My First Mag

[horseplay]

So pull the trigger today my Mag journey is started.

LFS got her a few days ago and it looked fine. Mouth tight and fully inflated. Called LFS they told me she was still not sold so went to pick her up. She's a little worse off in the tank and have climbed up to the top of the tank for more light. Sticky to the touch. Mouth is open "sometimes". Took her home, drip acclimated for 2 hours. Going to start treating her tonight anyway. Base on what I read these nems usually need treatment.

She is huge, probably going to open up to at least 12".

 

[bradleym]

That is an incredibly healthy looking Magnifica! In my experience, they'll open their mouth up a bit at any discomfort - when I had one it would open its mouth a bit every time food even hit the water! So don't let that stress you out too much, but treating as a proactive measure never hurts in these cases. Good luck and enjoy your journey!

 

[horseplay]

I am not sure if this is better or worse. It moved to the top of the water line I increase the light a little. Is it hungry? It has not deflated.

 

[horseplay]

It looks beautiful today. It also poop a bit.

 

[horseplay]

She completely deflated yesterday evening after looking very good the whole day. No apparent reason. She expelled some waste throughout the day. After water change she slowly bounced back. This morning she is fully open again. She has been treated with Cipro 3 times so far. The water change consists of 75% DT water and 25% new. The IO salt I use has fairly high ALK level so I use mostly DT water to avoid shocking the nem.

I am suspecting high ammonia level because she's pretty big in 10g of water for 24 hours without biological filtration. Is it better to stop the treatment and move her to the DT now?

 

[Paleozoic_reefer]

What’s your hospital tank set up? You should have some type of pump or sponge filter and continue cipro for the full 7 day treatment. Don’t put it in the display until it’s begins to recover, once in the display it may be hard to retrieve or contaminate other nems you have. Change the water every day during treatment and monitor closely. There are several great threads on mag treatments so I would browse through them and see which one best suites you.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

No, not a good idea to stop treatment now.

As mentioned above, you should have some sort of cycled filtration going with the nem.

 

[horseplay]

Got it. I will continue. She looks as good as yesterday now.

The QT has a small powerhead and a heater and a Radion XR15 running @ 40%. Nothing else. My understanding is that Cipro would have killed any denitrifying bacteria. I just put two pieces of rocks from my DT sump in. If Cipro has lost it's potency after light is on then the rocks should help with biological filtering. I plan to move the rocks back to the DT sump before the treatment starts tonight.

 

[bradleym]

Got it. I will continue. She looks as good as yesterday now.

The QT has a small powerhead and a heater and a Radion XR15 running @ 40%. Nothing else. My understanding is that Cipro would have killed any denitrifying bacteria. I just put two pieces of rocks from my DT sump in. If Cipro has lost it's potency after light is on then the rocks should help with biological filtering. I plan to move the rocks back to the DT sump before the treatment starts tonight.

If you are doing 75-100% water changes every day you should be clearing out the ammonia, as well as anything else that could build up. If you are getting enough ammonia in a day to cause it to die it you have already lost the battle. Instead, I would just keep treating with cipro nightly until it no longer inflates/deflates. The inflate/deflate cycle is very common with new mags and, while not good for them, is not a reason to panic.

 

[Lost in the Sauce]

Got it. I will continue. She looks as good as yesterday now.

The QT has a small powerhead and a heater and a Radion XR15 running @ 40%. Nothing else. My understanding is that Cipro would have killed any denitrifying bacteria. I just put two pieces of rocks from my DT sump in. If Cipro has lost it's potency after light is on then the rocks should help with biological filtering. I plan to move the rocks back to the DT sump before the treatment starts tonight.

Ciprofloxacin should not be killing all of your bacteria. If it did, dosing to a display tank would be a Disaster setting off a massive ammonia spike, and full cycle as it tries to rebuild the colonized bacteria.

 

[horseplay]

OK I will put some more cycled rocks in there going forward. I basically do a 100% water change daily before medication with 75% from DT and the rest newly mixed. Definitely not dosing the DT.

 

[horseplay]

Other than the first day when I had a weak light she has not moved off of the plate. So I think the light should be good. She's on one side so I move the light a little bit to the other side. I am estimating the light where the nem is is 300 PAR.

 

[JonezNReef]

Mag is beautiful. There’s great advice in here and you are doing a good job. If it’s still good after 7 days of treatment then go a couple days without it. If after those couple of days it’s still good then I would move it to the DT

 

[horseplay]

Thanks Jonez. I hope it will make it so just trying to do the right thing.

I put in a bigger powerhead in the QT at the lowest setting. it's enjoying the flow. Definitely seems to like more flow.

 

[horseplay]

Treatment continues. She has not deflated again which is the good news. It seems she really like the flow. I made a pedestal for her to sit on when she's ready to go into the DT. The top of the pedestal is about the size of the plate.

 

[Smite]

Awesome looking rock perch.

I just got a gigantea through cipro. I did near 100% (all I could siphon out) water changes 1-2x daily in a 5g tank. Any cloudiness and I'd water change. Powerhead, heater and a HD flood LED. Mine made it through just fine with no cycled filtration. Glad to hear your mag is looking good so far too.

 

[horseplay]

Thanks Smite and congrats on the new carpet. Had one before but didn’t make it.

 

[JonezNReef]

How’s the Mag doing?

 

[horseplay]

How’s the Mag doing?

She looks better than ever. Has not deflated at all. If she continues to look good I will move her to the DT after 7 days. The same lighting and powerhead will move with her.

In the meantime, WC is getting old.

Question: do I have to worry about the BTA in the middle of the tank?

 

[horseplay]

She’s in. I thought I would need another powerhead but it seems the mp40 has created a strong flow in that area. She has not moved since I put her there last night. Couldn’t remove her from the plate so let her stay there.