Well I made it through the first year

[JamesHolt]

September makes it a year I have had one up and running. Have only lost two fish to this point, (a Chromie that went into a powerhead, and my lawnmower blenny that just showed up dead last month).
But not a happy "anniversary", this past weekend I decided to rearrange my main tanks and add some good powerheads...
Ordered the powerheads from Amazon last week. (arrived on time as usual)
Started working on it Sat. evening, moved the rock around in the main, stirred up everything (not the sandbed) installed the powerheads and did a 50% WC on the main...
Pulled the rock out of the sump, cleaned it out and did a 100% WC on it..
Put the excess rock from the main into my 40 Breeder that houses my Magnificent Foxface and Panther Grouper. (tied to the main DT through the sump, sort of a grow out tank)
Went in the next morning and found the Foxface upside down, on the bottom of the tank dead. The panther grouper was floating at the top and breathing hard..
Put the Grouper in the main tank and started testing, Nitrates and Nitrites off the chart PH down around 7...
I found that I forgot to turn the pumps back on to the 40 Gallon breeder, this ties it into the main system...
Not enough rock in the 40 to handle the spike for re-doing the rock..
So far the Grouper seems to have recovered, he is eating again, looks and acts normal...

Feeling a bit disgusted with myself for this careless and stupid mistake..
I spent $400 on powerheads to help the tanks out and wound up killing my favorite fish in the process...

 

[The.Reef.Guy]

Thats so unfortunate. Sorry for the loss. Hope everythkng straightens out for you.

 

[gone fishin]

That really blows. On the upside I bet you will not forget to double check pumps again and congrats on the one year mark.

 

[homer1475]

Did the same thing on my biocube, except it was the ATO(turned it off so I could work in the tank), that had been off for a couple days. I was at work and kept getting emails from my apex about the temps, turns out it was a colder day and the apex kept my heater turned on, which subsequently burned out and broke the glass.

Fortunately nothing died, but it was a huge PITA trying to clean up little bits of glass out of the back chambers. Needless to say, I setup a maintenance feeding cycle, and have never forgot to turn something back on again.

 

[Bogue Chitto]

yep, it's that forgetting that causes us all a lot of grief...I know I have had my share

 

[kmbyrnes]

Sorry for your loss. I hope your tank will come back stronger than ever.

 

[g_langley]

We all make mistakes, and then learn from them. Sorry for the loss of your Foxface.

Equipment failure comes next, my skimmer pump packed up today and at one point my chiller refused to turn on even though it was past the kick-in temp.

This hobby is sometimes like jumping out of a plane with a parachute that doesn't open.

 

[JamesHolt]

Well, the powerheads I replace this past weekend are the last of the used stuff I had from the 190 setup that was given to me....
Already started rebuilding my 40g breeder, with the foxface gone there is no real hurry on the 180 I am building so I may put that off till next year...

 

[nuxx]

Seems that most of the time when a fish is lost to a powerhead, it due to the fish not being strong / healthy to begin with...

 

[JamesHolt]

Seems that most of the time when a fish is lost to a powerhead, it due to the fish not being strong / healthy to begin with...

It was lost due to me moving rock from one tank to another and forgetting to turn the circulation pump back on, the two tanks shared a sump... nitrate and nitrite spike....
I have the 40 breeder up and running. Just waiting on payday so I can replace the bad rw8 controller..
I have the two rw8 slaved together but one is stuck at 90%..
But for cycling purposes that will not matter..