- Location
- north jersey
SO I NUKED THE TANK....WHAT NOW?
this past sunday night, i turned the kalk reactor on then forgot and went to bed.....woke up to a snow blizzard inside the tank. almost total wipe out.
lets back up a bit. i have had this 300gal. set up for about 3-4 yrs. it was a series of upgrades along the way from the first 45 gal. salt water box to a 75 gal. mixed reef then add a few more tanks here and there. at one time, i think i had 5 or 6 tanks in various parts of the house. the wife was complaining that i was doing water changes almost every day off i had.
i then decided to combine everything to a 200 gal. display, a 55 gal. refugium, a 15 gal. algae tank, a 15 gal. qt, and a 75 gal. sump. there were ups and downs along the way. i had taken some time off from mr the end of last year and just recently got back around summer time. just when i had the tank back in shape, it was hit with black outs from irene. minor casualties from there. surprisingly the freak snow storm didn't take any toll on it.
here we are....all sps and most lps are gone. a couple of friends are holding some zoas, a balanophyllia, a scoly and a rizzo for me. they were in pretty bad shape when fished out of the tank.
most of the fishes didn't make it-
the wrasses- rhomboids, flames, african leopards, solarensis, the anthiases- bi-color, fat head, the angels- bellus, swallow tail, watanabei, a green sided jaw fish, a springeri damsel, a black blenny, and the two of my favorites of all time, the red-spotted blenny, and the achilles tang. there are probably some more that i've forgotten over the years.
lost a lot of inverts- all of the snails, most hermit crabs, starfish, brittle stars, urchins, harlequin shrimps, crabs, etc.
the survivors (so far) are-
a purple tang(the oldest fish i have- about 6 yrs now?), a bullseye pistol shrimp- the oldest living creature in the tank- even older than the purple tang, dom's garden eel, the odd couple-onyx and misbar black clown, a melanarus wrasse, a springeri damsel, three blennies - starry, eyelash, and linear, paired pistol shrimp and the yellow watchman goby. three cleaner shrimps and a fire shrimp. the three surprising survivors are the blue streak cleaner wrasses, the mandarin dragonet, and the red scooter blenny.
the first day, i used up 160+ gal. of mixed water, cleared out the shelves of the lfs natural sea water....11 boxes of them. even after all those water changes, i still couldn't see through the rocks to look for survivors.
a few days later, after almost daily water changes, i'm finally able to see through the tank. i'm almost done with the second 200gal. box of esv salt. went through half a gal. of brs rox carbon. skimmed out a 5 gal. bucket of skimmate.....i'm exhausted. i took pictures but too depressed to post them....may be at a later date.
so here i am babbling away aimlessly in this thread....i'm gonna go sulk in front of the tank some more now......:frown:
this past sunday night, i turned the kalk reactor on then forgot and went to bed.....woke up to a snow blizzard inside the tank. almost total wipe out.
lets back up a bit. i have had this 300gal. set up for about 3-4 yrs. it was a series of upgrades along the way from the first 45 gal. salt water box to a 75 gal. mixed reef then add a few more tanks here and there. at one time, i think i had 5 or 6 tanks in various parts of the house. the wife was complaining that i was doing water changes almost every day off i had.
i then decided to combine everything to a 200 gal. display, a 55 gal. refugium, a 15 gal. algae tank, a 15 gal. qt, and a 75 gal. sump. there were ups and downs along the way. i had taken some time off from mr the end of last year and just recently got back around summer time. just when i had the tank back in shape, it was hit with black outs from irene. minor casualties from there. surprisingly the freak snow storm didn't take any toll on it.
here we are....all sps and most lps are gone. a couple of friends are holding some zoas, a balanophyllia, a scoly and a rizzo for me. they were in pretty bad shape when fished out of the tank.
most of the fishes didn't make it-
the wrasses- rhomboids, flames, african leopards, solarensis, the anthiases- bi-color, fat head, the angels- bellus, swallow tail, watanabei, a green sided jaw fish, a springeri damsel, a black blenny, and the two of my favorites of all time, the red-spotted blenny, and the achilles tang. there are probably some more that i've forgotten over the years.
lost a lot of inverts- all of the snails, most hermit crabs, starfish, brittle stars, urchins, harlequin shrimps, crabs, etc.
the survivors (so far) are-
a purple tang(the oldest fish i have- about 6 yrs now?), a bullseye pistol shrimp- the oldest living creature in the tank- even older than the purple tang, dom's garden eel, the odd couple-onyx and misbar black clown, a melanarus wrasse, a springeri damsel, three blennies - starry, eyelash, and linear, paired pistol shrimp and the yellow watchman goby. three cleaner shrimps and a fire shrimp. the three surprising survivors are the blue streak cleaner wrasses, the mandarin dragonet, and the red scooter blenny.
the first day, i used up 160+ gal. of mixed water, cleared out the shelves of the lfs natural sea water....11 boxes of them. even after all those water changes, i still couldn't see through the rocks to look for survivors.
a few days later, after almost daily water changes, i'm finally able to see through the tank. i'm almost done with the second 200gal. box of esv salt. went through half a gal. of brs rox carbon. skimmed out a 5 gal. bucket of skimmate.....i'm exhausted. i took pictures but too depressed to post them....may be at a later date.
so here i am babbling away aimlessly in this thread....i'm gonna go sulk in front of the tank some more now......:frown:
