KimP

Mystery solved. I noticed a conch making one of these sand clumps last night. I watched it on and off for a few hours. It didn't look like any sand was coming from it's mouth but it was pushing the sand around with it's mouth. More like the sand was coming out from underneath it's mouth. I still don't know exactly what it is, some sort of egg thing, pooped out clean sand, or what, but at least I know where it came from! I have 2 of these conch snails and they are always within a few inches of each other, and most of the time touching each other. So that's it! The other clumps fell apart after a week or so.

What if you move some rocks around? Maybe add a little more coral real estate to the tank Would that be enough to disrupt the old territory problem?

Thanks. I think it's doing considerably well if that's really what happened. I can't complain. I think whoever had the idea to have an extra apex around for the club in emergencies, had a great idea (Mitch?).

Still cloudy...

Much overdue for an update again. Now that the holidays are over things should pick up with the tank and I plan on updating more frequently. So in general the tank has been running fine, fish happy, corals mostly adjusting and growing well. I haven't had my Apex hooked up at all because the display stopped working after pulling it from my 90gal and I had to send it in for maintenance. Even though I'm out of warranty, the crew at Neptune were very helpful and responsive. I sent in the head unit and display before leaving for the holidays and it was already at the house before we got back. $35 was the damage to ship and fix the display. Much better than $150 for a new one!! The tank runs pretty cold, so that was one drawback to not having my controller. I didn't want to risk running a heater without backup to cut it off if needed. That and having to set my lights up with a plain ol timer was a pain too. I really missed the sunrise/sunset of the kessils with the Apex. So we returned from our trip over Christmas and things were clearly not good in the tank. I had a friend and her family staying at the house while we were gone and they just had to feed the tank. I also had someone come by to do a water change and test the water. All was well at that visit. Since I had no idea what had happened while we were gone, I just got everything stable and watched it for a week or so. All of my acans looked almost like they do with brown jelly disease, all zoas/palys were completely browned out and some were staying closed, and my scoly was just about all gone. In the days to follow, a toadstool stopped opening and any other softy polyps I had stayed closed. So strange. SPS look fine, just not growing, all chalices fine, blastos look great, mushrooms fine, other LPS look fine. Doesn't make much sense to me. In the end I noticed all of my Rod's Food predator mix is gone!! I bet they fed that the whole time instead of any of the other food Problem with that is it has huge chunks of food that mostly don't get eaten. I only use it to feed the eel. So with that entire flat-pack gone, I can only guess how much food rotted away uneaten. Bummer. But, things are okay. Nothing got worse in the weeks to follow and things are turning around. There's some gha growth on the rocks but not much has gotten by the foxface. I've been siphoning out the little bit I see. The glass needs scraping daily and if I miss a day or two I can't see into the tank at all. It's that bad. It could be way worse though!! I'm glad for not having any dinos or cyano, so I can't complain too much. Any maintenance has been done really slowly because I didn't want to jump in and change a bunch of stuff and make whatever the problem was, worse. I've also been testing the water and things are fine there too. The phosphates have been around 0.05 tested with the low range Elos kit. That just doesn't seem too high to me, but who knows! I got the Apex hooked up right away when we returned. I can't express how happy I am to have that controller back!! I've been enjoying my tank so much more with it. The lighting is so much more enjoyable, I have the temp stabilized finally, I know what the pH is, I have a feed cycle now to cut off the return pumps so I don't lose half (or all) the food down the overflow, etc etc. It's really really awesome! I'm looking forward to getting the closed loop dc pump hooked up to the Apex so I can make the flow in the tank variable throughout the day. That should be fun! I want to have it turn way up once in a while to really kick up the detritus that settles on the rocks, but I can't leave it running that high all the time. The maintenance I've slowly done since getting back: Remove most of each of the macros in the sump Swap out GFO Clean the closed loop intake screen Change the nozzles on the closed loop output for better flow throughout the tank Water changes Moved a few rocks around to clean up the sandbed some Got the heater up and running Set up the Apex I plan on swapping out the carbon in the next week and continuing to clean up the sandbed. I need to start trying to save the scoly, if that's even possible, and I have a lobo that needs to be moved and the sand kept off of it. I'm going to continue frequent water changes as well. Hopefully I'll get things turned around and growing again! I'm looking forward to adding some corals eventually. It's been a long long time since I've added anything! It's been hard to restrain, knowing the tank move was coming up and things needing to settle afterwards. The tank is all cloudy at the moment but I'll try to get some pics posted later.

That's so sad!! You had such an amazing run, much better than I did!! Looking forward to the new build.

I can't imagine ever catching a dartfish. Good luck!

Inside the tank, between the glass and magnet. The original doesn't have any chemicals/soap. I'd cut a very thin slice with a razor blade. It cleans the glass really well and helps keep the sand off, and if some sand gets stuck, I could see it better and get it off right away.

That's so sad You definitely gave them your best shot. I hope everyone else recovers! Can you mix the meds for the velvet and an antibiotic? Treat everyone for both?

Awesome! That gives a neat perspective. Your corals look great!

Looking forward to it!

Dooooo it! I finally got my apex hooked back up after months of not having it. It was totally doable to not use it, but I enjoy the tank so much more with it! Sounds like just the thing you need.

That looks great! I kept black sand in my nanos too and always liked it. Just be careful with your glass cleaner though, the sand is attracted to the magnet and will get stuck all over it if you get close to the sand bed. Very annoying. Eventually I would cut a thin piece of magic eraser to put in between the glass and glass cleaner, if that makes sense, and it helped quite a bit.

Yikes, sorry to read this Ty. Good luck with the treatment!

Welcome to the club! I kept a 3gal pico for over a year and loved it. Eventually had to shut it down because of a new build. If you can keep up with weekly water changes I didn't find it difficult to keep at all, especially if you solve the frequent top off needs. Water changes take about 30 seconds in a tank that small, so it's easy. Is this for a home office? You may run into heat issues if it's in an office building where they shut off the climate control on weekends. As far as the light, I've heard good things about it and almost got one myself but ended up with a little BML fixture instead. Keep us updated on your tank!

Just check out the classified section on the forums here. The hardware and complete systems sections should have any for sale tanks listed.

It depends on whether you're planning on buying new or used.

I have one, just let me know if you ever need it

I had the same experience with my red planet. Encrusted for nearly a year then finally started growing upright. It covers a large spot on a rock.

I do have one small cucumber, so maybe that's it? Weird!

Possibly although I wasn't the one feeding the fish while I was gone. Not sure where they did it. It could be where a clump of food settled and rotted. I poke around in the sand often, for various reasons, and it's not been clumpy at all, just regular loose sand. These clumps sit on top of the sand.

I've only noticed 3 in the week since we've been back, all near the same size and in the light. I wouldn't say directly under a light, but definitely not shaded.

Got back last week after being gone a week and a half. Came home to something wrong in the tank. Since I've been paying attention closer than usual I can't say whether these are a new occurrence or I just didn't notice them before. They're just loose clumps of sand. When poked or pushed around they stay together but aren't dense at all. My only idea is they might be from the wrasses, I have a red-lined and a yellow wrasse. I do have one cucumber but he's always in the same area and much much too small to leave these big clumps. I'm not missing any fish either. Ideas?

I can't see your pic, but it sounds good! Welcome to the club

Happy birthday! I hope it's a great one!