Sorry I haven't been on lately everyone - I've had a busy year!
Well this looks like a pretty big mess on my part here - I went on vacation last week, and of course that was the week my tank had a pretty big disaster :irked:
A bag holding some carbon was sticking out of the tank, and acted like a wick - dripping water behind the tank the entire week. I had someone watching the tank, but as my ATO unit was running the water levels never got any lower - so they never thought there was a problem.
It wasn't until i got home, and was checking the salinity in the tank the 2nd day after, that I realized the salt had dropped from 1.023 to 1.010! The corals looked in distress, but nothing too bad... my floor was another factor.
I would say about 4-5 gallons of water dripped slowly out of the tank the entire week (my tank is 16 gallons so that is a lot) - the floor is now warped and the carpet nearby stinks like rotten sea water :irked: (and my wife is not happy)...
So after mopping up the water and drying the floor as best I could, I went to add salt back to the tank - I decided on 1/4 cup of salt at a time to slowly raise the salinity back up. Well since the water level was right to the top, without thinking I poured 1/4 cup salt right into the water...which promptly fell onto my corals instead of diluting right away!
I would say half of my corals, which were simply looking 'tired' before, now look dead or worse :frown: so not so great...
So word of caution everyone - do NOT add salt directly to tank - make sure you dilute it with water before.
My tank recently survived another vacation disaster when my ATO system stopped working - so salinity rose dramatically! Things were just looking good again... sigh.
Anyone ever have this happen to them before?
Well this looks like a pretty big mess on my part here - I went on vacation last week, and of course that was the week my tank had a pretty big disaster :irked:
A bag holding some carbon was sticking out of the tank, and acted like a wick - dripping water behind the tank the entire week. I had someone watching the tank, but as my ATO unit was running the water levels never got any lower - so they never thought there was a problem.
It wasn't until i got home, and was checking the salinity in the tank the 2nd day after, that I realized the salt had dropped from 1.023 to 1.010! The corals looked in distress, but nothing too bad... my floor was another factor.
I would say about 4-5 gallons of water dripped slowly out of the tank the entire week (my tank is 16 gallons so that is a lot) - the floor is now warped and the carpet nearby stinks like rotten sea water :irked: (and my wife is not happy)...
So after mopping up the water and drying the floor as best I could, I went to add salt back to the tank - I decided on 1/4 cup of salt at a time to slowly raise the salinity back up. Well since the water level was right to the top, without thinking I poured 1/4 cup salt right into the water...which promptly fell onto my corals instead of diluting right away!
I would say half of my corals, which were simply looking 'tired' before, now look dead or worse :frown: so not so great...
So word of caution everyone - do NOT add salt directly to tank - make sure you dilute it with water before.
My tank recently survived another vacation disaster when my ATO system stopped working - so salinity rose dramatically! Things were just looking good again... sigh.
Anyone ever have this happen to them before?
You want to keep the tank right? Try to salvage what you can from the tank. Some corals are more resilient then others, and will just be really pissed off from the changes.
