mortonl
New member
I cannot even believe what the last 24 hours has brought to my life with respect to this hobby. Basically I killed 100% of my livestock and 75% of my corals. As the subject line says, from beautiful to ruined in 24 hours!
So here are the sequence of events:
Sunday morning drained about 20% of my tank to glue in some cross bracing. Wanted to give the silicone a chance to dry, so I left water level low, well below my overflow. I figured since I have closed loop system of about 20x's turnover, all would be OK.
Woke up monday to find all livestock dead: 6" blue tang, 5" purple tang, coral beauty, flame angel, etc....about 12 fish dead and a living room with that decaying rotting sea smell.
Apparently not having my overflow and return running meant little to no oxygen, which is my theory as to why the dead livestock. Additionally, since no return, no chiller, so tank may have gotten hot as well, even though ambient air was 80 because of house AC.
Anyway, coral still looked ok, so I jump into action to do 100% water change. Find 200g tank and pump and I am off. Talk to LFS and they said coral should be ok during drain and refill, but I decide to play it safe and move most of my coral to buckets in new clean water. Well, I guess I did not think about the fact that it was so hot in the sun and ended up baking and killing my coral in about 95 degree water in about 30-45 minutes. Was that really stupid to not anticipate that result? that part really kills me!!!
And if you think it can't get worse, now I hurry to put the half living coral back in the tank with 100% new water, only to have their dying excretions contaminate the new water.
So now with the water stinking again with that rotting sea smell, and my wife telling me she is going to vomit from the smell if I don't do something, I head back to the LFS for more water and another 100% water change, this time leaving coral in tank.
Oh yeah, and to insult to injury, on the second trip home with water, because I only bought 175 gal in a 200 gal tank, the water sloshed forward and back, moving the 1600 lb tank to the back of my trailer. BTW, I did notice the water affecting the ride of my car down the freeway, so I did know something was happening.
As I turned up a little hill in the middle of a busy intersection, I hear a big thud!. You guessed it, the tank slid off the trailer onto the street. Now you tell me...what do you do with a 200 gal cube on a busy street with 175 gal of sea water in it? Right, yell at the top of your lungs and be glad you do not have a gun on your passenger seat to shoot yourself for being an idiot and not strapping down the tank!
Why would you need to do that? You had already made one trip with 200 gal and the tank did not move, right? Except for the fact that with the tank full it could not slosh back and forth and dislodge itself from its resting place. So now I have to head home (2 blocks) and get every bucket and cooler known to man to off load some of the weight to get the cube back on the trailer. I am lucky enough to have many neighbors stop and help me out, so about 1 hour later, I am home with the water, albeit more exasperated.
It is now going on 8pm and I have been fighting this all day. Needless to say I am physically and emotionally exhausted. As many of us who are not so lucky know, this hobby requires hours and hours of work, education, TLC, etc. just to keep your tank running, and to see it all go to waste before your eyes, and because of your stupid moves is extremely disheartening and overwhelming.
So at 6am Tues, it looks like all sps gone, and many other wonderful pieces. I am emotionally devastated and exhausted and my mind is spinning with what to do: Take everything out, let my rock completely die, and start from scratch? wait 24 hours, more water changes? I guess I will have to see what today brings, oh and try to actually work today.
They say writing is good therapy, so I hope this thread helps. I also hope someone can learn from my idiotic mistakes, and maybe you can laugh and cry with me over this tragedy!
One sad reefer.
So here are the sequence of events:
Sunday morning drained about 20% of my tank to glue in some cross bracing. Wanted to give the silicone a chance to dry, so I left water level low, well below my overflow. I figured since I have closed loop system of about 20x's turnover, all would be OK.
Woke up monday to find all livestock dead: 6" blue tang, 5" purple tang, coral beauty, flame angel, etc....about 12 fish dead and a living room with that decaying rotting sea smell.
Apparently not having my overflow and return running meant little to no oxygen, which is my theory as to why the dead livestock. Additionally, since no return, no chiller, so tank may have gotten hot as well, even though ambient air was 80 because of house AC.
Anyway, coral still looked ok, so I jump into action to do 100% water change. Find 200g tank and pump and I am off. Talk to LFS and they said coral should be ok during drain and refill, but I decide to play it safe and move most of my coral to buckets in new clean water. Well, I guess I did not think about the fact that it was so hot in the sun and ended up baking and killing my coral in about 95 degree water in about 30-45 minutes. Was that really stupid to not anticipate that result? that part really kills me!!!
And if you think it can't get worse, now I hurry to put the half living coral back in the tank with 100% new water, only to have their dying excretions contaminate the new water.
So now with the water stinking again with that rotting sea smell, and my wife telling me she is going to vomit from the smell if I don't do something, I head back to the LFS for more water and another 100% water change, this time leaving coral in tank.
Oh yeah, and to insult to injury, on the second trip home with water, because I only bought 175 gal in a 200 gal tank, the water sloshed forward and back, moving the 1600 lb tank to the back of my trailer. BTW, I did notice the water affecting the ride of my car down the freeway, so I did know something was happening.
As I turned up a little hill in the middle of a busy intersection, I hear a big thud!. You guessed it, the tank slid off the trailer onto the street. Now you tell me...what do you do with a 200 gal cube on a busy street with 175 gal of sea water in it? Right, yell at the top of your lungs and be glad you do not have a gun on your passenger seat to shoot yourself for being an idiot and not strapping down the tank!
Why would you need to do that? You had already made one trip with 200 gal and the tank did not move, right? Except for the fact that with the tank full it could not slosh back and forth and dislodge itself from its resting place. So now I have to head home (2 blocks) and get every bucket and cooler known to man to off load some of the weight to get the cube back on the trailer. I am lucky enough to have many neighbors stop and help me out, so about 1 hour later, I am home with the water, albeit more exasperated.
It is now going on 8pm and I have been fighting this all day. Needless to say I am physically and emotionally exhausted. As many of us who are not so lucky know, this hobby requires hours and hours of work, education, TLC, etc. just to keep your tank running, and to see it all go to waste before your eyes, and because of your stupid moves is extremely disheartening and overwhelming.
So at 6am Tues, it looks like all sps gone, and many other wonderful pieces. I am emotionally devastated and exhausted and my mind is spinning with what to do: Take everything out, let my rock completely die, and start from scratch? wait 24 hours, more water changes? I guess I will have to see what today brings, oh and try to actually work today.
They say writing is good therapy, so I hope this thread helps. I also hope someone can learn from my idiotic mistakes, and maybe you can laugh and cry with me over this tragedy!
One sad reefer.
