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trido

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For those of you that havent had the pleasure http://www.oregonreef.com/index.html

Here is the post that that explains it from RC!

Well....I had a little incident Thursday morning......


Thursday morning, I did a water change and decided to clean the powerheads on my skimmer since I haven't cleaned those in over a year. I got everything up and going, when I got a call that forced me to leave earlier than I had planned.

I returned home around 10pm......meaning that I was gone some 14 hrs. Well, apparently, clean skimmer pumps are much more efficient than dirty ones......so, the skimmer proceeded to overflow and empty my entire 200 gal sump down the drain. I had to do something....and since I had no water made up and it would take two days to generate 200 gals....I was forced to use tap water. Our water up here is actually not too bad out of the tap.

I also had some dechlorinator on hand that I've had...but never needed....for years. I filled the sump, mixed in dechlorinator, salt.....mixed well.....and powered up. Everything was back on line....went to bed.

I woke up Friday to the tank of death....every single sps coral is gone. All ricordea....gone. Fish and lps are fine....anemones...not happy; but alive. I removed all the dead stuff.....some seven buckets of sps heads ....some two feet in diameter.....very sad.

I feel that the fault was mine....I probably would have been fine with just taking the two days to create more water.....after all, my closed loop was working fine and I could have always added aeration. The second mistake was probably adding too much of a very old dechlorinator....which, I feel, was the primary cause of death. It was just a case of reacting too quickly and not thinking.

I always try to find the bright side in the face of adversity....in this case:

1) I'm going to save a ton on reactor media.
2) My cold tank is doing great....I can always look at that instead
3) no more AEFW's
4) no more red bugs
5) I guess I can reaquascape now
6) I'm now a buyer for sps heads
7) I have a vacation coming up and I won't have to worry a lick about the tank.


And to think that I was contemplating updating my site with new pics......well, at least that saves some time taking new pics.....starting over sucks.....
 
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Anonymous

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Wow that is terrible. His tank was what I was planning on patterning mine on only a tad smaller when we build our home in Oregon. Terrible.
 

Mike612

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His tank also inspired me. I decided that in 2030 (i'm only 17 at the moment so I've got some money to make for it) that I was going to set up a 500 gallon cube for myself and the rockwork would be very similar. Too bad for Steve. He'll get it up and running again though.
 
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Anonymous

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Just reading the title of this thread sent a shiver down my spine. :(

As others have said, let's hope he gets back on his feet quickly.

Anyone know where there are up to date pics of the coldwater reef? A lot have gone from the thread he started here, last time I looked. Also can't see where on the link above there are pics.
 

bleedingthought

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8O :cry: 8O

Man, I've sent so many people the link to his site and it always impressed anyone that someone would be that devoted to his hobby. :(

On another note, I'm sure people will help him out with frags/corals to get him back up and running. (Not that it seems like he needs 'help.' ;) ) And his attitude in the end is encouraging. To know that you would loose a large part of something you've put so much effort into would be devastating to most!

Steve, if you're reading this, we'll be waiting for pictures of when you have that beauty of a tank up and running again! :D
 
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Anonymous

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:( I am terribly sorry to hear that. You can't create a system like he had over night.

I hope he is able to enjoy his upcoming vacation and I look forward to seeing his progress as he rebuilds. I am sure it will be even more spectacular than the one he just lost.
 
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Anonymous

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pcardone":mil2x2f9 said:
Bummer. Could of been the ph?

Well he said his orp went from it's stable 400mV to ~110mV so that could zap something, and with a tank that large if you start getting large things dying, that usually triggers other things dying, etc etc.. Of course I can only speculate the horror of what happened.

You can read through the thread here
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showt ... id=1080179

I dunno, when there was that huge power outage in SoCal not too long ago and a lot of "named" reefs went down, or even when Eric Borneman's tank went down and there was a huge conspiracy about it, don't think I cared as much as I do for Steve's loss. It's something I always wanted as well, and I tried to pick his brain a few times to figure out exactly how he did this and that without seeming like too much of a pest. But he had the perfect balance of everything.. even that sandbed that some people here don't like ;)
 
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Anonymous

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Steve have some good input in that thread. Just skim it and read his comments. Most of it is I'm sorry for you loss stuff. It is a good lesson on what happens when you react with out thinking things through.
 
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Anonymous

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sad0025.gif
 
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Anonymous

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So much money for something so easily destroyed.

This is why I'm done with large reef tanks.
 
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Anonymous

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Sorry to hear this. Hopefully he can rebuild soon. Take some time and think about the whole thing.
 

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