Hello All,
I have had a recent tragedy occur in my reef, and I ran into a NJreefers member on another site I frequently use, and he told me there are quite a few members here in my area who would probably be more than willing to help me out in any way possible, so here it goes...
I have a 29g reef with a BH2000 HOB skimmer (140g) and a CPR AquaFuge refugium. I have had the tank 10+ years and only converted to a reef a little over a year ago. 90% softies as I wanted to start slow, but I have a few LPS in there as well, and a pocillipora frag that has done okay also.
I spent the last 4 months battling a little cyano outbreak and for about the past month I have finally tracked it down, and kicked it for good. I had the same sandbed from when I set the tank up in 04' (YIKES!!) So i replaced my sandbed, and my water quality, fish, and coral growth have been incredible. I see so many pictures of those mind-blowing tanks and mine was definitely well on it's way for sure.
on 6/5 I left for a vacation to Punta Cana, and all my food was baggied up (flake) and my lights/skimmer/etc. were all set up and self-suffient. I came back home on 6/13 (I live with my dad, his gf, and her daughter, and DO NOT get along with his girlfriend at all.) On 6/13 Every fish was dead, all snails, both starfish, shrimp, crabs, and most of my coral looked dead too. there was a PILE of (pellet) food on the bottom of my tank....no one ever fessed up, but I believed it was delibrate. I spent the last two weeks doing changes, siphoning, skimming, etc and AGAIN got my parameters very well in line, and was ready to actually start putting a CUC and building a rough stocklist again.
on 6/27 I left for the dentist and my dad and her daughter were at work, his girlfriend was home alone though. I left, and my lights were already on, and my coral was opened up beautifully for the first time since I got back from my trip and had my pellet food crisis.
I came home 1 hour later, and my tank REEKED of chlorine...CHLORINE! I couldn't understand but I had the most insane amount of SOAPY FOAMING BUBBLES all over my skimmer overflowing out of the collection cup, all over my tank's surface and not breaking just bubbles floating, and I immediately used the only 10g of RODI I had on hand (I buy water from a LFS) and did a huge change, shut my skimmer off, and took a sample down to my pool store to test for chlorine because there was no way there wasn't chemicals inside my tank, it smelled so strong I almost fainted. I have 20ppm of chlorine in my tank, and all my coral is dead now.........
PLEASE, if anyone can help in any way, I would love to meet some genuine reefers with some good advice for me.
Thanks in advance for reading that saga, but I wanted to be detailed as I am a first timer and no one knows me or my current setups
-Kenny
I have had a recent tragedy occur in my reef, and I ran into a NJreefers member on another site I frequently use, and he told me there are quite a few members here in my area who would probably be more than willing to help me out in any way possible, so here it goes...
I have a 29g reef with a BH2000 HOB skimmer (140g) and a CPR AquaFuge refugium. I have had the tank 10+ years and only converted to a reef a little over a year ago. 90% softies as I wanted to start slow, but I have a few LPS in there as well, and a pocillipora frag that has done okay also.
I spent the last 4 months battling a little cyano outbreak and for about the past month I have finally tracked it down, and kicked it for good. I had the same sandbed from when I set the tank up in 04' (YIKES!!) So i replaced my sandbed, and my water quality, fish, and coral growth have been incredible. I see so many pictures of those mind-blowing tanks and mine was definitely well on it's way for sure.
on 6/5 I left for a vacation to Punta Cana, and all my food was baggied up (flake) and my lights/skimmer/etc. were all set up and self-suffient. I came back home on 6/13 (I live with my dad, his gf, and her daughter, and DO NOT get along with his girlfriend at all.) On 6/13 Every fish was dead, all snails, both starfish, shrimp, crabs, and most of my coral looked dead too. there was a PILE of (pellet) food on the bottom of my tank....no one ever fessed up, but I believed it was delibrate. I spent the last two weeks doing changes, siphoning, skimming, etc and AGAIN got my parameters very well in line, and was ready to actually start putting a CUC and building a rough stocklist again.
on 6/27 I left for the dentist and my dad and her daughter were at work, his girlfriend was home alone though. I left, and my lights were already on, and my coral was opened up beautifully for the first time since I got back from my trip and had my pellet food crisis.
I came home 1 hour later, and my tank REEKED of chlorine...CHLORINE! I couldn't understand but I had the most insane amount of SOAPY FOAMING BUBBLES all over my skimmer overflowing out of the collection cup, all over my tank's surface and not breaking just bubbles floating, and I immediately used the only 10g of RODI I had on hand (I buy water from a LFS) and did a huge change, shut my skimmer off, and took a sample down to my pool store to test for chlorine because there was no way there wasn't chemicals inside my tank, it smelled so strong I almost fainted. I have 20ppm of chlorine in my tank, and all my coral is dead now.........
PLEASE, if anyone can help in any way, I would love to meet some genuine reefers with some good advice for me.
Thanks in advance for reading that saga, but I wanted to be detailed as I am a first timer and no one knows me or my current setups
-Kenny
