[Tmoriarty]

Hey Minh, long time no talk.

Been off the forums for almost 9 months after loosing well over 100 6month Black Photon clowns that were ready to go due to a skimmer pump melt down, but on to my problem.

So I have been keeping a Magnifica in my tank for about a year, healthy never had problems with it, never moved. I have many pictures of it posted somewhere on my other old posts but maybe you remember those Minh. Anyways about a week ago it decided to walk, managed to push aside the screen on my MP40 and got destroyed, took out two 2.5 Year old tangs with it (I believe from stings caused by the destroyed tentacles). Almost lost a couple other fish as well but was able to save them.

This last weekend I was in San Francisco and what would you know I see a good Purple based mag at some hole in the wall down town. The store was pretty gross and the nem was fairly large (12" column). While I know the success rate of larger mags is atrocious I couldn't pass up the chance to at least try, knowing that I had some ability and knowledge regarding treatment with antibiotics (I know I helped you a bit when you first started treatments with half life information caused by light and water, I see you have that information in this article which is awesome). Anyways I made the purchase and brought the beauty home.

Day 1-

No deflations, wasn't holding it self up as well as it should but looked fairly well in the Tank and wasn't moving.

Day 2-

No deflations for most of the day, about 9pm the tentacles began to look less full, I made sure I had everything I would need to begin treatment if needed.

Day 3-

Came home from work today with approx. 15% of the tentacles beginning to look stringy, the mouth was slightly open approx. .75 inches, I made the decision to begin setting up a treatment tank and move the magnifica into it tonight.

So here is the interesting part. I set the tank up which is a 10g with a sump return pump for flow. The tank is sitting in my broken 55g (kids broke it a little over a month ago) which still has its 4bulb t5 fixture so I placed the 10g down inside the tank for the purpose of using it for lighting. I placed a basket in the 10g that just so happens to fit perfectly added the heater and water matched salinity etc.

Well By the time I went to pull the nem out of my display tank one half of the nem had deflated tentacles but the other half looked mostly normal (only slightly less full). As I began removing the nem from the rock work, which it was still stuck to fairly well I noticed something weird as heck......My finger went right through the center bottom of the nem and out the mouth :O.

At this point I have realized one of two possibilities, either one the nem was starting to look bad because it has begun the splitting process which I know can and will make magnificas look pretty dismal for quite a few days, or it is deteriorating (but there is no bad smell so I feel its splitting not deteriorating). Either way it is still one of the weirdest things I have experienced with nems, especially magnificas which I have no kept successfully for over a year.

I decided to move it into the treatment tank regardless because even if it is splitting I would rather ensure that it is healthy and has a easy infection free split, and if it is sick than I would like to remove the bacterial infection and allow it to heal its hole in the middle.

As of now it is not expelling any zooxanthelle or "guts". I did take a number of pictures but I will load them up tomorrow morning for you to see Minh. This should be a fun one to follow.

Tyler