Mr. Knightley's Planet 125 The Culmination of Indecision

[Mr_Knightley]

Well, I'm gonna assume that the four Huchtii anthias have died somewhere in the tank, since I haven't seen them for 2, going on 3, weeks. Super big bummer, but I guess it happens. I've not been able to find bodies and haven't picked up any signs of rotting fish in the tank, so I'm still hopeful, but not by much
In other news, this nem is the best thing ever & so is this clam.

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Ok, really big update coming shortly. Stay tuned.

 

[Mr_Knightley]

So.
You know how I had a reef tank?
...


I may or may not have lost 90% of all coral & fish in the span of 48 hours.
I'm still unaware of the cause. SOMETHING caused a rapid PH drop & drop in organics, which made the planarian flatworms begin to melt, which released their toxins and created a domino effect to kill nearly everything. Sadly, there's no antidote for Neurotoxin so I just had to rip things out and hope they didn't already receive a lethal dose. Tangs and wrasses died first, then dartfish and finally my 5 year old cardinal. Strangely, the clowns are seemingly unaffected and don't seem to care about the toxins at all. All of my acros have melted, along with my entire bicolor hammer colony, and every single frag I was growing out for an upcoming swap. A lot of random inverts in the tank are also unaffected, even though spaghetti worms and flatworms are all dead. I figured out where those anthias went! I found a giant 5+ inch Polyclad flatworm dead in the tank, the likely culprit of their deaths. It's looking like my clam may not make it either, and both nems look a little rough too, but I'm holding out hope.
The only things that are still alive are listed below:
3 skunk clowns
(maybe) Small colony of green hammer
large frag of orange hammer
a couple shrooms & my big shroom rock
All hermits & snails
a tiny nub of anacropora
(maybe) a tiny frag of acropora
(maybe) most of my trumpets
Lithophyllon (Seemingly unaffected)
(Maybe) acan pachysepta
Both fungias
(maybe) clam
(maybe) condylactis
LTA

That list seems larger than it should be, however in perspective that's a very small percentile of what I had. On the bright side, I get a blank slate to restart from. On the nasty side, I have to restart from a blank slate. Sometimes things just don't go the way you planned.
So now I'm kind of stuck. I don't know if I want to downsize a bit, or try again full force. Most likely it'll be a mix of the two. I want to kill the remaining flatworms to be over with that ordeal, then I'll let it settle before using Flux to ditch the Bryopsis. Then I'll have a clean slate. Maybe I can start fresh with the original plan, an anemone/clown harem tank. Maybe I'll do something different. I don't know.

I took a bunch of pictures of the dead livestock, but honestly I don't have the heart to post them. You know what a dead acro looks like.

 

[TDiefRN]

So.
You know how I had a reef tank?
...
View attachment 2679215

I may or may not have lost 90% of all coral & fish in the span of 48 hours.
I'm still unaware of the cause. SOMETHING caused a rapid PH drop & drop in organics, which made the planarian flatworms begin to melt, which released their toxins and created a domino effect to kill nearly everything. Sadly, there's no antidote for Neurotoxin so I just had to rip things out and hope they didn't already receive a lethal dose. Tangs and wrasses died first, then dartfish and finally my 5 year old cardinal. Strangely, the clowns are seemingly unaffected and don't seem to care about the toxins at all. All of my acros have melted, along with my entire bicolor hammer colony, and every single frag I was growing out for an upcoming swap. A lot of random inverts in the tank are also unaffected, even though spaghetti worms and flatworms are all dead. I figured out where those anthias went! I found a giant 5+ inch Polyclad flatworm dead in the tank, the likely culprit of their deaths. It's looking like my clam may not make it either, and both nems look a little rough too, but I'm holding out hope.
The only things that are still alive are listed below:
3 skunk clowns
(maybe) Small colony of green hammer
large frag of orange hammer
a couple shrooms & my big shroom rock
All hermits & snails
a tiny nub of anacropora
(maybe) a tiny frag of acropora
(maybe) most of my trumpets
Lithophyllon (Seemingly unaffected)
(Maybe) acan pachysepta
Both fungias
(maybe) clam
(maybe) condylactis
LTA

That list seems larger than it should be, however in perspective that's a very small percentile of what I had. On the bright side, I get a blank slate to restart from. On the nasty side, I have to restart from a blank slate. Sometimes things just don't go the way you planned.
So now I'm kind of stuck. I don't know if I want to downsize a bit, or try again full force. Most likely it'll be a mix of the two. I want to kill the remaining flatworms to be over with that ordeal, then I'll let it settle before using Flux to ditch the Bryopsis. Then I'll have a clean slate. Maybe I can start fresh with the original plan, an anemone/clown harem tank. Maybe I'll do something different. I don't know.

I took a bunch of pictures of the dead livestock, but honestly I don't have the heart to post them. You know what a dead acro looks like.

Oh no! I'm so sorry! Love the attitude though, clean slate, specialty tank, the sky's the limit!

 

[DiefsReef]

Any update @Mr_Knightley my wife told me about this and I had forgotten to reach out. So sorry for all the issues you've had.

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Any update @Mr_Knightley my wife told me about this and I had forgotten to reach out. So sorry for all the issues you've had.

I thought I had already updated the thread thanks for the reminder lol
Everything is back to normal!! After putting two poly filters in, the toxin was eradicated and every coral left in the tank has recovered entirely. At the swap on Saturday, I got one of the Spike's Coral giftcards and got some SPS, and they look incredible now so I can safely say that the whole ordeal is behind us. There are no flatworms left in the system at all (that I can see), so thank goodness that nightmare is over. Now the final frontier is the Bryopsis, which I will be treating this week! I finally got a bottle of Flux, so all I need to do is remove as much as I can in a couple of days.
Interestingly, there's been a massive boom in Copepod populations in all three of my tanks. Maybe it's a seasonal thing?
I'll leave with some pics. Thanks y'all for following along, and hopefully I can get the tank back on track to where it will actually be interesting to follow!

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Okay, as of June 12th, 2022, I have begun my journey using Flucanozole to combat the bryopsis problem. Four weeks ago, I halved my lighting intensity to weaken the algae, and I was able to pull some 80-90 percent of it out in 15 minutes. And now the wait begins.

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Super-mega-crazy-extra update time. (not actually that cool but whatevs)

Today marks the end of my fluconazole journey. It's been nearly 3 months of a low-end dosage, and I'm happy to say that all traces of hair algae and, most importantly, bryopsis have disappeared! I'm making a big batch of water right now to do a final water change, then it's smooth sailing.
Today I visited my LFS to get some small wrasses, since I've still only got my two clowns left. I ended up getting a Timor wrasse (I've been battling pyramid snails on my squamosa), and I was planning to get an aiptasia eating filefish, but the one they had was really giant and I didn't trust that it wouldn't eat my coral.
HOWEVER...
I may have made a bad decision, but in the shop was a pair of tiny bird wrasses. They had been kept together for weeks and were clearly on good terms, and due to their tiny size, I decided to take the chance. I've wanted to do an 'aggressive reef' tank for years, and this seems like the perfect opportunity to start!

To put into perspective just how tiny these bird wrasses are, the little one is barely over an inch in length. The big one is almost twice the size, and the timor wrasse is just a bit bigger than that.
Expect some more updates soon! I need to do some serious work on the Cynarina tank, there was a diatom bloom and I nearly lost one of them, crossing my fingers she makes it. All three tanks need a lot of work to get back to a presentable point, but they are coasting along just fine.

Thanks for checking in and God bless!

 

[Mr_Knightley]

New fische alert.
I've been tracking this thing down for years. I asked my LFS is they could get one in for me, but they said they haven't seen one for at least a year. I took it into my own hands and found someplace that had them in stock, Reefs4Less. I've ordered from them in the past and it's only been good experiences, and I'm happy to say that the record holds. I'm going to QT this fish for a week or two before I put him in the main tank, of course.
The species is Xanthicthys ringens, the redtail trigger! I had one years ago in my old 220, but I lost it due to flukes. I don't plan to make the same mistake.
In other news, my Timor wrasse and anemone have been missing for two days. Can't find them anywhere, I'm going to tear into the reef to figure it out. I think I may have a fireworm somewhere
Daily dose of pics and I'll get out of your hair. Have a wonderful day and God bless!

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Found the timor wrasse, it looks like it's been dead for a while, as the eyes and stomach were eaten out. The only thing I can think of is that he had a bit of a potbelly before he died. Bummed about it, I'll have to get another soon fosho. I did find the nem, he was alive and well and had just sucked under the rock he was attached to! so that's good.
While searching for the wrasse, I found a ton of dead spots on the rockwork and sandbed that were just totally caked with detritus! So I'm going to do some re-arranging with the rocks to get better flow, and maybe make the rockwork generally more pleasing and give the fish more open swimming space. It'll also give the new trigger some unclaimed hiding spots when he moves in this weekend!

 

[Mr_Knightley]

Super quick update, nothing much to say besides everything is going well and the tank is cruising. Got a bristletail filefish to deal with some aiptasia issues & swapped out a rick from the display that had some Caulerpa growing on it with another in my refugium.