Not how I wanted to change my stocking list.

[small alien]

I turned off the flow last night as I always do when feeding. I have some slow, bottom peckers and they need the food to settle out. So, I've been feeding like that for years. Last night I left the flow off over night for about 10 hours and lost about 1/3 of my fish.:facepalm: No oxygen.

A run-down.

Male OSFF - Dead
Male Leopard Wrasse - Probably alive
Female Leopard Wrasse - Alive
Male Scooter Dragonet - Dead
Female Scooter Dragonet - Alive
Female Scooter Dragonet - Dead
Male Clown - Alive
Female Clown - Alive
Cleaner Goby - Dead
Hector's Goby - Alive
Firefish Goby - Alive
Priolepis Goby - I see it twice a year for 0.4 seconds.
Banded Pipefish - Alive
Bluestripe Pipefish - Alive
Tailspot Blenny - Alive
Canary Wrasse - Alive
Tanaka's Possum Wrasse - Dead
Royal Gramma - Alive
Abrolhos Jaw - Probably alive
Papua Toby Puffer - Alive
Sunburst Anthias - Dead

Wow. It was kind of shocking. It helps to write it down as see it was 6 fish. It felt like more. Most unfortunately, one of them was my male orange spotted filefish which I've had nearly two years.

Also, a cleaner shrimp kicked the anchor. Other inverts coral and otherwise seem basically fine though my pom pom xenia isn't very pom pommy.

I know about various controllers and other ways of avoiding this mistake with technology and I will employ the proper measures moving forward.

Thanks for reading and for being a great community -Paul

 

[aandfsoccr04]

sorry to hear of the misfortune. A mistake that has been made in the past and will be made in the future. I'm afraid so I just never turn my pumps off because I'm forgetful and know I would forget to turn it on just like I forget that I turned off the RO/DI unit and gallons spill on my floor every month or two.. :hmm2:

 

[anbosu]

Sorry to hear, that stinks.

 

[lostmyz]

That totally sucks. So u turned off all flow? Even the return? When I feed I just put my ecotechs on feed mode but lately don't cause it all gets around. But if you had return pump going things shouldn't have died like that I think

Sent from my DROIDX using Tapatalk 2

 

[Renton777]

ugh, so sorry to hear that.

 

[Kahuna Tuna]

I am so sorry for your loss. I had a very similar situation and despite my two tunze's running in the tank I lost a meredithi and blueline angel, my male yellowtail blue damsel, and a velvet wrasse and I was just gutted.

A few months later it happened again whan a powerstrip with a reset tripped after a feeding and I lost another blueline angel and an aiptasia eating file after having the return off all night. I nearly lost everything as every one of my fish was laying on their side on the sand gasping when I turned the pumps back on, I was lucky to only loose two fish that day.

I no longer leave the room when I turn the pumps off and turn them on immediately after the fish have finished feeding.

The distresssing part for me is how fast it took for my fish to begin to die, even with two tunze's providing flow, and a blackout would turn those off as well and probably kill everything in the tank in short order. I am going to invest in a controller with a feeding mode and buy a backup generator for when we do get blackouts, I have too much invested at this point.

 

[sandwi54]

I am really sorry for your loss. It is important to train yourself to always notice the "water sound." I have a large display and the sound from water gushing down in the overflow drain is easily noticeable. It is sometimes not better to have an ultra-quiet tank setup.

 

[small alien]

I know. I recently plugged my skimmer into a different outlet so it wasn't off. I guess the skimmer pump was enough to satisfy my subconscious. And I was sleeping as well. But I know what you mean. Silence equals death.

 

[Dr Colliebreath]

Sorry to hear it. A controller is worth the money even if all you use it for is to handle turning pumps off and on for feeding and turning your lights off and on.

 

[DopeCantWin]

Sorry for your losses. I know it is quite late but I had some thoughts. As I think was mentioned a controller would have helped. Just put on standby, and once the timer counts down, the pumps would turn back on again. Another option is to buy one of the Vortech pumps. They also have a feeding mode secret option, where they'll slow down their flow for 10 minutes.

 

[rs30]

Thanks just learn a lesson had my controller siting in my bed room for weeks guess i better hook it up sorry for your loss.

 

[rssjsb]

That really stinks. I had that happen to me one time in my first saltwater tank and lost almost all of my fish.