My WORST loss EVER!

[MidwesternTexan]

180 reef, 75 gallon sump 5 400w MH 4 HOT5 and 2 VHO. Loaded with sps, Bali slimer, millies, Oregon tort, velida, and a couple really cool colonies I purchased from the LFS as browned out unnamed spiecies that turned blue. A couple clams 4 maybe 5 inches, Had 1 blue mandarin and 1 red, emporer angel, sarggasm trigger, potters wrasse, fairy wrasse, blonde naso, tomini tang, 5 Bartlett anthias. Some GSP, frogs pawn, torch and purple monti. Just to name what I can remember. (This was about 8 yrs ago). I was working out of town and had only the weekends home. My 3rd week out, the ATO stuck open in my sump. All the water pumped in to the display and back down in the sump. Eventually overflowing the sump. My guess it ran like that for a couple days. Totally depleting all the salt. My wife called me later that week mad as a hornet be cuz the basement was flooded. I left work immediately and drove home to find everthing dead and a basement needing to be remodeled. I had a dream setup. With complete MH PFO ballast and fixtures, Kalk mixer, calcium reactor, ozone, a custom BARR AQUATICS beckett skimmer, 4 3/4"seaswirls, 2 dolphin ampmaster pumps..... needless to say, I felt like a part of my soul just died when that happened. Just remember that the small things can kill.

I have the hardest time believing- that a house in FW has a basement!

 

[MidwesternTexan]

UPDATE>>>Before... Tank depth is 24" coral depth just over 12"

In Transport

After the lighting situation

So after the move and the reassembly of the tank this is what he looks like today... Fortunately, I had a lot of good water made and I think this contributed to the minimization of the damage I caused. I also left the lights off for 2 days and have slowly brought them up to 18% so far on my AI SOL Blues.

I still have a disaster coming... This is the most Humbling hobby in the world of course after Sky Diving... unfortunately I like/do both.

NIce, time to get some sps! ;-)

 

[DvBrien]

I'll take what is a frag pack? For 100 Alex!

 

[karimwassef]

When I see stress damage like this, I usually frag and position in multiple locations. Sometimes, little things can help a weak coral recover more successfully. This is really effective in times of change and it gives the coral the greatest chance for recovery.

I use the successful heads as markers for optimal conditions and then duplicate that for the other frags in the new tank setup.

Think of it as a team effort with the heads being individuals on the team. When things get rough, they split up, find a place to win, then call for their friends to join. Team WIN!

 

[BrianKC]

When I see stress damage like this, I usually frag and position in multiple locations. Sometimes, little things can help a weak coral recover more successfully. This is really effective in times of change and it gives the coral the greatest chance for recovery.

I use the successful heads as markers for optimal conditions and then duplicate that for the other frags in the new tank setup.

Think of it as a team effort with the heads being individuals on the team. When things get rough, they split up, find a place to win, then call for their friends to join. Team WIN!

This is the opposite of the lesson we learned from Voltron, but, good advice nonetheless.

 

[karimwassef]

Hey.. They reunite in the end

This works most of the time, but not all the time.

I can't explain it, but fragging seems to turn on an extra boost of survivability. Not sure how the polyps know, but they're made to break off and live wherever they go. The frags are almost always more robust than the original colony together.

 

[DvBrien]

Couldn't have done it... it would have completely defeated the purpose of having such a large colony, for me to bust it up.

 

[Webmanny]

DvBrien,

You are golden. This coral looks like it bounced back really good. I don't see any alarming signs from the picture below. Great work on saving this great colony. Good luck going forward.

<img src="https://scontent.ford1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xft1/v/t1.0-9/12642428_10156459016295433_1490719387556239799_n.jpg?oh=06af6d5c9c931efc5f93dee8480e0962&oe=572402F9" alt=" " height="600" width="800">

 

[DvBrien]

I found this under the coral on the rock today... Is this a Majano Anemone? I've never actually had one before and pictures don't really match what I've seen.

 

[karimwassef]

Couldn't have done it... it would have completely defeated the purpose of having such a large colony, for me to bust it up.

Don't think of it as breaking one big colony into many small colonies.
Think of it as creating many big colonies out of one big colony and time.

Corals do this to reproduce quickly, not to get smaller. I've never regretted fragging because, in a healthy tank, one big colony is not 10 small frags. It's 10 big colonies waiting to be born!!

Think of 10 massive heads instead of 1. Then 100... If you have unused surface area and enough calcium, then there's room to multiply. It's what our corals want to do...

Ok- sorry for veering into the philosophical there. it's just a gorgeous head that could make ten of the same.

My reef consumes about a Kg of kalk a month... It's a massive daily infusion of calcium.

 

[Webmanny]

I found this under the coral on the rock today... Is this a Majano Anemone? I've never actually had one before and pictures don't really match what I've seen.

It does look like one, but I've never had them in my tank, so I'm not the best person to confirm.

 

[jbvdhp]

I've had total losses of FS and hammers. Something caused my tank to crash and I lost many lps. Surprisingly, a few months later, tiny little buds start sprouting and I have baby FS and hammers again. I hope they'll become large colonies like I had. It's nice to know they somehow survived enough!

I hope yours pulls thru

 

[DvBrien]

I have been real fortunate. I've lost 3 heads so far and found 3 more from underneath. One of the new finds was from an old a yellowed stalk that had died. crazy how they can return...