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Marinemom

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Apr 8, 2006
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:joke: Some of you may remember that on 10-2-06 my reef crashed in large part to adding a chemical to my reef called chemi clean to aid in the erradication of a severe outbreak of cynobacteria. I know that many will disagree with me when I say that the addition of this chemical to my reef is to blame for the ultimate demise of my reef,but the one thing I do know is that after adding this chemical within 24 hours everything in my reef was either dead or dying. It has been five weeks since that awful event. I was completely devastated and was not even sure if I wanted to bring the reef back. Since that has happened five weeks ago I have been taking baby steps to try and bring this reef back.In the crash two of my fish died, one being a prized yellow tang, all of my inverts, and almost all of my corals. I managed to keep a few corals alive since then along with a purple tang, a gold striped maroon clownfish, and a six line wrasse. All are doing fine and are very healthy. I did add back some inverts in the line of snails and hermit crabs to aid in the clean up of this reef about a week after the crash and they are also doing fine. There have been no additions to this reef in more than a month. Actually it is more like six weeks.

Sooo...now I am thinking it is time to start thinking about what to do next with this reef. I am thinking it is getting to the time to think about what other additions I want to make in the line of corals and fish.

The tank is 60 gallons with 89 pounds of live rock in it. It has been up and running for just over ten months. It has a CSS 125 running on the system 24/7. It also has five powerheads as well to aid with the flow. There is also an aquaclear 70/300 running too to help with the flow. The lighting is 260 watts of PC lighting. The current residents as stated above are a purple tang, a gold striped maroon clown fish, and a six line wrasse as well as a crew of snails and hermit crabs.

The stats of my tank are as follows;
Tank;60 gallons
89 pounds of live rock
Skimmer;CSS 125
Powerheads; five
Additional filteration;aquaclear 70/300

Ammonia;0
nitrite;0
nitrate;0
PH;8.2
SG;1.026
temp.76 degrees on the farenheight scale.

I am thinking of adding some kind of coral or fish first. As far as the corals I am thinking of either a frogspawn or a hammer coral(both died in the crash).I understand that they are rather hardy as long as they are well taken care of.If you have another suggestion, please chime in. What suggestions would you have in the line of fish for this reef taking into account the present residents. I know that the tang has the potential to get big so I have to consider everything very carefully. At the moment he is quite docile but I know with the addition of a new fish this could change. I am thinking somewhere along the lines of a goby or a dwarf angel. What do you think about a small school of chromis or is this a bad idea?

I am open for suggestions.

Marinemom
 
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Max

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Nothng wrong with chromis if you like them m.m. The corals you have picked are pretty aggresive so make sure that they have enough room and don't sting any of their neighbors. I'd strongly urge you to set up a q.t. for your new fish that will help you avoid a lot of issues.
hth
Max
 

Marinemom

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I do have some before chem pictures to remind me of what this reef once was. Unfortunately I was so devastated by this event that I did not take any pictures of the destruction of my reef. I can take some current photos and post them. I can tell you that 24-48 hours after the chemi clean , my corals were slimed over and totally bleached white. The live rock had layers of cyano still attached to it and much of it was white as well. My yellow tang and green chromis lay lifeless and dead on the bottom of the tank.My other fish were hiding and completely stressed. All of my inverts were scattered through out the reef dead as well. I could not even believe what had happened and that my reef looked like the dead sea. I never want to go through that again.I cried for an entire week and even when I was trying to clean up the mess that this chemical had caused, I was still crying. It was horrible and I am thankful that it is behind me now.

I am now looking foward to bringing this reef back better and brighter then ever. I am determined that the reef that will rise and is rising from such destruction will be better than the other reef ever was.

I just have to remember to go SLOW...SLOW...SLOW...even though I feel like I am too excited to bring this reef back.

Please be patient with me as I make this attempt to bring this reef back from the dead.

I will try to post some pictures of what my reef was before the awful event and what it is now so far.

Marinemom
 
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Max

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The very first thing I would do is set up a q.t. it doesn't need to be much just a sponge filter, a bare bottom tank, some flower pots or pvc pipe and a heater. You don't even really have to get lights just a lid to prevent carpet surfing. just keep your sponge in the main tank until needed and voila instant cycled q.t.
 

fsn77

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Feb 22, 2006
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I can only provide a word of caution... if your sixline wrasse is anything like our sixline wrasse, be very careful when adding new fish to your tank. Ours has become incredibly territorial and has killed a juvenille tang and a goby. It was suggested to me that I redo the rockwork in our tank when I make new additions (to make the sixline re-establish a territory), but that is very difficult to do in a reef tank full of corals attached to the bulk of the rocks. Not to mention, I wouldn't want to do that each time I add a new fish. Now, I'm stuck trying to trap the sixline so we can get rid of him and replace the fish he killed. So far, no luck... there's just too many places in our 90g for him to hide and the traps I've tried have caught everything but him.

Otherwise, best wishes and good luck as you rebuild your reef!
 

Marinemom

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Thanks everyone for the encouragement. I think I plan to add only one more fish somewhere down the line but I am not sure which one to get. I am still researching my options.

My six line wrasse does not bother any other fish except the shrimp. For some reason everytime they molt, he feels compelled to have shrimp for dinner. He has done this on more then one occassion to my peppermints and my cleaners. That is an expensive dinner when he keeps doing this. I don't even want to pay that much for my dinner let alone for my six line. I cannot keep any shrimp in my reef for this reason. He is fat and sassy and a bit of a brat.

I think I am going to start with some nice pretty coral. Maybe a pulsing xenia,frogspawn(I really like this coral),or a hammer coral.

If anyone has any other ideas please chime in. I always welcome more suggestions.

Thanks in advance.

Marinemom
 

Marinemom

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Max

I do have a quarentine already set up and running for the last three weeks. At the moment it has a small variety of snails that I am attempting to feed algae wafers. How long does this next crew have to stay in quarentine? When I buy a new coral, does that one have to go in quarentine too or just new fish and inverts?

Marinemom
 

Max

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I wouldn't qt my inverts. I've never put a coral into qt either at most I've done a f.w. dip to kill flat worms etc. I've never had an issue as I get mostly captive raised corals but, admittedly I may be playing with fire. I just qt my fish for 30 days unless they show signs of sickness etc.
 

Marinemom

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Thanks. then I guess I will just go ahead and put these guys into the main display. One more question though, and sorry if this has been answeared before but how do I keep the bactteria alive in the quarentine with nothing in there? I do not have live rock in there just some PVC pipes and a heater with a sponge filter. Can I just feed the tank with fishfood just as if there were fish in there? Sorry, but I have never had a quarentine before and this is new to me.

Marinemom
 
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