Angry with myself for ignoring my tank

AIR-FX

New member
I lost a bunch of coral about 7 months ago due to forgetting to put the lock back on my stand doors.......one of my 2 yr old twins threw a handful of coins n my sump and unplugged my skimmer ,gfo,and carbon reactor. Then 90% of my corals died. I was ****ed(at myself)for such an oversght on my part. Well that led me to want to just get out and sell everything,but my business got super busy and I just left it alone,aside from a 20 gal water change every month in a half or so,and adding ro\di when sump was low. Well.....the other day I looked at the tank and it looked pitiful. I set out to get her back in shape. So I test my water first to see what needs help first........I hate admittingthis but my SG was crazy high at 37......its the only test I needed to do. I m shocked my fish were still alive and then I noticed my emerld crabs ,snaills,and cleaner shrimp were not to be found. Sooooo.....I mixed up 25 gals of new saltwater at- 25......took 5 buckets out while cleaning the sand bed well.......added my new SW. It took it down to 34......today I took out another 5 gal and added 5 gal of ro\di. It's down to 32. My buddy Randy at arc gave me good advice but the said to only do 1 gal a day over the next 2 weeks and bring it down slowly to her fish adjust easier. The only reason I did 5 gal instead of 1 is because in the winter my tank needs 5 gal of ro\di water pretty much every day 1\2 due to evaporation from ut dry heat from radiators in my 1902 victorian.. This is like my confession at reeferss anonymous...... Hi my names Kevin and I have a problem. I'm on the road to recovery and will continually work on being a more attentive reef tank keeper:beer:
 
Sorry I think I understand. I thought you meant salinity rather than SG. But yeah a SG of 1.037 is crazy high.
 
Tanks for sharing Kevin :p We've all been there, My last Ammonia spike was 37 days ago LOL ( Back to Saltwater anonymous lol) In all seriousness this is a strange hobby/passion/obsession and like and hobby has its ups n downs high points and low points.. I know in 20 years of having a saltwater tank at least a combined total of 7-8 years were neglectful. But as I was just telling a fellow reefer here who was going to tear down his system and sell it all, don't give up this hobby always draws us back in and overtime we will want back in because it calls us.. Its Relaxing, Challenging, Frustrating and most Importantly rewarding (Kinda sounds like my wife LOL).. take the good with the bad and move ahead and try not to beat yourself up when you see it slumping, turn it around as you currently are. Keep coming back(not again rofl)
 
Totally agree. This is a hobby. Not a destination. Life interrupts. If you still have the passion, you'll rebound.
 
well like my wife said......at least you didnt start yelling at the kids and you realized it wasnt their fault....and that i knew it was my fault for fogetting to put the lock back on. lol. life sometimes gets you in a rush and we overlook small details. they are only 2.....im 45 and i should know better. live n learn. there is no excuse for the ultra high salinity tho.....its inexcusable. now that little bit of maintenance has caused me a ton of work and concern for my fish:headwalls:
 
Fortunately the fished looked good somehow so there's a good chance everything will work out.. You still slowly bring it back down? Where's it at now?
 
Your Story sounds very familiar. Except my neglected tank was running super low sg for months . All my fish looked fine. But every piece of algae, coral and fauna down to the pods died. I ended up draining the tank cooking my rock and starting over. This time trying to keep it simple and only keeping what I have time for. The only thing that kept me from selling it all off was my buddy a huge 10yr old hippo tang. He is def happy I snapped out of it and cleaned his house up.

Good luck getting your tank right.
Warning the addiction kicks back in fast!
 
Life has a way of getting busy :) I had a crash at the end of 2013 and then my tank suffered further in 2014 when virtually every waking moment of my life was absorbed consumed by my rental properties.

My tank was on the mend for all of 2015. My LPS/zoas half looks good, but my SPS half is basically a full reboot.

I know that a couple of folks would like to get togehter for trades. I'm probably a couple of weeks out on that, but I look forward to swapping corals again.
 
So did you hit the coveted .026 yet ? Hows it coming? Your RBTA is starting to get some color finally, and growing too.. hopefully by next week or so it will be fully colored back up :)
 
I'm sorry to hear about the losses.

A couple of things about the effects of high and low salinity.

Fish have an internal salinity of about 1.008 ;so they tolerate drops even large ones well to that point. They just drink more or less to maintain it and process out more or less salt;aka they osmoregulate. Their renal sytem has evolved to function at an average of 1.0264 with some a bit higher and some lower depending on their point of origin but they can all tolerate a range on the low side for long periods of time above 1.008. Rasing sg quickly does stress them though since they need time to adjust and can go into osmotic shock when sg is raised suddenly. .001 sg increases per day are safe.

Other organisms in the tank have no renal systems and no ability to osmoregulate like fish ; their internal salinity is mostly the same as the water around them. Their tolerance for high or low sg is much more limited .

Internal sg governs homeostasis which allows the internal chemistry and organs to function. If homeostasis is lost the organism will die. Fish and other higher animals like you and I govern it by drinking water and processing salts. Invertibrates( croals, anemones, pods et alia) can't do that. So while low sg of say 1.022 or less might be fine for a fish it will likely kill an invert. Same case for extremely high sg. A fish might have to work very hard to survive it but the invert has no means to do so.
 
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Saw Tom earlier today, he never ceases to amaze me with his wealth of knowledge regarding our hobby .. this guy knows his BLEEP This is why I love this forum, honestly I had No idea a fish internal SG was 1.008.. You da man Tom!
 
sad news....after making it through all of my neglect and never getting ick after bringing the SG down...my hippo tang of 3 yrs commiited fishy suicide and for some reason jumped out of the tank. she did it once b4 but i was able to save her. this time i had no such luck. this sucks. once again my fault....i have had the netting and framing to make 2 tops for my tank after losing 3 other fish that jumped to their death for probably six months now and have not made them yet. looks like they will be made tomorrow:angryfire:
 
It was nice to bump into you at ARC, it's been years since I saw you at my house during a reef crawl Picked up some nice squampinis anthias and a lime wrasse I've been looking for along with a micromussa and a nice acan. I started out looking for an alk test kit ,since the hanah reagents are being recalled leaving me with a useless test but decided to treat myself to a few new things too.
 
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