowly and lower the salinity slowly. I need some water changes anyways, so I'll start making RO water in earnest.

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the hypo salinity should do the trick. Cranking temperature in the tank isnt shown to help mush with marine ich. Freshwater raising the temp works winders though.

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You should be aiming between .013 and .017. for true hypo treatment.

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.025 is too high for what you have.
Fear not about slow transition. I have taken them down in one water change. Does not hurt them. In fact, I have often times taken a fish out of one environment, into the other, without any acclimation. My son's shop did it all the time also.

Everything I have read indicates both salt water and fresh water ich are affected by temperature. Lower extends life cycle while higher temperature speeds it up. I have never done temperature alone or salinity alone so can't really tell if one is better than the other. However, note that most outbreaks occur when heaters go bad and temperature drops rapidly. The other outbreaks occur when introducing infected fish. Conversely, high temperature must have an effect also.

An oceanic institute published a study with a large Angel where he was kept at .012 for well over two years with no issues. While .013 to .017 may do it, the lower you go, the faster the fresh water mixture penetrates and blows up the cysts. My tank runs at around .016 to .017 year round. Note I have seen many outbreaks on folks around .017 so I won't therefore trust that as a safe level for no ich. Saltwater ich cannot survive in fresh water but it is due to their single cell composition blowing up. The sooner you can get those critters off their bodies, the better the survival rate and better chance of not contracting bacterial infections. Sometimes the latter sets in and kills them before the ich suffocates them.

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I agree Carlos. It becomes tougher when there are corals in the tank. They are not too fond of the lowered SG.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-08/sp/index.php

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Thanks to both of you guys. :tu
Being as the heat ain't gonna hurt a thing, I'm going to close up the lids and let the tank warm naturally. It'll be like soup in no time. I do need to go get a decent thermometer though.
I'm going to start bringing down the salinity tomorrow. I can only pull it down ten gallons at a time because my RO unit is so slow.
I'm going to drop a bit, so far as salinity goes, but I'm not going to drop it too low. I've been dropping slowly over the last year, coming down from 1.025 to 1.020. (I typo'd that last message, Carlos.)
I'd like to hang around .018 or .019.
Since I've lowered my salinity, my coralline has flourished as well as my critters, bugs, corals, and fish. This outbreak was caused by temperature spikes. I need to cut off the heat run behind the tank. That'll be a pain, so it'll wait till summer.
Thanks again, guys!!!

Re: The Official Asylum Reef Tank Thread
 

No doubt.
I noted he had no corals in that picture and threw that idea out as such.
With corals, ich is a whole new world.
I frankly am not too fond of taking a reef with nice corals down too low on salinity.

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I have a big field of red ones, Carlos. Good thing I didn't change water yet? I also have some small other corals in different places, as well as sponges, snails, and every other thing you can imagine.
Tons of feathers, and my live rock is stellar, and full of clams and sh!t.

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I read the article. Hyposalinity is out, for sure. It'll kill everything I have. :tu

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Its a difficult situation Scott. I dealt with this early on in my reef tank. What worked for me. was lowering sal to .017 and leaving it there for many months without adding anythoing at all in that period.

Imagine how pitiful a 90 gallon tank looks with only a tiny maroon clown in it.

If you lose any corals I will gladly send you replacements. (post outbreak)

Before I buy a fish now I ask the store to hold it for a month in their QT system. It costs a little more but no ich since.

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Thank You, Mark. I'll get this under control in no time. I have medicine and it isn't bad. I'll lower the salinity a tiny bit and start doing water changes. I already brought buckets in, I'll make and replace 20 or 30 gallons tomorrow, depending on what I'll have to do with my medicine.
I'll talk with you about corals later. I'd love to get some more going, but I kill everything. The red stuff is the only thing I've been succesful with so far, and it's growing like wildfire.
My new base rock is getting very purple, too. So I can grow coralline algae really good. My water is decent, but I'd like it even better.

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I've had success fighting ich with garlic, the dry granulated kind. I would just feed it to them like the food. They would eat some and the rest disappeared in the tank. I now have cleaner shrimp in both tanks. I think they keep the ich suppressed.

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Some of my Nuclear green Pallys. Just got done fragging. Made five frags of 3-6 polyps each and you cant tell where they came from. Anyone interested in some? PM me.

http://www.cigarasylum.com/vb/attach...5&d=1269803866

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I was bored tonight so I rescaped my tank. :D

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m...0/Newscape.jpg

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Water has calmed down and here it is with my clown in front.

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m...waquascape.jpg

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Before my mom killed off my tank when I left for school it use to be my favorite to reaquascape. Every water change and cleanning I'd do it. I think the reason I liked it so much was bc of how pissed of it would make my fish. It really just messed up their day and they'd be incredibly active exploring the new caves.

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It also created new territories and kept the peace so to speak. I will probally have to rescape it when i add my next clown or use the jail technique

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Guys, I got my ich problem under control. Adjusted my salinity just a tiny bit lower, stabilized the temp, and slowed down feeding dramatically.
My thinking was that with an absense of bottom food, all my critters would eat the bottom bugs and stop the cycle.
So far, so good. :tu
Hang on to some frags for me, Marc. I'd like to try a couple more and see if I can avoid killing them.
The tank looks AWESOME!!! I had to redo the right side of mine cause it caved from someone tunneling. I made it a bit less fragile this time.

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Superglue works wonders for stabilizing rocks. I use this kind.

http://graphics.samsclub.com/images/...4030379_L4.jpg

Ill save you some Scott.

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I have some, Marc. Just don't like using it on the rocks. I probably would if I could ever get them all the way I like them.
One of my buddies sends me emails that say "move that one rock 2cm to the left". He's watched me fussing with it a number of times. Not many days go by that I'm not wet. :D

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I have rarely and only slightly rearranged my rock. Almost every piece has something on the outside of it that likes where it is.
I hear you, Scott, about the wet arms. If you add it all up I spend like four hours or more a week with my arms in the aquarium. If not then I couldn't see inside. I will have to get an updated picture.
I think I lost my maxima clam due to a malfunctioning heater back in the coldest part of winter. It was about five years old. Our two best fish stores closed, now there is nothing close to me.

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It dosent really fuse them together. It just makes the more outrageous things more stable. The rocks can be pulled apart really easily just not under their own weight.

I will be adding a clam shortly. I have my eye on a 3.5" dersea, 3" squamosa, and a 4" maxima at the LFS. Just have to decide which tank.

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HAhahah, I KNEW there was a slope that people didn't talk about. That's cause it is the
biggest money-tossing slope that there is.

And I am also afflicted. This is my second tank, and it is an old picture from very early on.
I have replaced half the rock and moved everything 5 times. This is just a 40 with a 25 gal sump.
My old tank was a 110 and a few photos from it's early days are here:
http://www.reefs.org/forums/topic134254.html

I never thought to look and see if there was a reef thread. SHould be, as much disposable as we dispose of.

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I can also suggest, that if the fish is not flashing, you can leave it alone.
When I have a tang that is getting ich, I do a couple of things. I get some real macroalgae for it to
eat, I let my tank go to **** and try not to put my hands in the water at all, or even go into the
room for that matter. I go in for feeding and that is it. MOST fish can beat the outbreak if they
have less or no stress. That said I lost a Hepatus tang with this method, and I watched a yellow,
pictured above, beat it cold. I find the stress of catching and quarantining fish pushes them over
the edge. Especially given how we have to catch them with all the rock, coral etc. Many die the
first nite of qt.

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Added some new coral today.

Tyree Meteor Shower Cyphastrea.

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m...teorShower.jpg

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Dood. I LOVE killing fish. It's the best way to rid myself of that cumbersome money. I haven't killed anything in weeks, and it's driving me nuts.
Today I'm fighting brown slime again. I have a branch sponge in there that's breaking down, I need to get it out. I've halted feeding to near nothing, but my skimmers are working overtime. Something could have died in there, I have no way of telling.
Sooo....
I hooked the diatom filter back up and did some scrubbing. I usually let it just burn itself out, but decided to do battle this time. I'm not gonna do much. It'll be gone before I know it.

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Picked up some more coral.

Green montipora Cap
Pink Montipora Cap
Blue Stag
Pink Pocillipora
Green Pocillipora
and a Green slimer Acro.

picture coming soon.

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Got back from the LFS. I swapped some frags with a friend, then I bought myself a Green slimer acro.

http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m...810/slimer.jpg
http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m...8810/trade.jpg

Everything is looking happy.