August update

So speckly maxima died shortly after my last post, there was no long drawn out death, just poof! the shell was empty.  Right after that I started giving the blue maxima the staredown and sure enough, it started to go downhill as well. It was really gaping for awhile and the bottom part of the mantle got kind of shrivelly but the mantle was still extending as normal (which really doesn't mean a bloody thing in clamworld) and its still hanging in there and is looking, I daresay, slightly better. At least its not gaping as badly but the mantle is still shrivelled below the incurrent siphon.  Theres still hope I suppose.

Other than that, things are growing as usual, some things growing like mad, some not so much. I actually have one acro that is getting pretty close to the water, you can't really tell all that well in this shot but its within 1" of the surface which is pretty neat. I'll be interested to see what it does once it reaches the surface.

This acro is also being attacked by the orange digitata, you can see it through the branches and the digi is currently attempting to overtake the base of the acro (actually its already overtaken most of it and the base of the acro is pretty dead even though the arms are looking great). Sadly the digi is more interested in just killing everything around it and spreading horizontally more than vertically so I've decided to attempt to get rid of it. I say attempt because its bloody everywhere. Its encrusted on a ton of rock and really intertwined with that acro. I'm hoping to save the acro but it might come down to just removing that chunk of rock and fragging off a branch of the acro to start over.  Its really too bad as the digi is a gorgeous orange color that is seldom seen in hard corals (at least in my neck of the woods, I've only seen a montipora capricornis in that color) but the damned thing has such aggressive growth.  I've just never had such success with digitata before.

 Stupid digitata, why do you have to be so mean!?

Hmm, what else. Oh my dosing pump had a clogged line on it which caused the line to pop off right at the doser. It doesn't stop the doser from dosing whatever is handy., in this case the controller for my Tunze 6100.  I didn't really notice until a few days later (smrt) that the hose had popped off and about a week after that I noticed that the pump wasn't running. Then it took me another week to figure out what the problem was. Magnesium had dripped on the controller and "stuck" the feed control in the on position. So the pump would pulse when first turned on but then it thought it was in feed mode (permanently) so it would shut off. Luckily a fellow reefer came to my aid and gave me another controller so weeks later we are back on track.  Hmm, I wonder if the lessened flow was part of the clam issue??

Anyway, on to photos!  Tank shot as of yesterday:

and from the back:

A lot of my photos look like this ;)