My 500 + gallon system. Last 13 years to now. Build, Aquascaping & more. Lots of pics

[slief]

So sorry about the disaster, both with the tank and your son. As I visualized your son holding the beach over the tank, it screamed to me he wants your attention. (And he got it in a bad way).

What ever is going on, this tragic moment might be a blessing to save your son from a terrible future. Hope you guys can get some help and get back to a normal life.

Best of luck to you and your family...

Mark...

Thank you very much Mark! Sadly, he did this in retaliation for me threatening to tell his principal about him leaving the school for the third time after I warned him two previous times. He called me at work and told me to check my webcam where is he was apparently standing above the tank with a bottle of bleach. I didn't even look at the time and wasn't even thinking he was talking about the tank cam. His quote was "if I'm going to go down, I'm going to go out with a bang. I rushed home and he was waiting for me above the tank. On my way home, I sent him a text to go back to school or I would be talking to his principle. Apparently he had called my mom and told her he was going to bleach the tank. While I know he is always starved for attention, he is oppositional defiant which makes is real difficult. There is also so much more to this book than reads the cover. You know the term "Straw that broke the camels back.. Well this was no straw. More like a Giant Red Wood from the Sequoia's.

Things will work out one way or the other. I just don't trust him at all. He's the kind of kid that you would never want your kid hanging out with if you knew him beyond his charming persona. Snake in the grass comes to mind. He's the smartest stupid person I know. A 5 average kid who is failing in the better judgement department in a big way. He will outgrow it eventually but his been going down this path since he was 12 and he blames everybody else and like I said, there is so much more to it between drugs, shoplifting etc.

As for the tank, I decided to start dosing MicroBacter for the short term in an effort to bolster the biological bed. I have a pretty good supply and figured it couldn't hurt. I'm also doing a 40 gallon water change right now. Thank god for the Genesis as it makes the water changes simple and spot on with zero effort. I figure it too couldn't hurt but at the same time, I was kind of reluctant to do another water change as I've already changed out nearly 200 gallons in the last 24 hours. I really never liked doing major water changes on any of my tanks as I've always felt they can screw with your chemistry. Also given the age of my tank, volume, maintenance etc, I have never ever had a nitrate, nitrite or ammonia issue and I do mean never.

As an aside note, my sole survivor, the Engineer Goby ate the pellets I fed him tonight. That kind of surprised me as I figured he might have been too traumatized to want to eat. I take that as a good sign.

If all goes well over the next week, I will start adding fish again beginning next Thursday starting with a few tank raised oscillarus clowns and a couple yellow tail damsels. The next addition if those do well, will be a Fox Face and then a Naso will follow a week later. At the same time, I will be taking a trip to the wholesaler with my friend with the plan of getting a few flame angles, several cardinals, unicorn or vlamingi tang etc. Those will be QT'd for a couple weeks then introduced. Hopefully if all goes well, in 30 days the tank will start to look normal again with many of it's previous inhabitants replaced. This of course assuming that my tank remains stable and continues to improve without any major cycles.

 

[slief]

I also threw a bunch of 10 micron filter socks in the wash. I keep them for LaCl dosing if I need to deal with PO4. Not sure how much good it will do but I may throw a couple in tomorrow in place of 2 of my 200 micron socks. I will do this in the event that the water is still cloudy. I figure it would provide some good mechanical filtration which I'll rotate out with clean socks throughout the day. My ORP seems to be climbing albeit very slowly. It's up to 154 from a low of 145. Hopefully it continues to rise. Sad when not 30 hours ago, it was at 350+. Will update again tomorrow.

 

[shifty51008]

very sorry for the loss, glad things are bouncing back though. hopefully things will work out in the end for your tank and your family.

if I was closer I have a bunch of ocy clowns that I am breeding that I would give ya when they are ready to help with the restart

 

[slief]

very sorry for the loss, glad things are bouncing back though. hopefully things will work out in the end for your tank and your family.

if I was closer I have a bunch of ocy clowns that I am breeding that I would give ya when they are ready to help with the restart

Thank you very much! If you were closer, I would take you up on that!

While my water is still a bit hazy, the ORP is gradually climbing, It's now at 175. I just put two 10 micron socks in my sump to see if they make any difference. My lights won't start to come on for a couple hours but as far as I can see, all coral and my RBTA's are still hanging in there.

 

[ReefbyMe]

I"m so sorry - Great words of advice below

All I can say is how sorry I am for your tank and having issues with your son.As a father of 5 and prior issues with 1 of my sons,my advice make him accountable for his actions.Never stop loving him but let him know there are consequences for all actions and they will be enforced.Good luck

 

[slief]

I noticed my Aqua UV 114 watt bulbs were toast. Fortunately, I am always prepared for the worst and had extra UV bulbs and seals on hand. I just pulled my UV out. Thankfully, my plumbing setup and the use of unions and valves where needed made that simple. I cleaned the sleeves with vinegar even though they were pretty clean as a result of the wipers. I replaced all the seals and put it back in. It's running now. I'm hoping that my UV should help clear the water up pretty quick. It's something that I completely forgot about and glad I got that addressed.

ORP is continuing to rise. It's at 215 now. It rose 51 points in the last 12 hours. I'm also wet skimming at a rate of around 1 gallon every 4-6 hours or so.

 

[slief]

I think things are taking a turn for the better. My ORP is now up to 234 which is a big jump from the 160 it was at around 4AM. A couple of the soft corals are noticeably better looking. I think the water is starting to clear as well. In all honesty, I'm thinking it will be nothing short of a miracle if I saved this tank. I was incredibly fortunate to have pretty much everything I needed on hand to do what ever it took to turn this around in a hurry. As fast as those fish perished, I really thought every coral, invert biological bed, worm, etc would be gone. I know I'm not out of the woods yet as corals can die slowly but it seems based on my ORP that the tank is coming back fairly quick now.

Ever wonder what a bleach induced tank crash looks like from an ORP perspective.. Here you go. Pretty insane. You can see around 2PM on Thursday the ORP spike and then crash as a result of the bleach. It's been climbing steadily all day today and picked up steam later this afternoon.

 

[Newbie Aquarist]

Man I am sorry for what happened but the way you documented that was pretty cool. Now I see how a controller can record what good happens and bad.

 

[Midnightt]

I've read almost your entire thread. Pretty impressive stuff. I help a guy do salt installs when he needs it and happened to be on hand for one of the genesis systems. It is a ridiculously accurate system with tons of redundancy. It comes with something like 8 float switches and auto top offs etc. That being said. I don't think I'm going to use it because of room constraints. Those canisters are not little. That system was totally made for someone like you where they have tons of room.

What made you switch from the Litermeter to the Genesis? I'm considering that for auto-water changes. And for Auto top offs I'm going to let the Apex control.

Seeing that you have both I'm curious.

And, nice save on the system. My family has a problem child too. He is near his 30's and mom still won't let him go. It takes a lot of guts to say that staying at home is not the best thing for you right now.

 

[slief]

I've read almost your entire thread. Pretty impressive stuff. I help a guy do salt installs when he needs it and happened to be on hand for one of the genesis systems. It is a ridiculously accurate system with tons of redundancy. It comes with something like 8 float switches and auto top offs etc. That being said. I don't think I'm going to use it because of room constraints. Those canisters are not little. That system was totally made for someone like you where they have tons of room.

What made you switch from the Litermeter to the Genesis? I'm considering that for auto-water changes. And for Auto top offs I'm going to let the Apex control.

Seeing that you have both I'm curious.

And, nice save on the system. My family has a problem child too. He is near his 30's and mom still won't let him go. It takes a lot of guts to say that staying at home is not the best thing for you right now.

My reason for changing was primarely due to the lack of maintenance required for the renew. The LiterMeter requires regular cleaning of the rollers and also regular calibration. Without both, the flow rates can drift between pumps resulting in gradual increases or decreases in salinity. The other reason was the fact that the Litermeter is very slow when it comes to moving volumes of water. I like the fact that the Genesis can changes out a gallon every few minutes. I also like that I can tell it to do 40 or 50 gallon continuous water changes and it does it in short order. That feature has been incredibly valuable if not priceless in the wake of Thursdays disaster. At this point, I am REALLY glad I have the Genesis!

Now for an update.

As of this morning, the water is about 90-95% cleared up. Much better than last night. While my lights are still off, it's much much better. My ORP is now at 250 though I have been feeding ozone (250Mg) through my skimmer for the last 12 hours. It's been on a steady climb since very early yesterday and rose over 100 points since 4AM Saturday.


My plan was to do another large water change today between 50 and 100 gallons. I'm leaning towards 50 as I've already changed out nearly half my water in the last 65 hours and things appear to be bouncing back well now. Given that I have about 550G in my system, that is pretty close to 10%. I will also test my water again today but I think it should be pretty clean and ammonia free.

I have my Alpha 300 cranked way up and it's kicking a$$ like I've never seen. God I love that skimmer! I'm wet skimming at close to a 1 gallon an hour right now of greenish brown nasty skimmate. I've got it rigged up to drain directly to a 5 gallon bucket so I can relax a bit. Thank god I have a virtually unlimited supply of fresh mixed salt water. I'm definitely going to have to order up some new RODI cartridges Monday as I've made hundreds of gallons of RODI water over the last few days and even though its still producing 0 TDS water from my 500+TDS tap water, I always try to be prepared for that stuff. Thank god I also have a high output high efficiency unit. I get about a 1:1 ratio at 100 gallons per day of RODI. I actually have it set to produce a little more waster water to aid in cartridge longevity.

 

[dave.m]

Just curious as I've never encountered this situation before: is there a possibility that you may bring your ORP back up too high too fast? I know 250mV is still low but I'm wondering if too rapid an increase wouldn't be just as detrimental as the fast decrease was.

Dave.M

 

[slief]

Just curious as I've never encountered this situation before: is there a possibility that you may bring your ORP back up too high too fast? I know 250mV is still low but I'm wondering if too rapid an increase wouldn't be just as detrimental as the fast decrease was.

Dave.M

In this case, I don't think so. The ORP was climbing rapidly on its own beginning in the early hours yesterday. I have not been running O3 continually and had it on only briefly when I first attached it to the skimmer and then shut it off and kept it off through most of yesterday. I ran it from about 6 or 9PM last night to now to keep things from dropping over night and hopefully improve things further. I also reduced it's output this morning a little after shutting it off and noticing a drop in my ORP. I'm thinking that the next 100 point ORP increase is going to be much slower and more gradual but at 245 which is where it is now, I feel much better as it's a huge improvement and you can see it not only in the waters clarity this morning but also my soft corals which look pretty good even though the lights are still out. Once the lights are on for a bit, I will likely shut the O3 off and see how my ORP reacts. If it stays steady or continues to improve, I will keep the O3 off until tonight when the lights go out again.

With regards to the fast decrease in ORP being detrimental, I not sure it's the decrease itself that is the detriment as opposed to what caused the decease which was probably all the organics caused by the die off as well as the toxins in the bleach. As such, if my current increasing ORP trend is the result of those toxins and organics being exported from the tank, then the increase in ORP no matter how fast it is, would be a good thing provided it doesn't go off the charts which it wont. If I see the 350 ORP I had before this misadventure anytime in the next week or sooner, I will be a very happy camper and based on what I am seeing now, I think that just may be realistic if I keep up with what I am doing.

 

[h.cordero]

Could you explain a little bit of ORP? What's the benefits of a high ORP? Can you tell from looking at your corals if it's to low or high!?

 

[slief]

Could you explain a little bit of ORP? What's the benefits of a high ORP? Can you tell from looking at your corals if it's to low or high!?

For me, ORP is a great tool for measuring the quality of the water. The higher the ORP the better (to a point). Most aquarists who monitor ORP strive for levels in the 400 range. Very low ORP levels generally result of receded and unhappy corals. Higher ORP levels usually indicate higher quality water which if everything else is right, will result in happier corals. Anything over 500mv however starts getting into the danger area where corals and other life may begin to suffer.

This great article from Randy Holmes Farley will explain ORP in our tanks better than I can.
http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2003-12/rhf/feature/

 

[SnowySaint]

I'm a lurker, but I registered today because I wanted to send a post your way.

I know what it feels like to have a selfish child attack you with malice; intentionally trying to hurt you where it'll hurt the most. It sucks - plain and simple.

Do not be afraid to hurt and be angry, to deprive yourself of these feelings is to deprive yourself of the ability to eventually forgive. Feel what comes natural but remember that you mustn't let it harden your heart towards your child. Let it in but also let it out.

I hope for both of your sakes he takes responsibility for his actions, and I have a feeling you'll be eager to grow with him when that time comes.

Best luck and warm regards,

--SS

( I can't send PM's since I only lurk)

 

[slief]

I'm a lurker, but I registered today because I wanted to send a post your way.

I know what it feels like to have a selfish child attack you with malice; intentionally trying to hurt you where it'll hurt the most. It sucks - plain and simple.

Do not be afraid to hurt and be angry, to deprive yourself of these feelings is to deprive yourself of the ability to eventually forgive. Feel what comes natural but remember that you mustn't let it harden your heart towards your child. Let it in but also let it out.

I hope for both of your sakes he takes responsibility for his actions, and I have a feeling you'll be eager to grow with him when that time comes.

Best luck and warm regards,

--SS

( I can't send PM's since I only lurk)

Thank you very much for taking the time to share your kind thoughts! Those are great words of wisdom during such a trying time. I really appreciate it!

Thanks again Saint! Your username is fitting!
Scott

 

[slief]

The lights are on and what a difference a day makes. The water clarity is about 90% better than yesterday and almost completely clear and many of my corals are looking almost normal. Since the lights just came on, I think things will continue to improve over the course of the day. I just kicked off a 50 gallon water change which will take a couple hours as I'm using the Genesis to do it. Man that thing is been a blessing in disguise over my Litermeter. I'm also wet skimming at a rate of about a gallon an hour along with ozone and will continue to do so until the skimmate is clear. It's still coming out fairly murky so I know there is still plenty of waste to be removed from the water.

 

[slief]

Here are a few pictures from today. Not bad for having been nuked with bleach less than 72 hours ago. I need to clean the algae off the glass today as it is making it look more cloudy than it is. Things are looking MUCH MUCH better today but still a long way to go.

 

[slief]

 

[Newbie Aquarist]

Looks good Slief