I finished the medicated food yesterday. All fish and inverts seem to have come through without issue. Unfortunately the mandarin is getting thinner every day despite eating at every meal and having plenty of pods available in the tank. He spends so much time swimming near the powerhead I think he is starving himself. The kamohara blenny has also suffered some kind of injury. I think it is a spinal injury and I'm not sure he will make it. Idk how it happened. All other fish are unaffected.
I did find out with 99% certainty that my flame angel is to blame for the sps and lps issues. I decided to run a test where I put 5 sps and 2 lps (war coral and acan) in the DT and sat and watched the tank for the next hour. He would pick at the sps just enough to keep them closed, and he nipped the war coral pretty aggressively. Strangely enough, he left the acan alone. I left the sps in there overnight just to see how they would do and they were still closed this morning. I put them back in the frag tank and they were fully open within an hour.
I also had quite the adventure last night. I decided to clean my return line for the first time in over 3 years. I figured I would clean it like I have my other returns in the past, with a piece of wet paper towel pushed through with some ro tubing. What I didn't realize was that the reefer return pipe has a larger "chamber" around the bulkhead. It's kind of hard to explain, but the approx 1/2" return opens to about a 1" wide and 2" deep where the pipe goes through the bulkhead.
The ro tubing went through the bulkhead without pushing the paper towel through. I assumed it tore the paper towel so I added some more to offer some resistance. That was a terrible mistake because what was really happening was the paper towel was getting stuck in that chamber and eventually the chamber was compacted with paper towel. I proceeded to try and push it through from the bottom (still without realizing the pipe opened up near the bulkhead) and got it jammed real good lol.
After trying for over an hour to get it freed up, I found a wire hanger and was slowly able to hook pieces of the towel and get it out piece by piece. The return was now clean, but I still hadn't cleaned the return pump. I start to clean it but didn't realize the power cord had gotten wrapped around my skimmer...
The skimmer gets knocked off its stand, hits the edge of the sump and the full collection cup pops off and lands upside down in my lap. Nothing quite like the feeling (and smell) of a full cup of skimmate soaking into your crotch. ;Vomit
always so curious...
