I remember my u of a dorm, then my little apartment close by, I thought they were small until I went to school in Europe...

My apartment is bigger then my bedroom in HUB was, but its about twice as small as my place in Newton. I definitely don't miss HUB!

new tank
 

well tell kevin to put the ice cream down.
need to see some new pics.
if you need ro water let me know i,ll start getting it ready.

I'll see what I can do tonight!

Speaking of photos, where would you like your tank photos?

new tank
 

well how goes the battle got any water in it yet.
as for pics send them to edpaulaholland@shaw.ca

I'd love to see how those tank pics turned out, Ed! Please post them publically.

:)

I'll post them shortly for you!

so wheres the pics of the new stand andcanopy????

I've been pretty bad about photos, so here you go!

FYI its T -11 days until this tank will be up and running.

So far:
- I turfed the idea for T5s, the cost was too prohibitive to consider futher.
- I picked up a luminarc reflector as a upgrade for my existing 175w MH set up.
- I water tested my tank, no leaks!

A few photos to tide you all over:

New skimmer!
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0070.jpg

Luminarc reflector
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0065.jpg

More photos:

The tank before drilling:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0357.jpg

After drilling:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0364.jpg

Initial plumbing:

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0367.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0375.jpg

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0377.jpg

very patient build so far, it will be great when it's ready to add water :)

So the move happend, and to be frank about it, it was a disaster.

I lost or am in the process of loosing pretty much everything I really love in my tank. My younger dog ate the body of one of my fish that didn't survive, and my oldest clam is kicking the bucket. The floor in my new condo isn't level, so I am the Shim Queen.

Pretty much everything that can go wrong, has gone wrong in this move. So to everyone who has gotten some frags off me in the last couple of months, you may be getting PMs asking for frags.

I'm off to visit a store to buy new carbon, because of course it got destroyed in the move!

/rant of utter frustration.

Oh Man that hurts....

Sorry too hear that Catherine..but things always get better

W

Oh, Catherine, I'm so sorry to hear the move hasn't gone well. I know it's hard, but keep positive......

Oh no :( So sorry!! I hope things start to settle out. If there's anything I can do to help please let me know.

Thank you everyone for your kind words.

I think I will loose 3 clams, and probably 1/4 - 1/3 of my SPS. There is still some flesh on some colonies/frags and I'm doing my best just to leave them alone to see if they heal or improve. At this point I think fragging larger pieces would cause more harm then good.

Oh no. Catherine, I don't work tomorrow or Tuesday. If you need help, just ask!

Ah that sux.

The die off seems to have stabalized now.

I had to come back to Edmonton to work, so the tank is being watched right now, and hopefully it will start to recover in the next few weeks.

Thank you again for all the offers of help, it is very much so appreciated.

I now rename this system the Tank O' Death. Everytime I look into the tank a new SPS frag or colony is dead. When I packed up my little 24g I had 94 different types of sps and about 10 duplicates. I will be surprised if I have 35 left.

I am running carbon, there is very good flow in the system, and the skimmer is doing a good job of cleaning everything out. I am running both actinics and MHs on a reducced photo period, 6 hours a day. The tank also stinks, like die off.

There is no sand in the system anymore, and nothing, including the rock, was out of water for more then possibly 30 seconds in the move. Everything was shipped in water.

All the fish are alive and seem to be doing well. I see less of them though because they have more places to hide. The chromis love the flow and are playing in it constantly.

Any thoughts on why I'm having this wave of SPS death?

Catherine, have you run the typical tests? What are your levels at?

The only thing I can think of is that you're having a mini-cycle (well .. maybe not even all that "mini"). Compounding this is that the die-off from the cycle perpetuates that much more. If that's the case, the fish may likely weather the storm but who knows how bad the corals will do. The key is to get the tank stabilized. I don't know if these things work but everytime I have a tank disruption I dump some Cycle in. Whether it does anything or not I can't say, but if nothing else I get the feeling that I've "done something about it." Maybe some Reef-resh or Probidio or something that infuses and feeds bacterial growth might not hurt. I don't know.

Best of luck. :(

Yup and here they are:

SG: 1.025
pH: 8.0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Ammonia: 0.75 <-- I don't know where its coming from, there is nothing dead in the tank.
dKH: 8
Magnesium: 1050ppm
Calcium: 400ppm
Smell: Nasty, like a fish cleaning station.

So my next steps are:
- maybe a water change (I just added 15g of NSW)
- visit a store and look for an ammonia spong.
- toss in my various sponges, nitrate, and phosphate.
- continue to run carbon

I guess my question is where in the city is there a wide varity of dry goods to choose from?

It just gets better and better...

My pump is now leaking from the bearings. I have to go find a 2" threaded cap... so where can I go for such a thing? The Rona in Edmonton didn't have caps.

I hope all this bad luck translates into something fantastic, like say a big lotto win, or having everything that is left in my tank live.

jeez Catherine I'm sorry to hear about this. When the frags I got from you are bigger you can definately have some.

This is horrible and am sorry to hear about it.

May I suggest finding someone to take the remaining SPS off your hands until you get the tank settled down? Then you'll hopefully avoid further losses.

Where in the city are you, Catherine? With the roads the way they are, you certainly don't want to be running around all over the place. Maybe we can direct you to the nearest best place for dry goods and plumbing.

I am in Calgary now. I went to the plumbing place suggested in my Calgary thread and got what I needed. I also sent off an email to Reeflow about my leaking pump, they said they will send out a replacement seal kit, but won't give me an ETA.

Even more SPS have RTNed in the hour I was out. I am fully expecting to loose everything at this point in time. I am putting out a post in the Calgary forum to see if anyone will take my still living SPS and house them for a few weeks until I can get things back to where they should be.

Okay, so I have accepted the disaster, and I am moving on. I'll post up today's parameters later this afternoon.

What I did;
- took out about 1/4 of a 5g bucket of skeletons.
- added Prime to the water to combat the ammonia
- added in new nitrate, and phosphate sponges

What I am going to do:
- water changes at 5g a day to avoid shocking the system any more
- keep feeding the fish a variety of foods to try and keep their immune systems strong.
- add more rock to the system. Even though I only have 4 more gallons of total water volume, my tank looks empty with my existing rock.

So after all is said and done I'm now searching out and making a list of what I would like to re-stock my system with in the future. I'm thinking I probably won't be adding anything until at least the new year so I have some time to plot it all out.

I know I would like to aquire more clams, some dersa, crocea, and squamosa. I also know that I would like to replenish my SPS collection, and possibly add a few softies for contrast.

Provided all my fish survive this unexpected disaster, I won't be adding anything. I will most likely add additional clean up crew members though.

On Friday, or Saturday I will try and post some photos of before, during, and after the disaster.

Today's parameters:

SG: 1.025
pH: 8.1
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Ammonia: 0.75 Still
Smell: Better, but still a bit funky

I'm going to have a water change done on the tank today, I'm hoping for 5-7g.

Photos of the disaster.

Just after I got all the fish, rock, clams, and corals into the tank. This is prior to turning the Snapper pump on, and bringing the sump online.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0417.jpg

The sump before it was filled with cheato, reactors, and filter floss.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0443.jpg

First moments of the overflow in use.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0493.jpg

Noticing something is wrong with the SPS, and the two clams in the right hand corner.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0445.jpg

FTS of the beginning of the disaster.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0491.jpg

The first of 3 pails of dead skeletons.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0510.jpg

Aquascaping and remaining SPS. More RTN.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0517.jpg

The tank today. I have what can only be described as the beginning of a cycle.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0060.jpg

The tank o-death in its full glory.
http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...a/DSC_0059.jpg

I'm doing what I can to just keep things under control at this point in time. It really sucks....

Oh wow....:s I've been trying to think of why your ammonia spiked like that. Was there maybe lots of sponge on the rocks that died after exposure to air? PUZZLING.

Either way, wow...I'm sorry for all that loss! The bucket of skeletens was tragic.

I'm still trying to figure it out. It just kills me to not know. I am so glad I pulled out the buckets separately, becuase if they all came out in one bucket at once, I probably would have cried.

There probably isn't any harm in leaving the remaining skeletons in the tank is there?

While there is probably no harm in leaving the skeletons, it is a sad reminder of the disaster. If it were me I think I would remove them (or at least hide them) :cry:

I'm thinking of tossing all the skeletons into my sump, and using the empty clam shells to create pod piles. I agree with you though, I would prefer them hidden as not to be constantly reminded of the disaster.

really sorry to hear about that. i too have used salt buckets lately for dead corals. it really really sucks.

I saw, and I felt so bad for you. I just can't imagine it happening in a very well established tank like yours. At least most of mine were all large frags, or small colonies.

that sucks :(

That really sucks Catherine, I recently lost two large colonies that I had for years along with a few other smaller ones. I feel for ya.

I saw the photos, and they were nice colonies.