Tharsis' 20 long ~2-11-12~ sps and lps pics!

I cant say anything if the vodka dosing and dying worms are related or not, but it makes sense that the dying worms are bothering the corals in the system. Id keep dosing the same amount of vodka and do more aggressive water changes; more volume, more frequent.

 

Yeah I think I will do daily 2 gallon water changes for the next week or so to see if the corals respond favorably.

I am glad the flatworms are on the decline but I am bummed about the corals. Everything was going so well prior to this set-back...I hope my system and the corals can bounce back.

 

Sounds good! I forgot, do you run GAC?

 

Yeah I have the output from my overflow pass through alot activated carbon, I am thinking that this may have saved some of the corals from death.

I switched out the carbon yesterday as well so that should help soak up the additional toxins.

It is strange that the digi and monti cap are both looking great, these sps truly are idiot proof!

 

How are the corals now after (only) a week? LOL (I thought its been more than that..)

 

thanks for asking

well they are pretty much the same. I was doing daily water changes and changed out the carbon a couple more times so I can't imagine there is any more of the toxin left. The shrooms and zoas are still all shriveled up though. I took my water to an lfs yesterday to have it tested and their readings were the same as mine.

zero nitrate and phosphate, I do have some minor cyano growth so I think those are false readings but in any case I can't imagine that the low nitrate and phosphate levels would be the cause. He said that my ph and alk are a little low but nothing to worry about. alk ~ 8 and ph around high 7's.

He said to stop doing water changes as that would cause additional stress on the already stressed corals, I am not sure what to think about that. But I am going to resort back to 10% water changes once/week and wait it out a little bit more.
I am not sure what else to do lol.

I am bummed, I had these glorious puffy shrooms and now they are just shriveled up raisins.

 

Still no real improvement, i did clean out the skimmer cup today and it seems to be skimming much better now...hopefully this may help. The tube leading to the cup was really gunked up and it seems like the skimmate couldn't make its way up.


On another note, I am thinking of adding some dimmable DIY LED's to my T5 fixture to give it a bit more blue and increase my PAR values on the tank. I started a thread in the LED subforum to get some advice on the retrofit... please feel free to pop in and give your 2 cents!

http://www.3reef.com/forums/led-aqu...p-existing-t5-fixture-127595.html#post1264459

 

I wasn't able to get to Lowes yesterday but I did get to Pet supplies and my LFS lol.

I picked up an aqueon 700gph powerhead yesterday for only $15! I decided to see how it would do in my tank... so I now have the aqueon and 2 Koralia 425's blowing around. I thought that the additional flow would be too much but it seems to be good... I was able to angle one of the koralias so that it gets in behind my rock for added circulation.
I actually prefer the aqueon to the koralia because of the better range of motion. I always found the koralia's to be somewhat limiting in how they can be angled.

I also got a 7 head frag of Acan Orange Crush from my LFS for $20, I was pretty stoked about that. The frag is healing in their tank and I will be picking it up on Tuesday.

The shrooms seem to be getting a little better, my nitrates and phosphates are still reading zero, my Ca, alk and salinity are all the same as always... so I am going with the theory that they were stressed from the death of the flatworms and will slowly recover.

 

Cool that you got some good deals at your LFS. That is always fun lol. I'm glad that your tank is making a nice recovery as well.

 

Long post/venting...I took a few pics last night, my zoas and shrooms are still looking pretty pathetic in comparison to before. My montis and LPS seem to be doing well on the other hand... not sure what to make of it.

Anyways, here are a few comparison pics:

Zoas before:

Zoas now:


Zoas before:

Zoas now:


Shrooms before:

Shrooms now:


Digitata Before:

Digitata Now:


Lots of growth but holy cow it has browned out and only recently did the polyp extension decrease. I think this comparison clearly shows that I do not have enough light for sps...but atleast it is growing

Favia now:


Again the color isn't really popping but the new growth is impressive, all of the heads that are encrusting the plug is within the last few months. This coral almost died during the transition from the 10 gallon to the 20 gallon so I am quite pleased with the recovery and growth.

New Additions:

I know I shouldn't be adding corals to my tank right now but these guys were only $10 for four heads and I couldn't resist. I have wanted duncans for a long time now and I have only seen them around here for $15/head.



Also I will be picking up my Acans tonight from the LFS. But that is it. I am putting a moratorium on any visits to LFS until I get my tank back on track.

~~~
So I don't know, my LPS are all doing great, the montis are doing ok but not great, but the zoas and shrooms and green star polyp are all looking REALLY bad still. I have been patient and trying to stay positive but I am really starting to get bummed out by this turn of events.

I think I got overconfident with my tank because it was doing so well and I started going too fast with coral additions and dosing and coral feeding etc...too many changes to the system in a short amount of time plus the toxins from the death of the flatworms... I will just leave it as is for a couple weeks and see if the tank stabilizes and the corals recover.

sigh...lol