Today on BRSTV we are going to explore unconscious competence
Hey guys my name is Ryan your host of BRSTV and this is our very first update of how the
tank is doing after completing the year of set up and discussion.
This week we have an update on the 160 which is somewhat disappointing but also an awesome
opportunity for us all to learn something new about reefing.
I think a lot of people might avoid sharing the challenges we run into in a series like
this because the BRS team supposed to be perfect right?
Well open and honest there is no such thing as perfection with a reef tank, just the pursuit
of perfection and I think even more valuable than listening to an endless list of best
practices is hearing real world situations where we encountered a challenge , hopefully
hearing how we handled it can help all of you in your individual pursuits of reef perfection.
Despite what I would call our best efforts we found monti eating nudi’s in the 160
which are one of the harder pests to deal with.
So how did they get in there?
Well despite the fact that we got the corals from trusted vendors, were ridiculously careful
when adding all the corals to the tank, dipped them in an aggressive dose of Bayer, swished
the hell out of them and inspected to the best of our ability somehow either a single
nudi made it but much more likely an almost microscopic eggs sac made it into the tank.
Some of the corals made a few trips back and forth from the frag system and I did use some
live rock rubble from our a different system for zoanthid mounts so really the single nudi
or egg sack could have been introduced a variety of different ways but If I had to guess it
was is one of the wild collected or mariculture corals that came with at least one egg sac
because it is pretty unlikely an adult made it through the concentration of Bayer dip
we did, the extended length of the dip and vigorous swishing after in multiple rinse
buckets.
I am guessing it came in on a wild or mariculture coral that came out of the ocean because the
its simply more likely than coming from a aquaculture facility that grows small frags.
There are a few reasons for this, first is while it is certainly possible that an aqua
culture facility could get a pest like this the nature of how these closed systems run
with tightly packed corals means the population of a pest like this will often have explosive
growth which is noticed rapidly and the existence of these aquaculture facilities requires intense
dedication to procedures and protocols which prevent pests from entering the systems.
To reefers pests are the enemy of corals to aquaculture facilities are the enemy of profits,
end of the day these facilities are going to be the most carefully about pests.
That's just an impossibility or at least not practical with corals that come out of the
ocean and held in large containment systems with a constant churn of new corals.
While different vendors will implement different prevention procedures, particularly in relation
to the adults there is no way you can spot every single microscopic egg sac on wild collected
or ocean maricultured corals.
So all that said that single adult or egg sac could have come from almost anywhere I'm
just making a likely guess.
Before I get to how we could have prevented it and what we are going to do about it I
am going to share a concept that i think is fairly valuable to everyone who cares for
a tank full of corals.
I am going to loan that concept from Snorvich on reef central who applies it more or less
the stages of competence with fish parasites.
Applied to coral introduction I think the four stages of competence still applies.
You will have to forgive how harsh these sound but I think it is accurate enough that its
valuable to share.
First stage being unconscious incompetence where a new reefer is almost completely unaware
of the issue pests pose and characterized by, minimal awareness of what pests are out
there, buying corals from tanks where the pests are visibly present in the tank or even
worse on the corals, and corals going straight from the fish stores bag into the tank without
any pest prevention procedure.
More or less blind faith and just hoping everything will work out in the end.
Next stage is conscious incompetence where a reefer is now aware of pests and starting
to understand why prevention is so important.
Most often characterized by the ability to spot large easy to see common pests like aiptasia
and bubble algae, the assumption all tanks have bubble algae, aiptasia, and other pests,
there is nothing I can do about it.
I can't afford to quarantine I will just have to hope for the best and buy from good stores,
I only buy corals I can see in person and inspect for pests, I always dip new corals.
The next stage is most often reached after you have encountered a deviating pest outbreak
which is most commonly expensive as well.
unconscious competence where a reefer is implementing a variety of competent skills but unconsciously
messing up or missing some important components
Most often characterized by.
I know what a vast majority of pests look like, I know how to spot adults, eggs and
behavioral signs like bite patterns, I dip corals in the most aggressive dips the coral
will tolerate, I scrub the bases to remove potential eggs , I buy from vendors I trust
and know care about this as much as I do, I have considered a full quarantine procedure
but It is just not realistic for a variety of reasons.
The last stage is of Conscious competence is either reached because down to your DNA
you are an incredibly detailed person, you have had major losses multiple times or just
have a mountain of cash invested in this and willing to do anything to protect the tank.
this stage is characterized by a full quarantine system and procedure, nothing wet weather
it be a coral, rock, tool or even hands enters the display tank.
It must be dead dry or fully quarantined.
Whenever possible the frag mounts and base of the corals where all the eggs hide are
removed and attached to new mounts and a progressive dip procedure using multiple forms of dip.
So I will say that with the BRS160 you can characterize our behavior with stage three,
unconscious competence which is also where most of you are at or trying to get to and
might stop at.
The thing that's preventing most reefers from finding the forth state stage or conscious
competence is that line “I have considered a full quarantine procedure but It is just
not realistic for a variety of reasons.”
For most reefers it is time, money or space which atlas seems to make it unrealistic.
I will say with every loss it will become more and more realistic.
For us for us the unrealistic component was we are producing a 15-30 minute show every
week which is conceptualized, shot and edited in almost real time to get that accomplished.
So we sourced corals from trusted suppliers, dipped, swished, inspected, removed most of
the bases and generally felt like we did a solid job preventing pests from entering the
tank but production time and planning just didn't allow for a multiple month quarantine
procedure.
So what could we have done different in an attempt to prevent the nudis from entering
the tank?
Let start with in some fantasy universe we could got the corals in here 5-6 months ahead
of time , properly quarantined all of them and treated for any issues that popped up
over the following months prior to production.
Acknowledging that is absolutely best practice and the last thing I want to do is give everyone
permission to avoid that step.
I have to also acknowledge considering everything involved with this project quarantining the
50 to 100 corals coming in each week for that period of time while I also try and run BRS
just wasn’t realistic.
So realistically, what could we have done outside of the steps we took.
Well looking back at it, the first mistake we made was shooting all the corals in the
tank meaning both the corals we were keeping as well as those were were just talking about.
from video production standpoint there were many reasons to shoot them there but from
minimizing a the pest contamination risk stand point , that was a potential entry point.
When I decided to mount the zoanthids to some rocks I did it to some rubble from the equipment
testing station.
Since there are no corals in this system this is a low risk but if I had to do it over I
would have let it dry out before using it.
While we did remove the mount or plug from all of the Acros there were a handful of mariculture
and wild corals we didn't do that too, this is certainly one of the more likely culprits.
In future similar situations I think I would have also used the band saw to just remove
a small portion of the live tissue around the base of the corals and remount which will
drastically reduce the egg risk.
Just that step alone could potentially have prevented the nudi’s introduction.
So how are we going to prevent or at least do our best to prevent similar issues from
happening in the future ? Well since we don't have the same time constraints any longer
we are going to implement a full scale quarantine system for the office tanks.
There are 19 or so tanks at the BRS office and a lot of corals trading hands.
We have been lucky so far but we want to protect the tanks to the best of our ability.
We recently sterilized our frag system and going to start bringing new corals in only
once a quarter with a 2 month quarantine period.
We also hired Randy to take care of them and manage the intake of corals and the quarantine
process, some of you have probably talked to Randy on the phone and know he's committed
to coral care and detail oriented.
We are still working on the exact quarantine process but it will certainly include almost
everything we talked about today and then some.
Soon as it is live we will walk through the entire process in its own video.
So what are going to do about the current problem that they are already in the tank.
This is one of those things that now that they are in the tank they are going to be
there until the food source is gone . The one and only way to get rid of them completely
is to remove the food source and starve them out.
Since most of you paid quite a bit of money for your frags you are going to want to save
them.
I would remove all of the corals which are potential food sources like monti’s, potentially
stylos and anything else you see them bothering and treat them in a quarantine system.
Goal here is to break the life cycle by dipping them every few days to remove the adults before
they become large enough to lay eggs.
Existing eggs hatch and the next dip removes those as well.
In a month or two you can break the entire life cycle.
Meanwhile the tank needs to be food source free for many months, maybe even 6 or more
before you can add the monti’s back to the tank.
This is going to be a large endeavor and there are no assurances.
Personally I would kalk paste or otherwise kill the visible eggs and remaining tissue
which is just a food source at this point.
Really try and get as much of the live tissue off of the rocks surface just to help eliminate
the food source and speed up the process.
No matter how you cut it this is going to be a lot of work and take a long time before
I would add new monti’s to the tank.
The other option is really to just accept they are in the tank and try to find a natural
balance where the monti’s are not overwhelmed by the predatory nudi’s.
This is what we are going to do because its bit more realistic for most reef tank owners
and I think it would be most valuable for you guys to see the results of this type of
effort.
Can we maintain healthy Monti colonies even with nudi’s in the tank.
If that fails the BRS team has new frags of most of these corals either here or at home
so all is not lost and the best option will just let nature take its course and focus
on difference coral species until we are satisfied the nudi’s have naturally been eradicated
from the system.
The first component of this is a natural approach with a focus on predators which has been largely
successful for many reefers.
Almost eliminating the problem.
Not in eliminating the nudis entirely but at keeping adult populations low and allowing
the corals natural defenses a chance to outpace them.
The main focus is wrasses.
there are hundred types but you are looking for the type of wrasse that spends the entire
day pecking at the rock looking for something to ear, we happen to have a healthy six line
wrasse in another system so I loaned that and I am going to pick up a couple of yellow
cross wrasses which many years ago I saw a lot of success controlling zoanthid eating
Nudi’s.
On top of that I am going to attempt a chemical treatment with the KZ flatworm stop and coral
booster.
This product combo is designed to straighten the corals natural defenses with a thicker
less palatable mucus coat as well as well as promote rapid regeneration of harmed soft
tissue.
So far I have had really positive results with the KZ line and specifically heard many
positive reports on the flatworm stop coral booster line that I felt it was a solid option
to try and keep the corals healthy in conjunction with adding the predatory fish.
So that wraps up today's episode.
Just a hint at the next BRS160 update I recently added a co2 scrubber to the skimmer, not only
did the PH rise substantially but almost overnight so did my calcium and consumption, we look
forward to exploring that and sharing the data relatively soon.
So give us a quick thumbs up and subscribe if you would like to see that update.
See you next week with the performance review of the AP700 diffusion disks we promised last
week.