Destroyed 6 Months Of Progress In A Weekend

[hark]

I run ocean revive LEDs over my tank. I had lowered them closer to the tank on a Wednesday from 14" over the tank to 9". I didn't have a reason why I just thought I'd try it to see if it improved some of the shadowing. Anyway Thursday passed by and no ill effects so Friday I left it at the level and went to the cottage. I had my trusty apex and it would tell me if something is wrong right!? Wrong...well not wrong but I found something apex couldn't tell me

Basically I cooked or bleached everything in my tank minus the fish. Only thing that survived was one head of hammer...all my sps I had got as frag trades and Zoas from the hundreds, maybe thousand mangroves I've traded for are now gone. Designed Zoas, nice sticks, mushrooms, bta, all my coralline algae on the tank and rock almost all gone. It's all now replaced with a really hard algae that's taken it place so I've started basically over with tank algae control after being algae free for 4 months post cycle.

Anyway wish me luck, starting with a few sea hares to start cleaning the rocks and I picked up 30 more snails to help as well. All my readings are in check so thankfully nothing died in the tank kicking off ammonia. Anyway, wish me luck as I start the rebuild once again

Ryan

 

[AdInfinitum]

Ohhh...I feel for you...with everything of mine in a temp setup things had been going better than expected then a plumbing issue crashed the salinity to 1.019 and I didn't know there was a problem until a few days later I noticed dying SPS... Even the "Indestructible Acro" looks very rough and may not survive. Strangely, all of the softies and LPS don't seem affected at all at this point...

Nothing worse than having to start over and saying "I used to have some of those..." every time you see something nice...

 

[yveterinarian]

OMG! I am so sorry for your loss. I feel your pain. I hope you are able to get things going again and have the corals you wish for in the future.

 

[EricTMah]

Sorry for your loss

Leds are bad for that. A slight change can really affect things in the tank quickly.

Whenever I add new frags to my tank I usually drop my intensity by 15-20% and begin raising it a week later by only 2-4% per week until back at full intensity.

I'm sure once you get your tank back in check. There will be plenty of members willing to help get your collection back up.

Sony Xperia Z3

 

[TORX]

This is a horror story to come home to. Sorry about your losses. The Apex can not warn you about that happening sadly. The only way is to check up on the tank via IP camera through Fusion.

These lights are not your typical Chinese LED, they are very strong...here is PAR at 10" from a thread on R2R http://www.reef2reef.com/threads/ocean-revive-t247-par-readings.192513/

"I'm really happy with the results. For lights, I'm running four Ocean Revive T247's. I have then going the long way front to back. I have two cross braces that really put a dent in my light. I also have bigger gaps between the outer fixtures than I do between the two center fixtures. This was so I could get the two center fixtures between two cross braces. I run my two outer fixtures at 90 blue / 75% white and the two middle fixtures at 85% blue / 70% white. Tank is 30" tall and 24" deep."​

 

[Kman]

Sorry for the loss. It always sucks when things go wrong.

In cases like this it is important to learn a lesson from it so next time you don't so it again. Remember don't make major changes to saltwater unless you are around to visually look at it over the next few days. Controllers are great for monitoring some things but unless you have a probe it will not monitor it. They give you a false sense of security and should be relied on as a secondary means of maintaining\ monitoring a tank.

LED lights are tricky when increasing, next time if you lower the fixture remember to decrees the intensity and only lower it over a few days. For MH put a piece of glass under the light for a week or so as you lower it inch by inch. I do the same as Eric for my LED when introducing new frags, as even a slightly to much increase will bleach corals.

Plus side to this is you get to look at other options on what to keep again.

 

[hark]

Appreciate the notes guys and the pm's of support.

wait and see what I turn this mess into - its going to be awesome!!!

 

[heath]

looking forward to see what you do, remember is could a diamond in the ruff.. maybe someone with a lot more experience could jump in here but, with time will the corals regain their colour..

 

[derrick orosz]

that sucks, sorry to hear...at least you can start a new grow thread here now

 

[zoomster]

Sorry to hear what happened Hark. But thanks for telling us what happened strait and honest. might just save someone else's tank in the future.
And LOVE your "lemon-aid from lemons" attitude! Kudos to you!

 

[hark]

Pick up 60 more snails tonight to speed things up, once it is under control i will likely have some snails for sale

i am going to post a few things up for trade as well - getting rid of the extra 40 mangroves i kept, i have 25 in my tank already thats plenty for me.

 

[hark]

i also picked up a new probe for my apex to measure salinty. this will help me if i ever have a situation like this in the future because i also noticed my salinity went up when i cooked the tank - the temperature didnt rise but salinty went up....so i figured what the hell, whats another couple hundred bucks for a new probe

 

[EricTMah]

i also picked up a new probe for my apex to measure salinty. this will help me if i ever have a situation like this in the future because i also noticed my salinity went up when i cooked the tank - the temperature didnt rise but salinty went up....so i figured what the hell, whats another couple hundred bucks for a new probe

Don't rely too much on that conductivity probe. They're not always accurate. They constantly need to be calibrated to be accurate. Anything in the tank can affect the reading.

I wish I never spent the money on mine.

Sony Xperia Z3

 

[Nighthawk26]

I'm not even set up yet, and these things terrify me!!

That said, Apex is launching a PAR meter. VERY SOON. They are doing pre orders.

Mods, delete this if it's against rules.
http://www.reefsupplies.ca/online-store/Neptune-PMK-PAR-Monitoring-Kit.html

 

[TORX]

I'm not even set up yet, and these things terrify me!!

That said, Apex is launching a PAR meter. VERY SOON. They are doing pre orders.

Mods, delete this if it's against rules.
http://www.reefsupplies.ca/online-store/Neptune-PMK-PAR-Monitoring-Kit.html

Rules? No worries about posting external links. Only real rules here are no spam and to respect others, but even that we push as some discussions can get a little heated, so more like no personal attacks [emoji1] [emoji106] [emoji61]

 

[scubasteve]

that just plain sucks. at least your curing it the natural way.... i hate seeing people cook rock just to rid algae.

 

[hark]

Tank is on the mend. I wish I took pictures of it at its worst, but I was so upset I didn't want any record of it.

Imagine everything basically dead, algae strands about 6" long over everything (walls, rocks, pumps, returns,)

Now I'm starting to see corraline grow back after being burned away, a few spa I thought were toast are showing new growth, my torch that had maybe one little tiny head has now grown to a toonie in size and some of my zoas are opening.

BTW I used the algae outbreak as an excuse to pick up a new large flipper magnet cleaner. Wow that thing is amazing I wish I had it sooner, makes cleaning the glass a breeze compared to the old stick with a scraper on the end crap I used to use

Ryan

 

[BIGSHOW]

Don't rely too much on that conductivity probe. They're not always accurate. They constantly need to be calibrated to be accurate. Anything in the tank can affect the reading.

I wish I never spent the money on mine.

Sony Xperia Z3

This is very true. I would not use a conductivity probe to do anything in a reef tank. It is another failure waiting to happen.

 

[Salty Cracker]

I did almost the same thing one time when I added a bunch of UV bulbs to the mix. I haven't had to as much as touch the led's since, so it all just grew back.

Honestly, once the tank is going well, stop touching it except water changes, filters, etc. The ocean doesn't rearrange itself except in catastrophic events, which is more or less what happens in a reef tank when you do something major (like move the ocean closer to the sun). Good luck and take it slow.