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NEReef

Every Reefers Worst Nightmare

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4 Comments
by
NEReef
, 04-17-2011 at 05:11 PM (1175 Views)
This has been a very tough week.... My wife and I recently bought a second house, and decided to rent our old house to my wife's brother and his wife. I didn't want to move my 30g reef over to the new house till I had my new 75g up and cycled. My intent was to move everything over slowly and minimize the risk of losing any livestock. I have been going over to the old place to do water changes and maintenance about once or twice a week. Well i received a text the other day saying my sister in law thought my long tentacle anemone was dead because it looked funny and had been lying over on its side for a few days. I go over there to find that the water is practically opaque and smells horrible. The anemone was dissolved and all my coral had died..... Talk about devastation. Its only a small 30g tank with a 20g sump but i have had it up and running in my bedroom for over 2 years. I lost a large kenya tree that had been dropping new babies all over the tank, purple, green, and lava mushrooms,red button polyps, a blasto, a pavona frag i bought at 1" that was about triple the size, an acan i bought as a single head that grew to about the size of a softball with ~30 mouths, and a duncans i bought as a single head that had ~25 mouths. I also lost my only fish in the tank a flametail blenny. I don't think i have ever been so depressed. I am killing myself for not moving the tank over sooner, but i really thought i was doing the safe thing by setting up the new tank first. Live and learn, never leave a tank with people who don't reef. It was a very sad goodbye to a tank i poured alot of blood, sweat, and tears into.... Now its back to square one.

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Comments

  1. snorkeler's Avatar
    Man.... sorry to hear of your loss.... I can imagine your pain of seeing those grown up corals, who grew up under your care, dead...

    Hang in there... if you were able to get that growth in a 30g you'll see much more in your 75g.
  2. melev's Avatar
    That's awful. Did you figure out what happened specifically? I completely agree that a tank in a clueless person is going to turn out badly every time.

    When I've had to travel, I'd have my son "watch" the tank. It would kill me that he was sitting 7' away from it playing video games or watching tv and not notice when things are going wrong. I'd get a text or I'd check the tank via AquaNotes and have to call him to tell him to fix something. Looking over at the tank is a simple twist of the neck, and every time you walk into the kitchen, you walk past the AC3 that displays current conditions. I realize it is my hobby, but he was living here for free and you'd think he'd be all over the one thing that mattered since there is life at stake.
  3. NEReef's Avatar
    Well after looking into it i think it was most likely a salinity issue. When i went over to address the anemone issue i noticed there was massive amounts of salt creep due to the fact that they let the spraybar splash all over the place. There was a thick layer of salt on the hood, on the rim of the tank, and even some on the stand next to the tank. I checked the salinity and it was down at 1.017! I normally keep it at 1.025. I don't know if that change over the period of four or five days would kill it but i definitely think it wouldn't have been happy. I had gotten a call the week before because my metal halide light hadn't come on for a couple of days so they were "curious" if it was supposed to do that. Its all just very annoying because they lived with us for 6 months before my wife and i moved out so they saw me take care of the tank long enough to know what should and shouldn't happen.....
  4. melev's Avatar
    Agreed. And at 1.017 it sounds like it got a bunch of top off and no saltwater... like if the system had overflowed and they added more water. As evaporation occurs, salinity always goes up rather than down.

    Very frustrating to be sure.