Well, I have some unfortunate news to report.
Selling my previous system was crutial in order to fund this upgrade. When breaking down the 30G last week, I emptied the water and entire livestock from my 30G into a temporary 40BR holding tank that was borrowed from a friend here on URS. This was just before New Years.
Ever since then, my corals have been declining in health/color and I have been testing like crazy; ALL parameters were spot on. I did everything (water changes, added carbon/gfo, started skimming heavier, etc) and it seemed to help a bit. Today I woke up and almost half of my corals (all SPS and half of my LPS) were dead. All of my surviving corals (zoanthids aside) are in very poor health and most all lost a lot of color. Note- other than a few common (non-hazardous) flatworms, there are NO known pests in my system and I'm positive of it.
Now... my guess? I think something harmful was used in the 40BR before I got it, because when cleaning I noticed a chalky-brown substance coming off of the glass. Copper tested non-existant but I didn't have a chance to test until after a 75% water change was done, which probably cleared most of it out. Whatever it was, it didn't like corals. Lesson learned; don't ever put livestock into a used tank without knowing the history. :hmm3:
I'd like to thank Randy at ARC for allowing me to bring some of my corals into the shop in an effort to revive them.
Tomarrow the 57 is (knock on wood) going up and I'm going to use ALL new water/sand. So well I'm VERY pumped about the upgrade, it's bittersweet knowing that half of my corals didn't make it into the new tank. Bummer.
Hopefully I'll have better news to report tomarrow and maybe some build pics... will update soon!
PS- Nico, according to UPS (which I might add is slower than a snail, no pun intended) the sump will be here in the morning. Thank GOD!
