FarmerTy

You wouldn't happen to have an in-tank cure for marine velvet, would you?

If anybody gets bored at work, you can tune in at 12pm on the webcam. You'll see some fun drain and catch action with Brian and I and maybe my wife spraying the SPS. Wish us luck!

Don't get me thinking about that too much. I might actually do it! Jim, can I use the solid state relays now? Interactive fish trap?

ARC, thank you for the outpouring of help! I just posted this morning and I've already gotten a ton of texts/posts offering up equipment, extra bodies to help, and advice. It's been said over and over but what a great community we have!

Thanks Richard! If I end up with the need, I'll hit you up! Sure you still don't want that powder blue in your tank?[emoji12]

Busy is an understatement!

Well, after more observation and research, I believe I have Marine velvet instead of ich. Once I noticed the rapid breathing at night in front of powerheads and the powder blue look more velveety than ich like, I realized it was the wrong diagnosis. The final bit of evidence were my mandarins getting spots. They are naturally more resistent to ich due to a heavy slime coat (scaleless fish) but they are susceptible to marine velvet however. Once they got spots, I knew it had to be marine velvet. It must have hitched a ride with the flame angel I added. As always, hindsite is 20/20. QT folks! Minimum 4 weeks! Now the plan. I will be removing all of my fish for a minimum 6 weeks. I will be giving each fish a 5 minute freshwater dip (helps give instant relief) and then place them all in a 100 gallon tub during the QT treatment, leaving my display tank fallow during that time. I will be treating with chloroquine phosphate (in the form of Ickshield powder by New Life Spectrum) with a concentration of 40 ppm for 10 days. Freshwater bath QT tank and additional 30 gallon tub of freshly made saltwater. Brian.srock is crazy enough to get sucked into the quick drain and scoop plan of 2015. We plan on quick draining the tank to catch the fish quickly and then refill once complete. I'll probably have the wife spraying the exposed SPS to keep them from drying out during this process. We'll be borrowing some tubs/containers from Timfish, who's quick help will save the day... or at least some fish! Wish me luck. If anybody has any helpful tips, please share. I'm a coral guy, not a fish guy, so this is new territory for me having to deal with fish diseases of this magnitude. [emoji40]

I'm only pulling him out because he's got a secondary bacterial infection that is rotting his rear tail fin. The rest are healing nicely as usual but the powder blue will meet his maker if I don't get him out of there to treat. The quick drain... when you're talking 215-gallons... there's no quick about it. I'll need two 100-gallon rubbermaid tubs stat and a giant pump... wait... I already have one 100-gallon rubbermaid and a giant pump.... hmmm... I'll keep that as Plan C. Plan A) Fish trap Plan B) Lights on in the middle of the night and grab him before his eyes adjust Plan C) Quick drain, catch, and fill 215-gallons of water Plan D) JCAB is coming over for the ole' quick ninja nori net grab at the water surface

Good, when are you available JCAB?

At one point I had 4 of the 5 tangs in the trap at once. If there was any need to trap 4 tangs at once... I might have to redeploy that trap. Unfortunately, the one tang that wasn't in there was the powder blue.

If he doesn't go for the trap... I'm going to do the ole' flashlight at night trick. Stun him with the light when he's sleeping and swoosh goes the net.

Not what I was hoping to catch tonight.

No takebacks Richard!

Naturally that's how it works ckyuv!

He's very wary... that's for sure. It's for your own good buddy... just jump in there!

Yeah, the ones trying to eat from outside the trap... not so clever... persistent at least... the yellow and chocolate tang that were in the trap before there was even food... not so clever either. The powder blue that needs to be caught... he's hardly ever close to it. They know!

So when I introduced the flame angel, it had started a mini plight of Ich in my tank. Typically I see this and everyone recovers within a week or so. My concern is usually minimal for this but this time around, the powder blue seems to have developed a secondary bacterial infection along with it that is causing it to lose a portion of its tail and you can see redness in the tail as well. I'm a big proponent of leaving fish alone with ich but the secondary infection does warrant me to remove the powder blue for treatment. I'm on a mission to catch him out. I have Tim's (wizard) old fish trap and drilled it on the far end away from the trap door so that it was easier to put food in the trap to bait it. Here's how it went. The trap had been placed in there for 1 day prior and this is the 2nd day of it being in there and the first day I baited it. Happy fishing!

Well mine has done squat so I'm thinking it's not a fan of 700 par. [emoji15]

So I tweaked my fish trap I had and drilled a hole at the far end for my feeding tube. Here are the results. I'll post more details about my goal in my thread but just wanted to post here for others to enjoy. [emoji327]

I've always experienced red planets basing out a bunch before putting up stalks... more so than any of my other acros.

Plating montis make the best stages for an amazing SPS colony. I'd doublecheck what kind of pests you have Manny. The AEFW shouldn't have attacked the stylophoras. They are known to only attack acroporas. If your stylophoras were affected, either you got a vicious strain that is now going after stylophoras or you may have some type of other pest.

Maybe the reputation of 6-line wrasses are warranted? Have you checked your overflow?

That lantana is really odd. First off, it's growing in the amorphous, random shape that all digitatas grow in... kind of a free for all of branches... but then it really hasn't grown much since I picked it up. The base color turned a mustard yellow which is good but only the polyps on top or at the base have turned blue... the rest of the polyps are brown. Odd little thing... maybe I need to move it to another spot.

Yeah, I have a leopard and cleaner wrasse. I guess the two mandarin gobies might count as well. Yeah, I never go backwards in this build thread. You could waste a weeks worth of time doing that!

I'm baffled. I've never seen anything like that. Maybe Tim has an idea or seen it in a tank he maintains.