wow am i lucky!

[formerly icyuodd/icyoud2]

a friend of mine installs kitchen cabenates. he's been alittle swapped and i've been helping out. with the 12 hour days we've been putting in, my tank has been alittle neglected.

 

last night when i got home (6ish) i noticed my water was real low (5g low) my pump was almost running dry.

 

i had to add alot of fresh water and fast. i dont like dramatic salinity swings, but i like doing to my horses even less.

 

i figured i'd shut down the horse tank (mag 9.5 powers both, but i have a shut off before the horses) i turned of the manifold in the horse aquarium and slowly started adding water to my reef/sump (1 g every 30-40mins)

 

we're in the middle of purchasing our fish home (woo hoo) and i had to dash out before i got the full 5 gallons into the system. the plan was to turn the horse tank on slowly so they wouldn't experiance a quick salinity jump.

 

i just looked and my aquarium (20ish hours later) and realized it had been turned off the entire time. no heat, no water movement, nothing!

 

 

everything seems ok, nothing died (cant believe it didnt) i definatly deserve the stupidity award of the month!

 

 

now that i can laugh about it, what do think was my saving grace? tank size? (47g) excessive macro algae? the fact my room temp is similar to my aquarium (room 76*-tank 78*)

 

i'm totally amazed i didn't find a tank full of rotting pipes and horses. somebody loves me.

[strangelove]

Your live rock and macros were doing there job. Rock and substrate filtered the water, macros added oxygen to the tank. I wouldn't do it, but you could let your tank sit with no circulation like that for a while say if the power went out. Your water temp is nice and stable so that's a good thing too. Your not stupid at all, by adding macros to your tank you saved you seahourses and pipefish. Grow more plants in your tank and you will have even more buffer to accidents like that.

 

Now if this was a reef tank, no water circulation for 24 hours might have been another story.

[formerly icyuodd/icyoud2]

Grow more plants in your tank and you will have even more buffer to accidents like that.

 

now that could be a problem, i'm alittle overgrown already.

i'm about ready to thin things out again.

[Bobalouy]

I left the pump in my 12g off for a day more than once. 2 clowns and full of corals never lost anything. I always thought it would be nice to have a "flow" alarm.

[formerly icyuodd/icyoud2]

flow alarms a dam fine idea. sign me up

[strangelove]

Jeez icyu, borrow someones tang and trim down that tank, your seahorses might like to swim around If you pushed most of those macros to the parimeter of the tank you could put some sea fans in the center. Pruning it back will help it grow better too.

[Sea Slug]

a friend of mine installs kitchen cabenates. he's been alittle swapped and i've been helping out. with the 12 hour days we've been putting in, my tank has been alittle neglected.

 

last night when i got home (6ish) i noticed my water was real low (5g low) my pump was almost running dry.

 

i had to add alot of fresh water and fast. i dont like dramatic salinity swings, but i like doing to my horses even less.

 

i figured i'd shut down the horse tank (mag 9.5 powers both, but i have a shut off before the horses) i turned of the manifold in the horse aquarium and slowly started adding water to my reef/sump (1 g every 30-40mins)

 

we're in the middle of purchasing our fish home (woo hoo) and i had to dash out before i got the full 5 gallons into the system. the plan was to turn the horse tank on slowly so they wouldn't experiance a quick salinity jump.

 

i just looked and my aquarium (20ish hours later) and realized it had been turned off the entire time. no heat, no water movement, nothing!

everything seems ok, nothing died (cant believe it didnt) i definatly deserve the stupidity award of the month!

now that i can laugh about it, what do think was my saving grace? tank size? (47g) excessive macro algae? the fact my room temp is similar to my aquarium (room 76*-tank 78*)

 

i'm totally amazed i didn't find a tank full of rotting pipes and horses. somebody loves me.

Icy , Glad to hear everything made it through , I would chalk it up to a well maintained system , that was able to take on some neglect , and a little luck never hurts . All in all you have done a fine job in taking care of your reef so it was able to hang on during the brief period that things got out of the norm .