Donya's 55-Gallon

[Donya]

Thankfully everything was back to normal by the evening and all critters are still accounted for. My best guess for now is that some critter in there got a bit toxic for whatever reason and perhaps the fish that died either harassed it directly or ate a bit of it, so perhaps it got a stronger dose of what was just an irritant otherwise. There are little sea cucumbers that are very common on LR from the region where most of mine came from, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if something like that had been in there the whole time and I hadn't seen it. After all, the pistol shrimp colony the rock brought was unseen for over a year and there is still something I see periodically at night that is small and lightning fast as it darts between the rocks, so there are still mysteries in this tank even though the 'scape is sparse. Anyway, I either guess the carbon I put in mopped up the mess or whatever it was decomposed, since the WC I did wouldn't have been enough to return things to normal if there was a toxin about. Adding to the chemical irritant hypotheis, my right arm has not been too happy since that event. That arm was in that tank a lot up to the elbow as I was doing the WC and rigging up the carbon, but my left arm stayed pretty much dry. I had long sleeved shirts on the rest of the day and kept wondering why I had an itchy arm; my lower arm where I had it in the tank has been breaking out in rashes and little blister things since that morning, although it's getting better. One more reason on top of the longspine for me to remember to wear gloves I guess.

 

[Paradise3]

Thankfully everything was back to normal by the evening and all critters are still accounted for. My best guess for now is that some critter in there got a bit toxic for whatever reason and perhaps the fish that died either harassed it directly or ate a bit of it, so perhaps it got a stronger dose of what was just an irritant otherwise. There are little sea cucumbers that are very common on LR from the region where most of mine came from, so it wouldn't surprise me at all if something like that had been in there the whole time and I hadn't seen it. After all, the pistol shrimp colony the rock brought was unseen for over a year and there is still something I see periodically at night that is small and lightning fast as it darts between the rocks, so there are still mysteries in this tank even though the 'scape is sparse. Anyway, I either guess the carbon I put in mopped up the mess or whatever it was decomposed, since the WC I did wouldn't have been enough to return things to normal if there was a toxin about. Adding to the chemical irritant hypotheis, my right arm has not been too happy since that event. That arm was in that tank a lot up to the elbow as I was doing the WC and rigging up the carbon, but my left arm stayed pretty much dry. I had long sleeved shirts on the rest of the day and kept wondering why I had an itchy arm; my lower arm where I had it in the tank has been breaking out in rashes and little blister things since that morning, although it's getting better. One more reason on top of the longspine for me to remember to wear gloves I guess.

 
Glad it's sorted, hope your arm is OK! I'm wondering if maybe you have some bristleworms or a fireworm in there causing trouble? I know that some bristleworm stings can make fish ill and I know the toxins in bristleworm sting cause a rash and itchyness in humans. When I say maybe I mean maybe once has gotten a bit big for it's boots and is outgrowing the debris it used to eat and moving on?

 

[Donya]

Quick updates on this tank since I've been failing to keep up on that:
 
1. Lost the female cardinal that was left of the pair. I found her just stopped on the bottom, still upright, with eyes glazed over. Then I read how short Bangai's lifespans are and  went looking for more info on more closely related species. Here's one:
 

The biology of a population of the cardinalfish Apogon rueppellii has been studied over several years (1977–1983) in the Swan Estuary in south-western Australia, using ramples collected monthly from the shallows by beach seine and from various depths by otter trawl. While the life cycle of this species typically lasts for one year, at the end of which time the mean length is 50 to 60 mm, some individuals survive for a further year and attain lengths up to 104 mm.

(from http/link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2FBF00397437)
 
Not the same species as I had, but same genus. Rather depressing really. I'm reading similar things for other Apogon species. I'd just gotten a trio of youngsters to give her buddies as well. Since I lost her I've left them in my frag tank where they were QTing to begin with; not sure if I will move them to this tank.
 
 
2. Moved my trio of Lytechinus variegatus urchins out of this tank. They were actually bullying the Diadema despite being a fraction of its size. 
 
3. Tried swapping in bulbs that should (or so I think) simulate the spectrum from shallower water. The coral response so far has been great.
 
4. Had a low-O2 event because, near as I can peice together, my Tripneustes gratilla urchins rearranged the airline tubes to render them ineffective and then spawned.  Thanks urchins, just muck up my backup plan for events like that and then cause one. I knew something was off when I walked in that morning and my Pilumnus crabs were all out of their burrows staring at me; those crabs never come out. Thankfully there were no losses despite some very dopey O2-deprived animals. I think all my urchins may have spawned the same night actually, 3 different tanks. It's creepy how things like that can happen in synchrony even though the tanks are all out of sync for WCs, temperature, and lights being on/off. 
 
Obligatory note before someone says it: a good-quality skimmer would have completely avoided #4 by both removing what was dumped into the water and adding O2 at the same time. However, I really, really, reaaaally do not want to skim this tank since it has a breeding population of Bivalves. Sufficient surface agitation would also have prevented the problems if the urchins hadn't sabotaged my rig.

 

[Donya]

Aaaaand the biggest of my three anemone clones is splitting again right now. 

 

[Donya]

During splitting yesterday:

The third clone is still there but hidden on the other side of the rock. It's the one on the left that split. 
 
And now, four anemones...one rock.

 #3 is almost impossible to see again but some of its tentacles are showing. I'm not sure whether it's #1 and #3 that are the result of the split or if it's #1 and #4. They ran about quite a bit after a splitting even though they don't leave the rock.
 

 

[techen]

Those are awesome D:
 
I'd love some of those

 

[Donya]

My hope with this last split was that one of them would get pushed off of the rock so that I could move it and get a more dedicated BTA propagation tank going. They are thwarting my plans with their dedication to that single rock.
 
Also...conches go where they want. 

 
 
 
 

 

[techen]

Are conches the sand type of snails?
 
Am sure I have one thats sat in the same spot for like 4 days in the sand.

 

[Donya]

Yep, conches are diggers; they're not designed at all for what the bonkers one in the photo is doing lol. Very small foot and can't suck onto stuff very well compared to even something like Nassarius. They dig a lot and will also hop around on the surface and lower rocks sometimes. 

 

[techen]

When I first got mine, It made it's way up the glass and fell off at the top of it.
 
When I changed to sand it just goes into it and stays there forever.
 

 

[stanleo]

Donya, the light you have on this tank at the bottom of page 5 looks exactly like the light we have. We have had a horrible time with it. First, a couple months after purchase the legs broke off and then after a couple more months lights 1 and 3 stopped coming on. We could get them to work if we shut it off for a few minutes and then turned the unit back on but now that's not even working. Did you have any problems with it? We paid a lot of money for it and it seems like junk. Do you know anything about them?


BTW I really hope I get mine to look like that. I have been working on for a while now. Yours is lovely!

 

[Donya]

Donya, the light you have on this tank at the bottom of page 5 looks exactly like the light we have. We have had a horrible time with it. First, a couple months after purchase the legs broke off and then after a couple more months lights 1 and 3 stopped coming on. We could get them to work if we shut it off for a few minutes and then turned the unit back on but now that's not even working. Did you have any problems with it? We paid a lot of money for it and it seems like junk. Do you know anything about them?


BTW I really hope I get mine to look like that. I have been working on for a while now. Yours is lovely!

 
Sadly I am not having great experiences either! If you've got it under warranty I would say ship it back asap. The legs are cracking on mine too; lots of super glue involved to deal with that. The plastic is too thin to handle the strain. Best case it could be that yours is overheating, in which case I would suspect the fan is not doing its job and it might be an easy fix if you want to keep the fixture. The fan went on mine, but I caught it straight away and rigged a fix so there were no problems. The company was actually really nice and sent me a free replacement fan to install even though the unit's well out of warranty, but sadly I can't install it. When I set about taking the thing apart to do it, I discovered that one of the screws I need to remove was 100% stripped, and not by me since I'd never touched that end with a screwdriver before. The fixture is still doing well for me otherwise, but with the ugly hack of tacking a $10 CPU fan onto it. The kludge works great, but it's extra noise and also annoying to have to remember to turn it on (will be putting it on a timer soon) and it takes up an extra outlet - which is really the most annoying thing since I've got a billion tanks. However, it's pulling air through brilliantly, much better than the old fan ever did even though it's on the outside of the fixture. I'm hoping that will keep it going for me smoothly, although I am suspicious that I've had 2 bulbs die young this year (could be bad bulbs though; they were from the same shipment).
 
Anyway...yeah, I won't ever be doing another of these fixtures if I ever get another T5 getup vs. going LED-only. My first Deep Blue fixture was dead after a year (dead ballast I think) and this was a replacement. For whatever reason they're about the only big T5 fixture that stores in this state carry, so I assumed they must be ok. Live and learn I guess. I have a 24" 2xT5HO Corallife fixture that I got used (REALLY used, not just a little bit) and it's held up longer and better than either of my Deep Blue fixtures. The moonlight LEDs are also fairly nonexistent now. I don't really mind, but it's annoying that the blue LEDs on my LED-only fixtures still pop like new while the ones on my T5 are basically invisible now. It's a shame, since the company does seem quite friendly.

 

[Donya]

Anemoneeeeeessss why do you all have to fight over the same sitting spot? 

 
The spot they all want is where the original one was prior to the first split, and the clones have had periodic push fights over it since then. The numbers aren't the same individuals from the previous pic; I think #2 in the previous pic is now labeled as #3. I just put labels on to show how many there are since otherwise it's hard to tell where one stops and the next starts.

 

[Donya]

Anemone #4 in the pic above got kicked off the rock by #3.
 
As the old aquarium proverb goes: you can give an anemone a rock, but you can't make it go there.
 
Last night, trying to put a rock in its path...

 
Nope, don't want that rock.

If it goes onto the platform that is a perfectly reasonable and movable substitute. Of course, the fact that I've noticed that may mean it heads somewhere totally weird now instead.
 
Anyway, it's a REALLY good thing I have the Duncans on something moveable. I was able to slide it out of range to avoid toastings.
 
EDIT: broken image fixed...maybe. Photobucket is being a pain. 

 

[Donya]

Gotcha! 

 
Now my CBS is going to be super mad since that's two of its four platforms that have been taken out in the last few months (one that broke, and this one removed). It's still got one large one that it likes, but I should make at least another spare for it that is nearby. The only other one in the tank at the moment is clear across the tank from its favorite and therefore not used by the CBS.