Hey all!
It has been a very long time since I have posted here, so I decided to give an update-as I hope and am excited that I will see you all at the frag swap that is coming up soon!
I have not been around much because my tank completely crashed a while ago, and I've barely wanted to even deal with that. It basically started when Jane and I went to Key West last april. We were gone for a week, and shortly after we came back I noticed only a few problems with some of my sps. Over the next couple of months, all my awesome SPS stn'd to nothing. It was really heartbreaking to watch everything die slowly. My fish turned on my clams, and I had to move the clams to my small tank (they love it there actually, so that is their new home). But in short, I lost all of my sps, and even a few lps. This is because after months of battling the stn of my sps, I just kind of gave up on the tank, and let parameters go completely to crap. At one point I was going to give up and just sell everything, but I decided not to, because to have a reef tank was always my dream.
At this point a couple months ago I decided I was going to take the tank back. I still don't know what started the decline (I have chemical parameter data for months, up to and through the beginning of the event). I've upgraded a lot of systems in the tank, and am now using 2 part dosed by dosing pumps. I am still in the midst of restabilizing all parameters. Somehow-a few tiny pieces of a couple of my montipora survived-and are recovering. (my green monti cap from olivier), and a brown undata I won from the first NJRC meeting I attended. I also cleared out a lot of rock, and am hopefully opening up the flow through the whole tank a lot more (I also added a lot more flow to my refugium as it seemed like a lot of ditritus would settle there).
The most frustrating part? I have NO IDEA what started this all. I have maybe 1 or two culprits, but nothing definitive. I think now that I have parameters more or less stabilized again, I want to bring a couple water samples to Will over at A.O. to confirm my readings. I think I was holding a parameter based on one certain test, that may have been completely wrong. In other words, I thought one reading was correct, held that target reading, when in fact the result I was getting was falsely high, resulting and a parameter being chronically too low.
This whole experience really sucked, but I am ready to have a beautiful tank again. I hope to do some restocking at the frag swap-I also really need an anemone for my clownfish. I hope to see you all there! (on a more positive note, my little tank, very low tech, very simple runs very well-on clams, zooanthids, a clownfish pair, a neon pseudo, and a very fat and happy potters wrasse!) and LOL the clownfish host & feed a duncan!
It has been a very long time since I have posted here, so I decided to give an update-as I hope and am excited that I will see you all at the frag swap that is coming up soon!
I have not been around much because my tank completely crashed a while ago, and I've barely wanted to even deal with that. It basically started when Jane and I went to Key West last april. We were gone for a week, and shortly after we came back I noticed only a few problems with some of my sps. Over the next couple of months, all my awesome SPS stn'd to nothing. It was really heartbreaking to watch everything die slowly. My fish turned on my clams, and I had to move the clams to my small tank (they love it there actually, so that is their new home). But in short, I lost all of my sps, and even a few lps. This is because after months of battling the stn of my sps, I just kind of gave up on the tank, and let parameters go completely to crap. At one point I was going to give up and just sell everything, but I decided not to, because to have a reef tank was always my dream.
At this point a couple months ago I decided I was going to take the tank back. I still don't know what started the decline (I have chemical parameter data for months, up to and through the beginning of the event). I've upgraded a lot of systems in the tank, and am now using 2 part dosed by dosing pumps. I am still in the midst of restabilizing all parameters. Somehow-a few tiny pieces of a couple of my montipora survived-and are recovering. (my green monti cap from olivier), and a brown undata I won from the first NJRC meeting I attended. I also cleared out a lot of rock, and am hopefully opening up the flow through the whole tank a lot more (I also added a lot more flow to my refugium as it seemed like a lot of ditritus would settle there).
The most frustrating part? I have NO IDEA what started this all. I have maybe 1 or two culprits, but nothing definitive. I think now that I have parameters more or less stabilized again, I want to bring a couple water samples to Will over at A.O. to confirm my readings. I think I was holding a parameter based on one certain test, that may have been completely wrong. In other words, I thought one reading was correct, held that target reading, when in fact the result I was getting was falsely high, resulting and a parameter being chronically too low.
This whole experience really sucked, but I am ready to have a beautiful tank again. I hope to do some restocking at the frag swap-I also really need an anemone for my clownfish. I hope to see you all there! (on a more positive note, my little tank, very low tech, very simple runs very well-on clams, zooanthids, a clownfish pair, a neon pseudo, and a very fat and happy potters wrasse!) and LOL the clownfish host & feed a duncan!
