My WORST loss EVER!

[DvBrien]

My worst loss is a 100+ head frogspawn...

I know what I'm about to say pals in comparison to many, but I am feeling really depressed about this one... I move an aquarium 50 miles and killed frogspawn with over 100 heads on it and the size of a basketball. Because I set the light up with too much intensity and the majority of the coral has bleeched out except the heads. Which are ejecting and partially exposing the skeletal structure so far I'm sure the end is near!

In the attempt to make me feel better and for future reefers let me know you've been there starting with "my WORST loss EVER" and tell us your story... and hope for better days...

 

[kcinnick]

Even if you loose all the heads, it can come back.

 

[fairl80z]

Good luck with it coming back , I know that is a hard loss

 

[DvBrien]

I'd rather not be optimistic... it's not really feasible, I've lost them before that started like this. I can only hope and take steps. If you have a suggestion PM me dont post them here. I don't want the topic to change to what I can do, or how to save it. This thread isn't intended for discussion, but for stories of loss and details.

 

[BrianKC]

That sucks. My whole reef crashed two years ago to a ATO malfunction. A monti the size of a bread plate. A Duncan with 75ish heads. A few acro the sizes of baseballs. And the fish. All my fish except a tomato clown who went to the LFS. GL man.

 

[aadams22]

That sucks. My whole reef crashed two years ago to a ATO malfunction. A monti the size of a bread plate. A Duncan with 75ish heads. A few acro the sizes of baseballs. And the fish. All my fish except a tomato clown who went to the LFS. GL man.

An ATO malfunction?? Must have been some serious issues there!

 

[BrianKC]

An ATO malfunction?? Must have been some serious issues there!

Heed this advice: NEVER CONNECT YOUR ATO STRAIGHT TO YOUR RODI.

Though I had redundant fail safes that had worked for three years, both the hose timer and float valve failed while on vacation. 6 days of RODI trickled in.

Always use a separate ATO reservoir and never let your reservoir be larger than what your tank can weather if it all flowed into your tank. E.g., my reservoir is 10g for my 65 DT and 20 sump (minor flooding might happen but the tank would survive).

 

[BrianKC]

It took me 2 years to recover emotionally. Got back in the saddle in October.

 

[Brett28]

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.

 

[Frontier]

My tale of woe:

Click

Just getting back into hobby. GL, I hope it bounces back!

 

[Webmanny]

I feel for you buddy. I had issues a few months ago and I lost almost everything in my tank. I decided to give most of my corals away to forum friends near by. I'd rather give them away than see then die in my tank.

My issue was with a bad batch of salt, combined with a return pump that went bad.

I lost/had to give away a Torch, a bunch of SPS corals, some duncans, etc. It was a bad few days, but once I found and corrected the issues, things started to take a turn for the better.

I hope things get better with your tank as well. Good luck!

 

[DvBrien]

I can honestly say this didn't make me feel better. It made me feel worse for you guys though... I'm at least not alone...

 

[BrianKC]

I can honestly say this didn't make me feel better. It made me feel worse for you guys though... I'm at least not alone...

Try this then. My major loss was a really valuable teaching lesson for me. While it was devastating, I think it made me a better reefer. It also gives a cautionary tale that I share whenever I can in the hopes that if even one reef is saved from the same mistake, it was worth it for the whole of the hobby.

We all have setbacks. I enjoy this quote; the real difference between an amateur and a professional isn't that the professional makes no mistakes...it's that she knows what to do when she makes one.

So, let's strive to be professionals and be ready when mistakes happen.

 

[Webmanny]

Maybe this will help. Two of my favourite quotes, both from Edison.

"I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work."

"Our greatest weakness lies in giving up. The most certain way to succeed is always to try just one more time."

 

[Reef Bass]

"Never give up! Never surrender!"

 

[kcinnick]

I know you want to hear horror stories, I don't want to relive them... majority tank lost for Katrina and Gustav...

I do want to know how your coral is doing? Any heads looking better? They are so fragile yet so resilient, it is amazing to watch the recovery such simple and beautiful creatures go through.

 

[Webmanny]

On the positive side, like kcinnick said... these things do recover. Stay positive and "keep on swimming".

This is my Frogspawn when I first got it in 2013 with just one head.

It got to 8 heads in February of 2015:

Then disaster struck and it lost almost all its heads, but two. However, after just a few month, things started to look better and this is it now. Still not as big, but healthy.

 

[DvBrien]

No improvement... Looks the same, I guess maybe that's positive... I have done a water change removing about half the volume, moved it to low current and dropped my lighting to less than 10%. If it gets through the week I'd think the odds of survival increase dramatically. Oh, I also put a better skimmer on it that would pull just about everything out of the water and added carbon... The main concern was, when I got the tank I was able to save half of the water... but when I seen the RO/DI she had been using it was loaded with Iron in the micron filter so I knew the carbon filter was shot and she loaded the DI filter upside down so it was just being bypassed. It was displaying 279 ppm on the (apparently never checked, but included) ppm digital read out. Fortunately I can make 200 gpd. My salt supply suffered that night. The good thing is... the heads haven't melted off the skeleton as I have seen before. I did find out that by some miracle she had been able to keep it alive for 6 years. Will post a picture when the light are on. Maybe not, I forgot what a pain in the *** it is to post on this forum even after 10+ years. (?)

 

[DvBrien]

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.

 

[BrianKC]

Dude! You're in good shape. Phew! Mitigate and plan for disaster. You actually are a good example of just that..."fortunately, I had a lot of good water made..." Contingency planning is key.