Oh, boy, the past few days have been interesting. In a nutshell: the cyano treatment now appears to be working, the skimmer is freaked out and so is Kyo who is hiding, but still eating. If that weren’t enough I got new creatures today.

First things first: the day of the 48 hour second dose of the cyano treatment the skimmer foamed and filled almost to overflowing with clear yellow liquid. Apparently this is what the instructions meant about having to adjust the skimmer. After some fiddling I got it to the point of barely skimming but still producing tons of microbubbles. So I’ve been alternating between running it fullout with no/few bubbles, skimming with lots of bubbles and having it unplugged. It’s a mess. I’m wondering how long until I can get it back to normal functioning.

The good news is that it appears that the cyano killer is killing the cyano very slowly. The day after the second dose it had definitely faded on the Fiji rock and appeared to be dying. The small patches had faded somewhat in the troublesome corner. Today I’d say it’s mostly dead, but not completely. Which worries me, but absolutely nothing has gone like it did the other time I used the cyano remover, so I’m really flying blind right now. I remain hopeful that the remaing small pink spots will completely disappear.

Kyo hates all the changes in the current and probably the bubbles as well, but though he’s eating odd amounts at odd hours, his appetite is normal, he’s getting enough to eat and when the skimmer output gets too obnoxious he goes under the ledge. Otherwise he’s inclined to remain in his usual home. I find it suggestive that his appetite and habits went more back to normal after the cyano remover was added, even with the disruptions and bubbles it caused.

The shrimp have been slightly less conspicuous, but they do pick up Kyo’s leavings or beg. I don’t think they are too distressed. Likewise with the mushrooms & featherduster: they have remained open and appear OK. (The blue Discosoma is more open since I put the new light bulbs in.)

Yesterday I finally found more Purple Up and have resumed adding it to the main tank. I also added one drop to the picoreef yesterday. This morning 3 large bristleworms poked out of the barnacle shell in the picoreef. I knew there was one I hadn’t been able to get at and suspected two. There were at least three. I managed to remove one this morning. The amphipod population is declining again and I suspect it’s due to competition for food.

Yesterday I hooked up a disposable charcoal filter to the airline going into the picoreef and got a mini-magnet glass cleaner for it. I had some algae or diatoms on some of the glass. Now that I’ve got light on the tank microalgae has started to grow fuzzily over the barnacle shell. This encouraged me to get some leafy Caulerpa, which looks sort of like a grass, for the tank.

Today I went to my favorite LFS to get the Caulerpa. They also had some small snails which looked like they were the same Nassarius type as a previous snail I’d had. So I got two of those as well as the Caulerpa.

Tomorrow is my birthday. My husband got me a frag of pink Sun Coral that I’d been admiring (and researching). Since things in the minireef are in a state of upheaval with the cyano treatment, the microbubbles, the skimmer out of whack due to the treatment, etc. I didn’t think it’d be good to put any new animals in that tank.

So everything’s going into the picoreef. Eventually the snails and Sun Coral will go into the main tank.

How soon depends on how soon I can get the main tank back to normal, skimmer functioning properly again, water change after cyano is dead, etc. I don’t think it will take the tiny snails long to clean up the microalgae in the picoreef. Also I’m going to have to really keep on top of water quality in the picoreef with feeding the Sun Coral, so I’m planning on only a short stay with frequent water changes for it. I’m hoping to move snails and coral to the main reef in a week or so.

I’m acclimating everything now. I’ll post pictures of the picoreef and its new temporary residents tomorrow.

Oh, one more thing … This morning I saw one of the Astarina stars on the right side glass (main tank). Couldn’t get a good pic, but I’m happy to know some are still living in the tank.