Left for a 5 day cruise. Come home to a dead tank

I

iSeeMax101

New member
I've been back for a week or so now. I've been waiting to see what has survived and what has been lost. I've finally started getting a grip on sps and have finally grown out some colonies just to return to a heavily clouded system with no electricity in the house and everything absolutely bleached. Lost all of my fish in the tank except my cherished Regal Angel along with my clarkii and mystery wrasse. The other 15-16 didn't make it. Some softies survived with 3 large water changes but mostly everything was lost. I'm not a super coral hoarder so I can only imagine what those who have far more time into their passion have gone through before me but what I did have I worked hard to keep and was proud of my accomplishments.

The entire Sump was dead. Not sure how what little that did survive made it but I'm thankful it did. I'm a little torn between bringing the tank down and taking a break for a bit or just restocking and getting back on the horse. All I can say is that if I decide to stick around, I will never make another over night trip anywhere without having 2 separate battery backups in place. It's been a week and I'm still pretty broken over the entire experience. Still not sure which direction to go. Sucks for sure.

Here's a photo of the tank the day before I left. The following are photos after 3 water changes the night I arrived home after draining the sump and immediately removing all dead fish . 100% broken for sure.

If you don't think it can happen to you, think again. Prepare properly before any trips, people. We can end seeing posts like this just by taking the necessary steps to protect these creatures who depend on us. Let's not continue to let them down. Murphy's law in full effect.

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Dude that sucks. Sadly most of us have gone through it. Once things balance back out hit me up I can cut you some frags
 
damn that sucks man.. keep doing water changes until your numbers are balanced and let it ride out. I can help you stock up on corals after.

did you find out the reason? did the whole house go out of power and your system didn't restart?

don't you have an APEX? if not, come grab mine. i have 2 extra sets. that way you'll know if something's wrong and I can head over.

lastly.. vacation is fine. need to contact one of us to watch your tank after a few days (even with controller monitor)
 
iSeeMax101 said:
I've been back for a week or so now. I've been waiting to see what has survived and what has been lost. I've finally started getting a grip on sps and have finally grown out some colonies just to return to a heavily clouded system with no electricity in the house and everything absolutely bleached. Lost all of my fish in the tank except my cherished Regal Angel along with my clarkii and mystery wrasse. The other 15-16 didn't make it. Some softies survived with 3 large water changes but mostly everything was lost. I'm not a super coral hoarder so I can only imagine what those who have far more time into their passion have gone through before me but what I did have I worked hard to keep and was proud of my accomplishments.

The entire Sump was dead. Not sure how what little that did survive made it but I'm thankful it did. I'm a little torn between bringing the tank down and taking a break for a bit or just restocking and getting back on the horse. All I can say is that if I decide to stick around, I will never make another over night trip anywhere without having 2 separate battery backups in place. It's been a week and I'm still pretty broken over the entire experience. Still not sure which direction to go. Sucks for sure.

Here's a photo of the tank the day before I left. The following are photos after 3 water changes the night I arrived home after draining the sump and immediately removing all dead fish . 100% broken for sure.

If you don't think it can happen to you, think again. Prepare properly before any trips, people. We can end seeing posts like this just by taking the necessary steps to protect these creatures who depend on us. Let's not continue to let them down. Murphy's law in full effect.
Click to expand...

Sorry for your loss.. we have all had it happen. I'm comeing off the back side of a similar loss except I watched mine happen over 6 weeks and nothing I tried seemed to help :(

In the future, get a local friend to stop by and check on the tank. Spend an hour with them going over the major systems a day or so before you leave.
 
"you've got to take the good with the bad, smile with the sad. love what you've got, and remember what you had. always forgive but never forget. learn from mistakes. never regret."

ahh man, sorry to hear you went through this. Follow what's hanging on your wall!! Mount up!

It sounds like you have a good plan in place. Like others have said, Apex will help, even allow friends to monitor tank. I also use a camera that I can check in on.
 
First Sorry! How did you lose power or was it a local outage? Did the tank not come back on? I had a similar loss in my early days of reefing and have put some systems in place including a tank sitter to try and make sure I never have a large loss again.

With that said all systems can crash and if you read your sign on the wall you will have regrets, but get past it and overcome. I would figure a few ways to better power proof your system, an air Pump on a relay can be set up pretty cheaply and would save the fish.

I have recovered from Crashes and Disease and If you truly enjoy the Hobby I would advise staying in. Let me know when you stabilize and if you make a trip to my house I will cut you some frags to help get you back in the game.

One last thing I can advise is we all need a vacation and once you have your system in place forget about the tank when you are gone, I had a few years of ruined vacations and fighting with Mama because I was distracted by my Reef. Now I go on every trip knowing that my friend Phil will probably kill it all, and I instruct him not even to call me if there is a problem. I do have a list of numbers for him to call and between him and a few other friends they can deal with it.

My Travels have been so much better since I stopped worrying! While I tease Phil he is a good friend and does a great job helping me out when I am out of town.

Sorry for your loss and I will donate some coral when you are ready.
 
Sorry for your loss. I've had the same, lost 50+ full size colonies when I was out of town.

Can't stress enough on this. Get someone to watch the tank when you're gone. I have a buddy who stays at my house when Our family leaves. He feeds the tank and watches the skimmer collection cup. He calls / FaceTimes if anything seems out of wack.

Get your levels back bud! You still have life in there


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
First off, so sorry to hear about your crash. Maybe you can take this time to use it to your advantage...ie. rescape, get rid of pests, etc.

Over the months i have seen many of your posts but i dont recall ever seeing a pic of your tank, not fts photo, but one from the rooms perspective. Now that i have, you cant quit the hobby! Just based on how your setup looks so nice in your living room! The stand is so unique and amazing looking, and i love how your tank is a wide peninsula! That tank looks like it BELONGS there. Dont quit! :)

Sent from my SM-J327T using Tapatalk
 
That is a very nice set up! Love the way it goes with the room and the aquascape is done beautifully.. bump on the road, you must keep reefing!
 
Thank you everyone for the support and kind words. I also appreciate everyone so willing to help me get back on my feet with this. I was told we had a storm here one of the days I was on the water, we were supposed to make land in Cabo but even the boat ended up touching ground in Ensenada. In any case, there was a power surge. It tripped the surge protector and stopped everything from coming back on. I have an Apex but didn’t have connection on the boat so didn’t know anything was off until I reached port in San Diego. I was supposed to stay out in Gas Lamp until Monday but with something seeming off with the tank I rushed home despite my already pre-paid hotel just to find the house stinking with a tank with zero water circulation filled with dead fish. I immediately started filling large bowls with tank water and dumping it into the display trying to add oxygen to the remaining fish gasping for air on the bottom. My floors were wet from a long slow leak from the sump.

Jamie, again you are very kind. You have all given me a lot of food for thought. I may even take some o you up on your offers. Some small frags would be more than generous. I also do not mind paying for anything you might want to sell as well. I’ve never been one with my hands out.

I’ve never experienced a tank crash. If you haven’t, allow me to be the first to tell you... it’s extremely disheartening. I spend a lot of time with my hands in my tank screwing up the pH. Probably more than I should on some days. You don’t know how attached you become to this hobby until it’s near stripped from you and floods your house with the smell of death.

A friend showed me how to make battery backups out of Marine batteries. Something for us all to consider “just in case”

Just trying to keep a positive frame of mind here.

Vanbro, moondoggy, euphoricgear, Tony,Joe Kelly, Vigil, 5.56, Cali,Richard, Learning, Scott, Dave, Juliet... thank you all again for your advice and empathy. You guys all rock. Thank you
 
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I know this doesnt help now but being local to you I am always willing to stop by and check out your tank if you travel again.

I travel a lot and having some local people that know what they are doing helps give me a peace of mind.

I have some SPS frags ready when you are free of charge.
 
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