Update: Death of Wrasse and the GHA Menace

DEATH OF A WRASSE

While I was away in Florida, my sixline wrasse was allegedly persuaded by the clownfish that the house was really just a larger tank and they were in a smaller tank.  After being goaded by the clowns and being called "chicken" for not exploring this larger "tank", the wrasse leapt out and found the clowns had been lying all along.  The only response I got from the clowns was "He had it coming".  

Unfortunately, my husband did not see the wrasse until he came home from work and by that time, he was all nice and crispy.  I am disappointed because he was such a cool fish but relieved at the same time because he was major PITA.

THE GHA MENACE

In other news, while I was gone husband failed to do regular water changes resulting in GHA outbreak (Green Hair Algae).  The tank looks super gross and these photo were taken after I had removed 70% of what had been there by hand, started running GFO, and added Consuela and her helper:

There is more algae in the caves

 The reason this happened by not doing enough water changes or cleaning out the media in the filter is the excess of nutrients in the tank.  GHA needs nitrates and phosphates to grow. Before the out break, I did notice an increase of pineapple sponges (looks like Spongebob's house) which indicated a nutrient increase.  Oh well.

The solution to our problem is simply to pick off what we can and do a combination of starving out and increase predation on the rest.

That clump of algae is actually a snail.

PHASE ONE: STARVATION
How we starve out the algae is increase the water changes.  The water changes will help remove excess nutrients from the water column and limiting the food access to the GHA.  The next step in starving out the algae is running GFO and carbon.  I already run carbon in the tank to help control nutrients and keep the water clear, but this is my first time running GFO.  GFO stands for Granulated Ferric Oxide.  It's primary purpose is to strip phosphates from the tank.  There are many brands, the one I am using is PhosGuard from SeaChem.  I got an unopened bottle from my husband's friend who was leaving the hobby.  I'm really grateful for that considering the bottle costs about $40.

Since being in this hobby, if there is one thing I have learned most of the people involved from the hobbyists to even the vendors genuinely enjoy what they are doing and therefore are more than willing to give customers or online acquaintances freebies or free help.  A lot of the people I have meet doing this hobby are really good natured and generous.  It makes me really happy that people can still be so kind to strangers.  However, I digress.

I am suppose to run the GFO for four days and then check my phosphate levels again.  If they've dropped, I pull the GFO out.  If not, I replenish it and run for another four days.  GFO is not meant to be run 24/7. It's one of those use it when you need it.

PHASE TWO: INCREASED PREDATION

it's even growing on my GSP! 

 So I know "predation" is not the correct term when used to address herbivores and their food.  However, I feel that GHA is a living breathing enemy and I feel that my future CUC (clean-up crew) will rain death upon it.  So predation is a more accurate term to how I feel.

Out of my original CUC, one hermit crab and four snails remain.  This is definitely not enough for my tank or enough to tackle the GHA outbreak.  So, I cruised on over to my friendly Reef Cleaners website and purchased a new CUC via their Quick Cleaner Packages.  The Quick Cleaner Packages are based on tank size.  For a 20 gallon long tank, I am getting 45 critters to clean my tank.

Consuela, you're our only hope!

Additionally, we purchased two Emerald Crabs from Reef Culture (Reef Cleaners was out of stock), one peppermint shrimp (via Reef Cleaners) and one Fuzzy Chiton (Reef Cleaners, again).  I am super excited to hopefully receive my order tomorrow.

Emerald Crabs are suppose to be beasts at eating algae.  So far, they have been really fun to watch,  They rip big chunks of algae up.  When we bought them, they were in a tank with very little algae started to try and eat each other on the way home.  They've been eating machines ever since we've put them in the tank.

The Emerald Crab has lovingly been dubbed Consuela from Family Guy.   I hope the crab has her tenacity and stubbornness. With her and her massive army, I'm expecting great results :-D.  I hope to have this problem cured in a month.  

Tank Make Over

During the Wrasse Saga, husband and I came up with several ideas as to why the wrasse was aggressive and how to limit that aggression.  As you can see, so far we've done isolation and re-introduction.  We also redid the tank.

The Sixline Wrasse is a really cool fish.  They are super active and predatory which is probably where a lot of the natural aggression comes from.  Predators are not know for being nice.  Aside from those basic traits, the six line also makes a cocoon when it sleeps at night for protection.  It goes into a coma like state when sleeping and because of that, prefers rocky holes where it can sleep for the night.

Just for fun, here's a brief comparison of the sleeping habits of my tank inhabitants:
Coral- suck up when the lights turn out. The xenia and zoas go to bed first. The GSP usually stays up the longest
Clowns- they sleep whenever in the bottom of the tank, belly touching the sand.  the female likes to sleep "upside down" on her head.  Freaked me out the first time.
Wrasse-  Instantly hides when the lights turn off.  He then makes a cocoon and stays there until morning.

So one hypothesis we came up with was a lack of suitable hidey holes.  We figured our aquascape was not very good for corals and now it may be sub par for fish as well.  We took this as an opportunity to thoroughly clean and rearrange the tank including the refugium.

Goals
Before getting started, we outlined our goals for this three hour project.  Our goals were:

• Rearrange the rock work for easier coral placement and happier fishies
• Aim for a minimalist scape without taking out rocks
• Inspect each rock for Aipstasia
• Kill Aipstasia if found
• Clean and rearrange refugium
• remove old carbon, replace with new carbon
• put in filter sponge
• add new refugium light, JBJ NanoGlo
• get rid of liverock rubble and replace with SeaChem Matrix
• Not kill any fish or coral

With those things in mind, it began!

Step 1: remove "valuable" lifeforms (fish, coral, one hermit crab. Snails are on their own)

We knew we'd be kicking up a lot of sand a detritus and didn't want to kill anything.  So everything had to come out.

Clownfish in the ReefGently

Coral and hermit in Coral Bucket

Step 2: INSPECT!

We did find Aipstasia on one rock.  We swiftly dealt with it by taking a syringe and needle and injecting it with lemon juice.

The little bubbles is where the exterminated Aipstasia is.

The weapon.

Step 3: Rearrange and wait for sand to settle.

Sandy tank and the tank guardian.

Step 4: After rearranging, clean refugium, do water change

Step 5: After three hours worth of work, re-release the inhabitants. Except for the wrasse so the clowns can set up shop.

Pretty post-pox zoas.

BEFORE:

Holy crap, look how white our rocks were when we first set up!

AFTER:

Much better scape.  Corals are happier too.  I'll post better pics later.

From the pics, the layout looks "less interesting".  however, it's way more fun.  I'll post a video detailing its new levels of funness.  PS  Hopefully I never have to do this again.  

And everyone is getting along much better.

The Wrasse Saga, part 2: ReefGently Acclimate Reviewed

The ReefGently Acclimate Review.  We are thrilled with it! :-)

The Wrasse Saga

The Saga

I originally intended this to be a good news post.  Unfortunately, I know how wrasse got their name.  Someone couldn’t properly say “ass” and it just caught on.  

Saturday hubby and I went  to ReefCulture to have a looksy.  We hadn’t been in a couple months and were thinking about getting a sixline to combat the worm problem in the tank.  Turns out, we didn’t get all the worms.  I am not a fan of them, I want them gone.

I ended up buying a sixline that day.  We decided not to quarantine since I trust ReefCulture’s stock and it’s where we got the clowns from. Trust me, if we got him anywhere else, he would be in QT right now.  ReefCulture is impeccable and their QT is top notch.  Most stores don’t even QT but those awesome guys do.  

Temperature acclimating

I digress.  After acclimating, we released him into the tank.  We were so happy with our purchase.  He was zipping around exploring, eating pods, and just being heaps more fun to watch than the clowns.
 
All was well for the first 24.

Sleeping for the night.  can you see him?

Around 9 pm on Monday, he was harassing the clowns really, really, bad.  The female was getting pieces of her fins ripped so we did an emergency black-out in the house.  The wrasse, we had learned, instantly goes to sleep when its dark.  So to stop him, we shut off the lights and he zoomed right behind the pump and started cocooning for the night.

This at least gave hubby and I time to go to Wally World and buy a fish net as well as fill up the QT tank.  We very stealthily caught the wrasse and put him in the QT tank before he was even fully awake.

Now we were faced with the dilemma of what to do with him.  The next morning I called ReefCulture who said they could only refund me a third of his purchase price since he has to go into QT all over again.  While not happy, I would rather lose that money and know I was getting responsibly sold fish than having a full refund and shady practices.

Since we only spent $24, I would probably spend more in gas on the 40 minute drive than I would be refunded.

As always, when in doubt go to Nano-Reef.com and someone will save you.  I posted my dilemma and received a response that reintroduction and in tank isolation might solve the problem.  If it doesn’t, he is going on Craigslist for $10 or a trade for coral.

What is in tank isolation?
In tank isolation is when you can separate an organism from the rest of the tank without physically removing it.  This usually conducted by way of a specimen tank.

Bad fish in the time out tank.

Back to the Story
Well, Hubby and I do not have a specimen tank.  However, we had looked a ReefGently’s Acclimate Pro which is also a specimen tank, transport tank, medicine tank and trap as well as acclimation chamber.  While pricey and we could definitely have bought a plain tank at PetCo for $6.99, we like gadgets and would probably use it in all of its functions.  So we forked the money and it will hopefully be here soon.  I will post on the ReefGently and all of its awesomeness once we get it.  

Keep your fingers crossed!

There is No Vaccine for the Pox

Alright, it’s been two months since I have updated and a lot has happened and not happened.  

The Happened

My zoas are almost completely dead.  Apparently zoas can contract the pox.  As with humans, the pox is deadly.  I noticed at the beginning of February that a couple of the Zoas were closed.  I figured a snail or a hermit crab ran over them.  

When they did not open a few days later, I looked closer and noticed small white specks on the colony.  More zoas at this point were refusing to open.  After some google searching, I came across the probably cause: the pox.   

My poor zoas :(

No one seems to know what causes the outbreak.  Many speculate it is a survival mechanism like temperature fluctuation.  But the truth is, it appears in so many different situations, that no one is sure what the trigger is.  If left untreated, the pox can kill the entire colony and infect other zoanthids.

You can read more about it here at zoaID.com  

The proposed treatments are the Furan treatment (as seen on ZoaID), hydrogen peroxide dip, fragging, or tossing the colony.  Furan is expensive and hard to find.  As beautiful as our zoa rock was, we did only spend $20 on it. Plus, none of these treatments are a definite cure.  So, we went with the hydrogen peroxide dip.

Hydrogen Peroxide Dip

If you really care about your zoas, do research before following me.  I can’t find the site where I got the original instructions for this.
Place the zoas in a cup of tank water, add a capful of hydrogen peroxide, to the cup and stir, continue to add peroxide until it starts to bubble.  Then, leave the zoas in for thirty minutes.  We did fifteen but some have left them in for as long as an hour and half.  
A couple days later, the pox infected zoas began melting away (dead) and and it took about two weeks before the remainder reopened.  We lost about three quarters of the colony.  I’m pretty upset about it still.  Especially when I look at my last post. :(

The Future

Luckily, my anniversary is coming up and hubby and I are getting a gift for us.  My idea is more coral for the tank.  His idea is for something “practical”.  What can be more practical than new coral? So cross your fingers!  

Orange and Purple Montipora

I want another zoa rock.  I also want some high flow coral.  The tops of the tank are bare but that is where all of the flow is.  I did some research and it looks like montipora coral might fit the bill.

The Not Happened

My wireless AI module still is not here!  I am so mad! I have been waiting for this thing since we first set up the tank.  I get in contact with AI and they still just tell me they will be shipped as soon as they are in production.  I’ve been hearing it for the last three months.



Oh well.  I have another post coming up about the newest inhabitant!



Happy reefing!

Tank Update Video

A video of the new stuff going on with the tank.  Still haven't received my wireless adapter for the AI unit >:(

It's Official: I have a reef tank.

temperature acclimating the coral

A few days ago I found a Craigs List post for coral.  It looked pretty cheap with zoas starting at around five dollars and going up to thirty.  I made a phone call and hubby plus some friends who were in town and I drove about 15 minutes to the location.  There I was stunned at the quality of the coral.

my zoanthids

They had four tanks.  One frag tank, two display tanks with frag shelves and one new tank still cycling.  I have never been to any LFS that matched the beauty and health of these corals.  ReefCulture is the best Phoenix LFS for coral.  By far they have the healthiest, but these two brothers on Craigs List put them to shame.  We will definitely continue to buy from them.

The most awesome part is they have only been doing it for two years.  They said their dad has been doing salt tanks his whole life but reefs are new for all of them and they are awesome at it. 

my pulsing xenia

Here's the more awesome part, I bought a rock with about 100+ zoa polyps for $20, two stalks of Pulsing Xenia for $20 and about a 2 inch mat of Green Star Polyps for $10.  Total spent was $50 which is less than what the zoa rock would have been sold for at our LFS.  Now, I don't think I picked a good piece of GSP, I think I accidentally chose the brown star polyps, however next time I go I'll just look harder and have two varieties of GSP growing in the tank.

my possible not so green green star polyps

After acclimating and dipping in Coral RX, they were all pretty angry and stayed closed up for the night.  But this morning all of the zoas are open and the GSP is starting to peek out.   The Pulsing Xenia may be in too much flow, but I am finding too much conflicting information on how to keep these guys.  Some sites say they do better in low to moderate flow, others say they do better right up next to the power head.  So far, they look they're getting beaten pretty hard but the polyps are still open which by all my research indicates they aren't too pissed off.   I'm pretty excited since now I can officially say I have a reef tank! :D




About Coral RX

Coral RX is a preventative dip to remove parasites from corals before adding them to your tank.  We decided to go ahead and invest in it despite the fact we had no coral that were at risk.  Our reasoning is if we got a bad first batch, we didn't want to risk an infestation of the tank.

What I wanted to say though is that Amazon has terrible pricing for the product so instead we made the drive to ReefCulture since Coral RX has an exclusive contract with them in Arizona.  Amazon was selling it for $27.99 we bought it for $19.99 so once again, look around before you buy.