Disaster in the reef tank....

It was not a pretty Sunday :(. I woke to a grey Otello, Jack flat on his back, twitching, and no sign of Penelope.

I had fed the sun coral sisters (Surya and Diana) the previous night and when I checked on them at 5am they looked very happy. They looked happy at 8am, too...they are happy girls :). Too much food, the food was off (it wasn't staying frozen in our little fridge, it was a bit soft the night before), too many babies in my tank, all of of these combined...something caused a problem with the chemistry. All the corals looked pretty happy and Minty was looking good, as were the snails (Trotsky, Troy, Tippity and Tappity) and the crabs (Jesus and Jose)...it was just the clownfish and Jack that were hurting.

Penelope was already having a few problems as I hadn't made sure she had enough food while I was away skiing (I was more concerned about the corals, DOH! I thought it would be enough - Otello was plenty fat) and she was a bit emaciated when we got back. We were hoping she was on the road to recovery as we were feeding her very well. Jack is a cleaner shrimp and they are very sensitive to chemical changes. The nitrite problem pushed them over the edge. When I got Jack out of the tank we found Penelope up against the wall in Shell Alley - she was a goner - so I got her out, too. :(:(:(

We are very sad. Otello is pretty sad too, with the loss of Penelope, but we think he is going to make it. I did 4 2-gallon water changes in 24 hours to get the bad stuff out and Otello was definitely responding when the fresh water was going in. After the first one he returned to being black, though still with some white spots on his tail. The second water change got rid of the spots and he was looking quite normal. He is eating, though he looks less energetic than he usually is....now that he doesn't have Penelope to bull out of the way to get to the food :) Poor guy, he will be missing her.

On the recommendation of my fish guy, I will continue doing small water changes every morning for the rest of the week. In a few weeks we will get a new Penelope and a new Pedro the cleaner shrimp (we can never replace Jack!). I am also going to reduce the bioload a bit and Surya is going to have go back to the LFS to find a bigger tank with someone else to feed her. Diana is small and it more suited to the tank size that I have. I will prune out some of the Xenia, too and there is a piece of the purple dendro that has separated, so I will return that as well.

On top of all that, does Miss Bonita Applebum have to cause more stress by going walkabout this morning? Obviously :). We awoke this morning to snail slime on the kitchen table place mats and there she was, lying on the table with her back door closed. We popped her back in the tank and she was cruising around the tank in 15 minutes. All the little fish were out and darting around - they must have missed her :). A is putting some slices of carrot and cucumber in the tank to keep her entertained :)

Later!!!!