System Crash :(

[DFAlpha]

So I come back from a five day vacation today to find my 75G reef system in rough shape. I had friends feeding and keeping watch, but they didn't notice my leather coral wasn't doing so well, which is peculiar as it seemed to be doing fine before I left. Needless to say, my system couldn't handle it's death and disintegration, and I came home with most of my other corals and fish dead or dying, an awful smell coming out of the system, and likely a fresh start ahead

The losses include my beautiful and very friendly yellow tang (and possibly one of my clowns, he's alive and I'm trying to nurse him back to health), at least a dozen or more hermits, a half dozen snails, my blood shrimp, two peppermint shrimp. On the coral side, I've lost two very nice zoos (and a third patch), the noted 6" leather, a large patch of pulsing xenia, and a fairly new frogspawn frag that was doing really nicely.

Amazingly, a few survivors found refuge in a corner with low flow and managed to make it out. My female clown is doing well, and my sand sifting star is still alive but in rough shape. I've salvaged about 4 snails and 6 hermits, that's about it.

I've replaced about 80% of the water in the system, and will do another significant water change tomorrow (30%). Likely keep changing the water every night (10-15%) for a week or so, I don't have anywhere else to really store my surviving fish so I'm hoping the system is ready for basic fish in a week or so. My biggest concern is that my 60+ lbs of live rock and 2-3" sand bed isn't a loss, as there's no way we could afford to replace all of that right away.

I doubt the wife is going to let me rebuild to the same extent I had mostly due to the significant loss of both my showpiece reef, and the significant investment I'd convinced her would make our main room stand out

Rule of thumb, next time skip the vacation!

[DFAlpha]

The male clown of my mated pair didn't make it, the female is fine but you can tell she knows

[nissannx]

sorry to hear this

[new2salt]

Ditto 

[dan2x38]

Wow sorry dude!!! 

I can give you a big batch of cheato. If you want a small frag of some nice Zoas. The cheato can help suck up neurients. it also has pods and critters help replentish live sand. LMK

[DFAlpha]

Thanks for the support guys, my female clown seems to be doing well this morning, and my starfish is still alive. Corals are in really rough shape (I may be able to save one patch of the zoos, and a small bit of the xenia, the frogspawn is a goner).

I really appreciate the offer, and I may take you up on it. I'll give the tank another day or so (and another couple of smaller water changes) to see how quickly it bounces back.

[DFAlpha]

And completely OT, how do I get my OVAS membership to link against my forum account?

[Hookup]

Sorry to hear of your crash.  It's got to be very hard to rebuild, but often times the best tanks i've seen were 're-starts' after a crash such as yours...

so here's to your future tank of the month/tank of your dreams.

[new2salt]

PM "Vince" he is the new Membership Chair.

Back on topic.
Do you have somewhere else to shelter your corals - eg: hospital or QT tank?
Have a 29 gal that I just emptied w/ 30 in. PC light. If you need to beg or borrow, something could be worked out.
PM me if I can assist
Good luck

[FocusFin]

So I come back from a five day vacation today to find my 75G reef system in rough shape. I had friends feeding and keeping watch, but they didn't notice my leather coral wasn't doing so well, which is peculiar as it seemed to be doing fine before I left. Needless to say, my system couldn't handle it's death and disintegration, and I came home with most of my other corals and fish dead or dying, an awful smell coming out of the system, and likely a fresh start ahead

*shudder*


This is not an "I told you so" but were you running carbon? I would like to know how I can prevent this from happening.

[DFAlpha]

PM "Vince" he is the new Membership Chair.

Back on topic.
Do you have somewhere else to shelter your corals - eg: hospital or QT tank?
Have a 29 gal that I just emptied w/ 30 in. PC light. If you need to beg or borrow, something could be worked out.
PM me if I can assist
Good luck

Will do, thanks for the tip. I have a 29G sump with a decent sized refugium that I'm using for now, thankfully most of the water in that wasn't contaminated. Really appreciate all of the offering for help, sure makes someone feel very welcome around here

[DFAlpha]

*shudder*


This is not an "I told you so" but were you running carbon? I would like to know how I can prevent this from happening.

In fact I was running carbon, but the leather was so large I think the ammonia release was too much of a shock for the system to handle.

[HOB]

I can relate to this and feel your pain....

Left for a week August 27th.  Since it had been cool the previous week and cold at nights, I hadn't been using the air conditioning and didn't leave it on.  Returned September 3rd......tank temperature was 90.1 degrees.  I guess there was some warm weather most of last week and it wasn't cool enough for the tank to cool off at night.  Miraculously, only lost one fish (Flame Angel) of the 10 or so but lost all my shrimp, two large toadstools, two large leathers colonies, and two frogspawns and hammers and a large fox coral and large bubble coral.  My xenias even died.  All mushroom and zoos seem to be surviving along with my duncan, elegance and a few other corals.  I have about 400 gallons of water and I do run carbon.  I reduced the temperature back to normal and left everything alone to see if things would rebound but I ended up spending most of yesterday afternoon removing the dead toadstools and leathers and siphoning out the residue as some started to turn black and disintegrate.  Haven't done a water change yet but I currently have some water filtering and mixing.  Will be buying a chiller during the boxing sales this Christmas to add to my controller as a safety precaution.......

Keep your head up and don't let this get you down........ and start planning your next system as that's always the fun part......

[dan2x38]

Hind sight is 20-20. When I leave I pay someone to come in twice a day for the pets. They also watch over my tanks including the S/W. I setup an on call person as well specialized in either F/W or S/W for emergencies and instruct them to call me if any doubts at all. They are able to do top offs, check filters, lights, heaters or A/C changes along with feedings. I portion out the food and label it. For the S/W forzen food feedings I use a pill reminder container with the food in each compartment then stored in freezer. It is also twice a day there are checks on the tanks. Besides our cats like the company and the dog when we can't take him. OH I make sure they know the tank contents before hand so they come over before I leave for a briefing. Better to spend a couple bucks for a house sitter/pet sitter than have a bad crash.

Hope all goes well with the rebuild and recovery. LMK if I can help.

[DFAlpha]

Thanks to everyone for the support!

Day three of the aftermath, amazingly the tank has started recovering faster then I expected. I've completed one very large water change right after the crash (around 70-80%), and done two smaller (15-20%) changes since then. The water has stablilzed, and ammonia is reading 0.5, while higher then I'd like it is within reasonable level. Amazingly, one of my zoa's made it, and a bit of my xenia patch may make it through as well. The frogspawn has shrunken up, but it's trying to extend and I'm crossing my fingers for that long shot. My sand sifting star is still kicking, and I managed to save my female clownfish.

There's still a lot of debris floating around, tiny sand-like particles from the broken up leather, and I've filtered as much as I can. Added two packs of carbon (one is a  really high grade) to eliminate the ammonia. I've also added an additional 25 hermits to help clean up some of the small particles that have settled on the sandbed.

All in all, not a total loss, but definitely a huge eye opener. I'll never touch a leather coral again, and definitely purchase small corals and let them grow into the tank, rather then getting one that's more then a few inches, as if it dies it can wreak havoc.

[Vincenzo.]

i feel your pain, my first crash cost me like 1200$ in corals n critters.... the second, close too. im sure you'll pull up from it though. its tough though.