AgentSPS' 300 Gallon ***DreamReef***
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Robert4025
Member
Dang Erik....that sump belong in the Smithsonian! Nice!
Who made it? Gen? I bet it cost half as much as your beamer...
Who made it? Gen? I bet it cost half as much as your beamer...
AgentSPS
New member
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=13335940#post13335940 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Robert4025
Dang Erik....that sump belong in the Smithsonian! Nice!
Who made it? Gen? I bet it cost half as much as your beamer...
Thanks Robert! Gen hooked me up. Can't say it was cheap!
Robert4025
Member
Yeah...his work at Kritter Tank is defintely top notch. Unfortunately, so is his price.
I've been trying trying to send folks his way several times already but after they see his quote they would go
You got water flowing through that baby yet? I am so excited to see the rest of your work.
You're starting to become famous in some other forums beside RC....
...just so you know. Whenever you're ready for some really nice brown acros, let me know. I'll hook you up good.
AgentSPS
New member
Just wanted to provide some more material before the weekend. Because I didn’t have the luxury of playing photographer during the actual move, I have limited pics to share. I did, however, snap a few knowing you guys would be up in arms if I didn’t. I have been sort of dreading this part of the thread for reasons you will read about towards the bottom….
To store all the contents of this:
I borrowed one of these:
I constructed platform out of old eggcrate material I had laying around. This stuff becomes brittle over time so it took longer than my patience would allow. The calcium reactor will sit on the top. Adjacent is a container to hold the live sand.
After reading thread after thread after thread about AEFW, I decided it would be relatively safe and quick to treat all my corals with a Fluke Tab dip. More on that later
The first bucket was for the dip and the second was a rinse before placing the corals into a 50 gallon Rubbermade
When the corals are in the tank, it is easy to lose perspective how big some of the colonies can get. Check this out…I wear a size 10 shoe!
I HAD at least 3 colonies this big!
Soon I ran out of room placing colonies tip to tip in the 50 gallon Rubbermade. I was hoping to wait until the live rock was in the 200 gallon storage container BEFORE adding coral.
All told it took me 8 hours to break off all the colonies from the rockwork, dip, rinse, and place in the holding containers.
I woke up the next day to find that the water in the 50 Rubbermade was smelling kind of funky and was starting to get the dreaded milky color to it. Within an hour the tissue on many of the colonies had started to die off and it became a mad dash to setup the skimmer and mix up new water! Over the next few days I did countless water changes, carbon replacements, and removal of skeleton after skeleton. It took about a week to get things stable enough that the mass necrosis slowed/stopped. I was able to save only about 10% of my corals. It was particularly painful that I lost most of my oldest and most prized pieces. The saddest part was that this was self inflicted.
Its been about a month now and I have moved beyond the grieving phase and am looking forward to starting fresh. Before the move I was contemplating fragging all of my colonies and starting over from frags. In my experience, corals do much better long term if you start a colony off as a frag and it is allowed to grow into place. I guess the only change in plans is that I don’t have a frag stock to start with anymore. Fortunately this is a really generous community and I will likely be able to source many of the corals I lost. I am also looking forward to stumbling upon the next great gem!
To store all the contents of this:
I borrowed one of these:
I constructed platform out of old eggcrate material I had laying around. This stuff becomes brittle over time so it took longer than my patience would allow. The calcium reactor will sit on the top. Adjacent is a container to hold the live sand.
After reading thread after thread after thread about AEFW, I decided it would be relatively safe and quick to treat all my corals with a Fluke Tab dip. More on that later
The first bucket was for the dip and the second was a rinse before placing the corals into a 50 gallon Rubbermade
When the corals are in the tank, it is easy to lose perspective how big some of the colonies can get. Check this out…I wear a size 10 shoe!
I HAD at least 3 colonies this big!
Soon I ran out of room placing colonies tip to tip in the 50 gallon Rubbermade. I was hoping to wait until the live rock was in the 200 gallon storage container BEFORE adding coral.
All told it took me 8 hours to break off all the colonies from the rockwork, dip, rinse, and place in the holding containers.
I woke up the next day to find that the water in the 50 Rubbermade was smelling kind of funky and was starting to get the dreaded milky color to it. Within an hour the tissue on many of the colonies had started to die off and it became a mad dash to setup the skimmer and mix up new water! Over the next few days I did countless water changes, carbon replacements, and removal of skeleton after skeleton. It took about a week to get things stable enough that the mass necrosis slowed/stopped. I was able to save only about 10% of my corals. It was particularly painful that I lost most of my oldest and most prized pieces. The saddest part was that this was self inflicted.
Its been about a month now and I have moved beyond the grieving phase and am looking forward to starting fresh. Before the move I was contemplating fragging all of my colonies and starting over from frags. In my experience, corals do much better long term if you start a colony off as a frag and it is allowed to grow into place. I guess the only change in plans is that I don’t have a frag stock to start with anymore. Fortunately this is a really generous community and I will likely be able to source many of the corals I lost. I am also looking forward to stumbling upon the next great gem!
Erik, First of all I would like to offer you my most sincere and heartfelt apology for this incident. Having seen your last tank and its inhabitants, I know that your collection was one of a kind.
As you know, I am setting up a QT system to hold my corals during the dipping process. After its all said and done, I would be more than willing to get you any pieces that I might have left.
Best of luck.
As you know, I am setting up a QT system to hold my corals during the dipping process. After its all said and done, I would be more than willing to get you any pieces that I might have left.
Best of luck.
Robert4025
Member
I am so sorry for your lost, Erik. I know how painful it must have been. I am glad that you where able to save some friends. I am also glad to hear that you still see the postive sides to things like this. Things like this sometime question your commitment to the hobby, you know? Defintely a true reefer by heart. Let me know if there's anything I can help with.
purebullet417
Rimless Reef Club
wow sorry about the loss. we lost everything in our last 210 due to a seem splitting in the middle of the night. its hard but now planning something bigger and better. best of luck looking foward to this build
AgentSPS
New member
Mark:
Thanks for the kind words and I appreciate the offer. I am following your progress with the treatments. Based on my experience, I cannot recommend Fluke Tabs :lol:
I read some interesting stuff about Praziquantel but nobody could get a hold of the drug to perform real tests. Anyhow it looked promising as a full tank treatment.
There is a product Prazi Pond which contains 100% Praziquantel. I actually located some at Connie's pond shop in San Leandro.
Robert:
Its going to take a lot more than that to take me out LOL.
Purebullet417:
What a tragic story! I don't know whats worse, the loss of the inhabitants or the damage to the house!! Hope all is well now?
EdReef:
I recently heard a similar story from James from Aquascene. I was surprised to hear this as I had almost 100% survival rate during my last move. In retrospect it was a decision on my part to do the dip during the tare down. This is not to say I would not have experienced the same outcome but it just compounded the risk.
Thanks for the kind words and I appreciate the offer. I am following your progress with the treatments. Based on my experience, I cannot recommend Fluke Tabs :lol:
I read some interesting stuff about Praziquantel but nobody could get a hold of the drug to perform real tests. Anyhow it looked promising as a full tank treatment.
There is a product Prazi Pond which contains 100% Praziquantel. I actually located some at Connie's pond shop in San Leandro.
Robert:
Its going to take a lot more than that to take me out LOL.
Purebullet417:
What a tragic story! I don't know whats worse, the loss of the inhabitants or the damage to the house!! Hope all is well now?
EdReef:
I recently heard a similar story from James from Aquascene. I was surprised to hear this as I had almost 100% survival rate during my last move. In retrospect it was a decision on my part to do the dip during the tare down. This is not to say I would not have experienced the same outcome but it just compounded the risk.
purebullet417
Rimless Reef Club
lol well watching it after it was to late to do anything was probably the worst but all glass aquariums stepped up and paid for the tank stand canopy and new carpet. its actually my uncles tank this happened to but i just call it ours. he was in shock from it but you know how reefing is must always go bigger and better
Ziggy953
Member
I totally feel for you. I have gone through a similar issue in the last 6 weeks. I had a tank crack on me and all of my reef was in a 90g pond in the floor next to the tank for nearly 2 weeks. I lost all but 1 of my large colonies. Fortunately I have frags of them so it wasn't a total loss. My new 120 looks bare with all these little frags. I forgot what it was like to see more rock then coral.
Really sorry to hear you lost so much.
Really sorry to hear you lost so much.
purebullet417
Rimless Reef Club
wow you had some serious colonies nothing we had was anything like that. really sorry for you loss but thats one of the good things about rc you can almost always find the stuff again from other people
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