Last I heard he lost almost everything :sad: He said he pulled out all the dead coral and it filled a cooler up about 5" deep :cry: Not sure if he lost all the fish too or not but I know he did lose some of them. Edit: he did lose all his fish :cry:

He said the tank is looking pretty empty right now, but at least the water is clearing up. Doug also said I could test out my aquascaping skills and help him set the rock back up when I come visit him this weekend. Guess we'll have to see if my "skills" are up to par :wink:

Omg Doug!!! :eek: Let me know when you're ready I will send you an SPS frag pack. :)

I'm so sorry to hear this. Such an amazing tank.

AHHHh Crap!.... That sucks man.

Sorry to hear bout the crash. Just the motion of moving things around during the move set it off?

I could hardly imagine what it's like to loose everything, you get so used to the personalities of your fish I would be totally depressed to have them all pass at once. Really sorry to hear about your loss Doug, do you know what caused everything to melt?

If you need any frags to start back up shoot me a PM, lots in the frag tank.
Levi

Things like this scare the hell outa me... but to see the support here is inspiring. If you know or have an idea what happened in the move to cause the crash I would be interested in knowing.
Best of luck in the rebuild.

I haven't been on canreef much, sorry to hear what happened.

If you need any assistance, I am here to help you.

I have a bag of sea treasures salt. I use to use this stuff and it is pretty decent. If you want it for at least basic water changes, it is yours for FREE. Let me know, its a big bag, unused. It would be good for the re-cycling of things.

I am speechless Doug! What can one say? You had an amazing tank and I know it may not help alot now but I know that you can rebuild an awesome tank that everyone is envious of!! Starry and I are thinking of you, let us know if there is anything we can do!

thanks guys for all the responses, kind words and offers for help.....those of you who know me, know that this tank was a part of me and sitting there watching it all die was devastating to say the least....


first off I wanna thank Mikey(El Guappo) big time for helping me with the move(It wasnt easy)......he helped me for 10 hours:surprise:........I didnt think the move went all that bad.......it took 13 hours to take down the entire system, which sounds like a lot but the system is two separate tanks sharing the same sump.......it was a 24 degree day(not to cool, not too hot) so I put all the coolers/bins out on the front lawn with probably 70% of the containers having a powerhead in them....all the containers with either fish or corals had a powerhead.........the small tank had a 2-3" inch sandbed so I ditched that.....the big tank only had an inch in it so I figured it would be ok to move it.....that was my critical error in judgment(I think)......anyways.....it was 10:00ish when we finally got the tanks to the point where Mikey could go home.....I spent the next couple hours putting all the rock, coral and fish back into their respective tanks with just the basics running(heat and water movement)....the plumbing would have to wait...... the sump ran with a small powerhead with a hose pumping water from the skimmer section to the fuge which kept water moving through the whole sump....I got up later that morning to go to work and my male clown was swimming in that dumb arse clown way right at the front of the tank......I thought things were ok and left for work......I get a call about noon from the new landlord(who needed to get in to my place that day) that house stinks, and he's concerned if the tank smells like that all the time.....I just figured that he was smelling some of the frags that got missed in some of the bins(I noticed a slight smell when I woke up too) and reassured him that the tank doesnt smell......I got home from work and the stench nearly knocked me over......I still just thought it was the bins stinking things up so I quickly gathered them all up, took them outside an rinsed them with the hose......I went back in and as I got close to the tank I could tell that it was the tank that wreaked .....the water was like milk.....I couldnt see two inches into the tank....I could however see two dead fish right at the front of the tank and I knew the worst had happened......I sat there for literally an hour not doing a thing.....just sortta in shock.....thats when I posted the tank had crashed...at that point I seriously was considering shutting the tank down.....I got a couple quick calls with offers(thanks again guys) for 10- 20g of water and another call from a close friend who talked me through things and convinced me to try and save what I could.....I put a call out to Kevin(you know how much I appreciate your help) at the shop and he said he could have 80g(I had 20 ready as well) of water ready for me and he would help me with the water change.....I gathered up my bins and ran up to the shop(it was 8:30pm).....we pumped water from the back of the shop, out the front door and into the bins in the back of my truck.....drove the water back to my place and Kevin pumped the water from the curb, through a window and into the tank(transfusion style) while I drained water out and flushed it.....Kevin then offered to stay and help me get the tank plumbed....it was midnight when he left and I stayed up to get the skimmer up and running, carbon going through a reactor and do an emergency dose of prime......the massive water change had cleared the water some but by morning the tank was still cloudy and stinking......I put the lights on and the scene was apocalyptic.....I could see dozens of dead snails, a couple more dead fish and all my corals were dead(except for some mushrooms a couple zoanthids and a couple lps)..... the attitude then shifted from saving the tank to just starting over again.....I had to work again that day, so when I got home I started the gruesome task of sifting blindly through murky water feeling for every rock(breaking/ cutting/ hacking off dead or dieing coral), fish and snail......the bodies filled a large coleman extreme cooler 5" deep


http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP4426.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP4427.jpg


so the tank is pretty much a complete right off.....one blasto and a handful of hermits is all that survived.....heres couple shots of what my skimmer looked like for a few days(its almost completely choked of air)

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP4429.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP4428.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...e/IMGP4430.jpg

I couldnt bring myself to do anything else with the tank.....it sat just with the rock randomly piled from my body search for a few days until Laurie came down for a visit(she was spossed to get a piece of my wrasse...mystery wrasse that is).....I owe a special thanks to her for kicking me in the butt to do something about the state the tank was in.....she sat on the floor for an hour scraping dead stinky zoas off of some of my bigger pieces of rock(while I fished them out) and helped me aquascape the tank(and her skills are up to par:wink:).......so that brings the thread up to date.......the tank is re-scaped and cycling.......and Im officially starting over.......there is still a bunch that I need to do with the tank, like put the rest of the powerheads back in the tank, set up the controller/ato/doser......gonna try and get that done tomorrow(er, I mean later today), clean the glass and get some pics of the new scape up

This happened to me when the auto top off failed flooding my tank,it is hard thing to swallow. I rebuilt with help from Bob, John and Kevin. I fixed all the flaws in the tank i never liked and we think it looks way better. It is no where in the same boat as mine were still mostly frags. It u need anything Doug were here and when you restart if u want any frags give me a shout we have the Red planet, Strawberry Shortcakes, Pink lemonades... its not much as frags but it will be a start.

Again Doug my heart goes out to you...I am so, so, so very sorry for you. I admire your ability to rebuild though and get your baby back up and running. So glad Laurie still came down, says a lot about her as a person...way to go Laurie, I know he probably really needed the wonderful moral support.

I will be here to watch the rebuild... I hope you get all the support you need, sorry all I can do is give moral support. Are you going to use any of you dead corals in your aquascaping? (that's what most reef rock is right?) Or do you not want any memories of what happened?

Dude! I found a positive thing that could come out of this!!!! Since you are missing a few pieces of coral and a few fish here, you should do a tank upgrade now!!!! Take advantage of this! You can totally do it now.

Am really sorry to hear about the crash. I can understand being so overwhelmed and am glad that you had help and support. Hope your rebuild goes well. I will be following.

Those pictures are heart-wrenching man I could barely read that. I think I can imagine what the tank meant to you and following something like that I'm relieved just to see you post to your thread again. We all know you *can* rebuild the glory but again i'm relieved to read you're going to. Good luck!

Terrible! It hurts to see pics like that. I feel so bad for you Doug.

Good on 'ya for getting back in the saddle after such a horrible setback. Shows courage my man!

Thanks Leah.

Doug I enjoyed my visit with you, especially giving your "butt" a kick :lol: I'm glad we got the tank aquascaped, however it's kind of you to say my skills (at least when it come to aquascaping :wink:) are up to par when I know I suck at it! Good thing you have mad aquascaping skills, I really like how the rock's set up, now get on those pic.'s so everyone else can see :biggrin:

He he! :biggrin: Back to being X-rated and has nothing to do with me this time.:wink:

Good on ya Doug, wish I could have seen your tank before in person before this happened but can't wait to see the progress on the re-start. :thumb:

+1

I came really close to getting over there but I had too much going on whenever it made sense to visit. I'm going to make sure I see version 2. Even if it means crouching outside in the bushes one night.

*gulp*

The bit that gets me is that if this can happen to an experienced reefer like Doug, then what's in store for a twit like me ?

Anyone else feel queasy ?

I guess the lesson to learn from this is to try to be around after any kind of significant change is made to your system. I plumbed a chiller last night and stayed up for hours checking for leaks and making sure it wasn't going to over-cool the tank. I eventually went to bed and got up early to re-check everything.

My wife thinks I'm paranoid but after hearing about Doug's misfortune, I feel a little better. Hopefully Doug, you feel a little better by now too !

Ya I'm also not all that stable... I'm in the process of setting up my tank and am extremely paranoid.

Sorry to hear about all your problems. Good to hear you are starting once more instead of packing it in. That would have been the easy route.
I might have missed something, but do you think this happened because you re used some of your sand? There was a hint of that earlier.

Glad to here you're going to redo the tank Doug. That stench is unbelievable. It was bad enough my wife called me at work and told me but when I came in the door, nearly knocked me over.

SPS RTN, blah!!!

Look forward to your rebuild. Good luck.

It is kinda hard to see the remnants of some of my coral on the rock but there was no way I gonna get rid of some of the pieces that I have(way to cool), so I will have to live with it:wink:

dude, this tank move has scared me away from wanting to upgrade(at least while Im renting)......in fact Im not sure Im gonna plumb in the clam tank now:neutral:

Im really not 100% positive what caused the crash......could have been the sand......could have been something else, there was a lot of life under a lot of stress......


Heres what V2 looks like......I reused the PVC substructure I had for the overhangs but changed the layout of them in the tank.....

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0009-5.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0010-5.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0011-4.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0013-4.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0025-6.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0024-7.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0023-4.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0019-5.jpg

Wow... quite the difference from that last time I saw the tank... :sad:

That new scape looks pretty slick though... a bit more open, then again that's how the first one started and you just gradually filled it with more rock to accommodate more SPS..:razz:


Just think man.. This time next year you will be WELL on your way back to glory, and you will have fun getting there. :mrgreen:

We should grab a beer and catch up!

I had a great time too Laurie.....dont sell yourself short.....I only tweaked the top part of your side of the scape......I liked your bottom enough to use it:wink:

ya whats up with that Leah?....you dont find me worthy anymore:wink::razz:


more scape pics....

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0007-4.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0003-3.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0004-2.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0014-4.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0015-4.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0016-2.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0017-5.jpg
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o...IMG_0018-6.jpg

New scape looks bangin' man. Considering where you work that tank will be splashed with colour in NO time. V2 is ALIVE!!

Dude it looks awesome man, i love the rock work you have done there. well done, a crash just means that V2 will be bigger and better.

Well at least you used my "bottom" well :lol: :wink:

You should take a full tank shot so everyone can get the full effect of how cool the new scape is.

Glad to see you're back on the horse Doug, we wouldn't have let you leave anyways. Great aquascaping Laurie, that looks fantastic!! :biggrin:

[quote=fishytime;533619]I had a great time too Laurie.....dont sell yourself short.....I only tweaked the top part of your side of the scape......I liked your bottom enough to use it:wink:

:wink: I am sure it is all great Laurie and exactly where it is supposed to be. :razz: :lol:

ya whats up with that Leah?....you dont find me worthy anymore:wink::razz:

He he! No! Just you have been ah....(choosing my words carefully here) busy. :wink:

Yep Doug's pretty good at helping me put things exactly were they're supposed to be.....the rock people.....I'm talking about the rock! :lol:

I'm happy to see that this thread is back on track!!! For a moment I was starting to get worried. :pop2:

'scapin' is awesome!
You two did a great job. "On to bigger & better things!"

Some great rockwork Doug ! Good to see you with your chin up :) How are you going to do your cyle - the Zeovit 14 day ?

:rofl2:

Your right......the rock in V1 was really open when I started the tank.......didnt look so open towards the end:lol:....we should have a couple honey browns sometime:biggrin:


thanks brochachos:biggrin:.......*Ive actually already started to stock other peeps tanks with some new stuff:wink:*

I must admit.....it was kinda nice being able to sit back and watch a reef Girly handle my.....um.....rock:mrgreen:


oh cmon Leah.....you know I always have time for you:wink::lol:

Ok now my feelings are hurt :cry: :p