My 1st Tank Crash

[Mudfish]

After 6+ years of coral-keeping, I've suffered my first tank crash. Totally my fault – I made a stupid mistake, which I hope others can learn from.

 

 

 

I haven't kept a tank thread, 'cause I be lazy. Plus I'm no good at pictures. Plus I've been snook fishing too much instead. Here are some pre-crash pics of the tank, including the whole enchilada before any livestock at all. All that stuff you see had grown much bigger. For instance, I have to repeatedly break the orange capricornis off that return pipe. I sell frags constantly to my local shop; caps, birdsnest, torts, hydnophoras, etc. The stuff was growing like gangbusters. It'll be a while now before it's back, baby –

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All my fishies are fine. But I lost several big coral colonies, some that I've had for a long time, that I grew from tiny frags. I've lost four of my Platygyra boulders, including that biggest bright green one, which I bought at the size of a plum, and grew to the size of a grapefruit. It had grown up on to and attached to one of the rocks - I had to break it loose with a big tablespoon. It broke my heart to see it dead.

 

I lost my entire Cali acro torusa colony – here's the bones –

 

 

 

I bought the Cali tort frag at a local frag swap 2 years ago. ½ inch long, because I couldn't afford anything more! It grew like a weed; I've sold and given away several pieces of it.

 

 

 

A huge colony of two-tone blue Caulestra (I collect those, too) – maybe 25-30 heads. Three heads when I bought it. There's two heads still alive. A second, striped color of Caulestra, that I've had since 2006. It was one of the many pieces I bought from our friend mvite – that should ring a bell with some folks! The whole colony is dead…

 

 

 

 

 

Other stuff dead, yet most stuff still fine. I have over a hundred different corals crammed in this little tank.

 

 

I'm trimming and cleaning up; I think it's at the "what's done is done" stage.

 

 

 

So here's what happened – a couple months ago, the ballast for my twin 150W halides crapped out, and it took better than a week to get the warrentied replacement. So the corals had just the T5 actinics and the teeny bit of indirect sunlight they get each morning for that period. They lost some color, but were fine, and were bouncing back. I wasn't worried about it at all. Everybody was doing fine. But I guess they had been more severely stressed than I realized.

 

 

 

Forward a few weeks. I keep all my water-making junk in the garage. It's been pretty damn hot. I did a big water change, about 15 gallons, and never thought about the temperature. I just dumped the new water in, as usual. It took a couple of days for things to start to go south; it's been a slow-motion crash. Later, with new water made up in the same system in the garage, I took the temperature in the storage container – 90.8 degrees.

 

 

 

#### me running. So, the lesson is, don't get complacent. Check everything, and keep your head straight.

[got2envy]

I am Sorry to hear

What a beautiful tank...I am sure you will get it back in tip top shape!

And the frag swap is coming! will I see you there?

[pablom617]

Wow ... Im really sorry to hear about the crash.

 

 

I had one early on in my tank due to contaminate I had on my hand (granite cleaner) and forgot to wash my hands before doing maintenance. I lost a good bit of stuff before I did WCs. It was probably the worse day I have had in the last five years. It does take a while to get back in the swing of things but Im sure it will all work out.

 

BTW my main guy I buy frags from just had a major die off in his 80 gallon frag tank last week because of undissolved salt during a waterchange... he burned most the coral in the tank.

 

getting comfortable in this hobby often turns into disaster.

[Mudfish]

I am Sorry to hear

What a beautiful tank...I am sure you will get it back in tip top shape!

And the frag swap is coming! will I see you there?

Thanks, Maria. Yeah, I'm gonna try - last time, I had to work.

 

getting comfortable in this hobby often turns into disaster.

I know dats right.

[sfnt125]

Sorry to hear . You'll get it back! I have one regret about this hobby from 12yrs ago- I had a major crash, and never tried to recover. I see you arent making that mistake and I know you'll get it back up in no time.

[ward827]

That's a heck of a nice tank, man! I hope it comes back and is even better this time around. W-

[lagunastudio]

I feel for you buddy. welp you have some new real estate available. Time to get some new stuff you've had your eyes on but might not have had room for in the past. You lost some coral but you didn't loose the knowledge to keep a thriving aquarium.

[GokesReef]

This extra hot summer has taken a lot of tanks will be a good winter to be a LFS with a nice frag rack.

[TeflonTomDosh]

I'm sorry for your loss. How big is your tank? How big of a water change did you do? What's your normal temp?

[patback]

What a shame, you had a beautiful tank. Atleast the vaulastrea survived. I've never seen blue before. Goodluck on your bounce back.

[Mudfish]

I'm sorry for your loss. How big is your tank? How big of a water change did you do? What's your normal temp?

 

Thanks. It's a 40-Breeder with a 20-gallon sump kept about half full. I think it was a 15-gallon water change; I don't remember for sure. Somewhere around that. I hadn't done a change in about a month. The tank runs steady at 79 degrees, with a chiller.

 

What a shame, you had a beautiful tank. Atleast the vaulastrea survived. I've never seen blue before. Goodluck on your bounce back.

 

I'm really hoping the two-tone blue Caulestra makes it. It's pretty uncommon. All of the striped one has died, and I'm pretty sure I will lose all the neon green one. More stuff is starting to go.

 

I forgot to add - my fire shrimp, porcelain crab and banded coral shrimp all died.