Jahmic's Tasty Cubed Reef Recipe
- Thread starter jahmic
- Start date
To be honest, the macro lens helps a lot with the photo quality. Maybe once your new build is up and running I can stop be and we'll try to get your camera's settings dialed in...let me know if you'd be interested at all.
I think it was just monitor's settings...someone set my brightness to ZERO! :rolleyes2: Still look a little flat to me, but it's probably the 6 yr old screen, lol.
I think it was just monitor's settings...someone set my brightness to ZERO! :rolleyes2: Still look a little flat to me, but it's probably the 6 yr old screen, lol.
I nominate Khalis for club photography instructor!
On a side note, I desperately need to learn how to use my fancy camera and take good pics of my tank, among other things. I'm willing to offer up copious amounts of beer, gourmet dinner, manual labor, or any other kind of recompense you may be interested in for some lessons.
On a side note, I desperately need to learn how to use my fancy camera and take good pics of my tank, among other things. I'm willing to offer up copious amounts of beer, gourmet dinner, manual labor, or any other kind of recompense you may be interested in for some lessons.
Been dealing with sick fish so I suppose it's time for an update...
A couple days after that last set of pictures, I lost one of the anthias. It was fine one day, then the next day I noticed what looked like an internal bacterial infection; I could see red streaking under the skin, its fins were clamped, mucus was collecting on the gills, and it refused to eat. It was a goner within about 36 hours...and unfortunately it wedged itself into a rock and I was unable to remove it.
I initially suspected flukes, so I treated the tank with Prazi-pro for 5 days just in case.
None of the other fish showed signs of infection/infestation, but I also decided to make up some medicated food for them using frozen mysis, Flagyl (metronidazole), and Selcon. Within a day of starting treatment anthias #2 showed signs of bacterial infection on the edge of a dorsal fin...so I crossed my fingers and hoped I'd gotten ahead of it. I also took the auto-feeder off line; it had been setup above my return pump, but I'm pretty sure most of the pellets just sat in that chamber and polluted the water rather than ending up in the DT. I figured improving water quality was more critical than getting in the 1 extra feeding while I was at work. 5 days in, I did a 20% water change and put the skimmer and carbon back online to remove the prazi-pro, and the fish were still eating the medicated food with gusto.
2 days later (Day 7 of treatment) anthias #3 stopped eating...figured maybe it was getting tired of the medication so I started feeding cylclops to just get them to eat. They took to that immediately, but a day later #3 showed obvious signs of internal infection (redness, clamped fins, and gasping)...upon closer inspection yet another anthias (#4) also had signs of a minor internal infection (they both had minor red streaking at the base of their tails). Aaaaagh!!
I did another series of small 5 gal water changes, added a few drops of ZeoBak after each water change, and added an air pump to the DT to help saturate the water with oxygen. I also took that medicated food mix and added some Rod's to the recipe...I figured if it stunk like fish enough then maybe they'd ignore the fact that it had that bitter antibiotic flavor. That seemed to work as the fish's appetite came back immediately. Over the next few days their symptoms started to disappear; the bacterial infection that started on the fins of anthias #2 cleared up almost completely, and the red streaking completely disappeared from #4 while #3 still had a small blotch at the base of the tail, but the redness had receded significantly.
Being that they seemed to be fighting off whatever was going on, I continued to feed the medicated food 2x per day, and kept an eye on things. I know...I know...I should've pulled the fish out long ago. After losing those chromis in QT though I figured I'd take my chances with leaving them in the DT to fight off the infection rather than tearing the tank down and medicating with Maracyn-2 in a hospital tank.
So far so good though...no more clamped fins, and only one fish still has a small red blotch at the base of its tail that has been getting smaller by the day. I'm still doing the medicated food 2x a day and will probably continue to feed that until I see no symptoms for 14 consecutive days. I also added a 25W UV filter on Saturday, which should help cut down on any pathogens floating around in the water column. It looks like they'll be fine though...I'm going to continue to do 2 smaller bi-weekly water changes and keep an eye on things. I wish I had taken pics of the fish to show...but I kept the DT lights off and tried to keep my face away from the glass as much as possible to keep them calm.
If only these fish knew what we go through to save them.
A couple days after that last set of pictures, I lost one of the anthias. It was fine one day, then the next day I noticed what looked like an internal bacterial infection; I could see red streaking under the skin, its fins were clamped, mucus was collecting on the gills, and it refused to eat. It was a goner within about 36 hours...and unfortunately it wedged itself into a rock and I was unable to remove it.
I initially suspected flukes, so I treated the tank with Prazi-pro for 5 days just in case.None of the other fish showed signs of infection/infestation, but I also decided to make up some medicated food for them using frozen mysis, Flagyl (metronidazole), and Selcon. Within a day of starting treatment anthias #2 showed signs of bacterial infection on the edge of a dorsal fin...so I crossed my fingers and hoped I'd gotten ahead of it. I also took the auto-feeder off line; it had been setup above my return pump, but I'm pretty sure most of the pellets just sat in that chamber and polluted the water rather than ending up in the DT. I figured improving water quality was more critical than getting in the 1 extra feeding while I was at work. 5 days in, I did a 20% water change and put the skimmer and carbon back online to remove the prazi-pro, and the fish were still eating the medicated food with gusto.
2 days later (Day 7 of treatment) anthias #3 stopped eating...figured maybe it was getting tired of the medication so I started feeding cylclops to just get them to eat. They took to that immediately, but a day later #3 showed obvious signs of internal infection (redness, clamped fins, and gasping)...upon closer inspection yet another anthias (#4) also had signs of a minor internal infection (they both had minor red streaking at the base of their tails). Aaaaagh!!
I did another series of small 5 gal water changes, added a few drops of ZeoBak after each water change, and added an air pump to the DT to help saturate the water with oxygen. I also took that medicated food mix and added some Rod's to the recipe...I figured if it stunk like fish enough then maybe they'd ignore the fact that it had that bitter antibiotic flavor. That seemed to work as the fish's appetite came back immediately. Over the next few days their symptoms started to disappear; the bacterial infection that started on the fins of anthias #2 cleared up almost completely, and the red streaking completely disappeared from #4 while #3 still had a small blotch at the base of the tail, but the redness had receded significantly.
Being that they seemed to be fighting off whatever was going on, I continued to feed the medicated food 2x per day, and kept an eye on things. I know...I know...I should've pulled the fish out long ago. After losing those chromis in QT though I figured I'd take my chances with leaving them in the DT to fight off the infection rather than tearing the tank down and medicating with Maracyn-2 in a hospital tank.
So far so good though...no more clamped fins, and only one fish still has a small red blotch at the base of its tail that has been getting smaller by the day. I'm still doing the medicated food 2x a day and will probably continue to feed that until I see no symptoms for 14 consecutive days. I also added a 25W UV filter on Saturday, which should help cut down on any pathogens floating around in the water column. It looks like they'll be fine though...I'm going to continue to do 2 smaller bi-weekly water changes and keep an eye on things. I wish I had taken pics of the fish to show...but I kept the DT lights off and tried to keep my face away from the glass as much as possible to keep them calm.
If only these fish knew what we go through to save them.
Thanks, I seemed to have turned a corner so hopefully the worst is behind me. They're all definitely more active than they were last week and have been eating like pigs.
Lol...yea I'm hoping things keep getting better. Those chromis I lost a while back hurt the ego; I usually have better luck at nursing sick fish back to health.
CRW Reef;254497 said:
Glad to hear your able to save fish man. Looks like you're becoming a fish whisper
Re: Jahmic's Tasty Cubed Reef Recipe
Nice, that's really good to hear! I have been thinking about taking that same approach, but it was difficult to find much feedback on how effective it is when searching online. Most posts I found on "other forums" involved one person asking about or suggesting this method, followed by 10 people flaming them for not using a QT and taking "shortcuts" lol.
If nothing else, the UV should help keep pathogens at a lower level in the tank, and the metro should make up for any weakness in the fish's immune system due to the stress of transfer/shipping/acclimation. I used to use metro mixed in food with wild caught FW fish for that same reason and definitely saw less losses...it's always hard to say whether that was due to treatment or just dumb luck...but your feedback helps for sure.
Right now the UV is hooked up to a MJ1200, and I have the TLF 150 reactor inline after the UV. There's a ball valve between the two...and although it's wide open I know it still slows the flow a bit. My temp has bumped up by a degree and the fan is running almost all day to keep the tank at 80.5...this is after swapping the MJ900 out for the 1200 and adding the UV. It's obviously difficult to measure the gph with everything in place...but I'm probably right around 100-150 gph, which is where I should be for the reactor.
Would I be better off running them on separate pumps? Or would I likely see no difference in heat? I'm thinking about running the UV with the MJ1200 since the extra flow may help cool the bulb more, and using an MJ600 to run the reactor...but I feel like that won't make much of a difference. My other thought was to use a slightly larger submersible pump and split them with a Y and individual ball valves...which is probably the better option. I'd probably want something in the 400-500gph range that runs at a low wattage... I'm open to suggestions.
Nice, that's really good to hear! I have been thinking about taking that same approach, but it was difficult to find much feedback on how effective it is when searching online. Most posts I found on "other forums" involved one person asking about or suggesting this method, followed by 10 people flaming them for not using a QT and taking "shortcuts" lol.
If nothing else, the UV should help keep pathogens at a lower level in the tank, and the metro should make up for any weakness in the fish's immune system due to the stress of transfer/shipping/acclimation. I used to use metro mixed in food with wild caught FW fish for that same reason and definitely saw less losses...it's always hard to say whether that was due to treatment or just dumb luck...but your feedback helps for sure.
Right now the UV is hooked up to a MJ1200, and I have the TLF 150 reactor inline after the UV. There's a ball valve between the two...and although it's wide open I know it still slows the flow a bit. My temp has bumped up by a degree and the fan is running almost all day to keep the tank at 80.5...this is after swapping the MJ900 out for the 1200 and adding the UV. It's obviously difficult to measure the gph with everything in place...but I'm probably right around 100-150 gph, which is where I should be for the reactor.
Would I be better off running them on separate pumps? Or would I likely see no difference in heat? I'm thinking about running the UV with the MJ1200 since the extra flow may help cool the bulb more, and using an MJ600 to run the reactor...but I feel like that won't make much of a difference. My other thought was to use a slightly larger submersible pump and split them with a Y and individual ball valves...which is probably the better option. I'd probably want something in the 400-500gph range that runs at a low wattage... I'm open to suggestions.
Well...I pulled some of the plumbing to see how much flow I was actually getting through the UV and reactor with the MJ1200. Keep in mind that these are just estimates; I allowed the output to fill a container for 10 seconds, then calculated the gph.
UV+reactor = ...32 GPH! hahaha. Good news is anything that passed through that UV was certainly nuked with that amount of exposure. That probably accounts for the heat issue though.
Took the reactor off and ran the UV alone with the MJ1200...
UV only= 194 GPH
I'm going to see what I get without the ball valve, but I'm thinking the design of that reactor plus the fact I have it running in reverse slows the flow too much. Essentially, water is being pushed through the top, through the carbon at the bottom, then up through the small tube in the center and back up. It may actually make more sense to run them off of separate pumps; I'll probably end up keeping the MJ1200 on the UV and use a 600 for the reactor.
With all this extra equipment that I didn't plan on...I think I'll need an EB8 for my Apex Jr sooner than expected.
UV+reactor = ...32 GPH! hahaha. Good news is anything that passed through that UV was certainly nuked with that amount of exposure. That probably accounts for the heat issue though.
Took the reactor off and ran the UV alone with the MJ1200...
UV only= 194 GPH
I'm going to see what I get without the ball valve, but I'm thinking the design of that reactor plus the fact I have it running in reverse slows the flow too much. Essentially, water is being pushed through the top, through the carbon at the bottom, then up through the small tube in the center and back up. It may actually make more sense to run them off of separate pumps; I'll probably end up keeping the MJ1200 on the UV and use a 600 for the reactor.
With all this extra equipment that I didn't plan on...I think I'll need an EB8 for my Apex Jr sooner than expected.