[fishytime]

Ive had a bit of a run of bad luck with the tank, that has left me with a serious case of the blahs. Its gotten to where I didnt want to come home and look at the tank tonight.

It started off a couple weeks ago when one of the ballasts in my tek light died. As I posted earlier the tank has been running on half wattage since then, waiting on a new ballast. The sps on the dim side of the tank are all starting to suffer. Some color loss and browning in one or two. The ballast is in so I be be back at full wattage again tomorrow night. The whole issue has left a bad taste in my mouth regarding the tek lights. Unfortunately upgrading to two 36" ATI powermodules (first choice) would set me back over $2000 and is simply out of reach atm. Soooo tek it is....for now.

In the process of doing some pruning recently I broke my candycane from where it was epoxied in, so Friday night I decide to "stick" it back where it was. As I am pushing it in place the entire center portion of my aquascaping shifted about 3" to one side....I thought the whole thing was coming down but I managed to stabilize it enough to work on fixing it. So I moved a few sps colonies to the sump and tried to fix the slide. We all know what happens when you move something in a reef aquarium....It didnt go back to the way it was and I am not happy with the new look. By this point my frustration level had peaked and I figured I would just get the stuff in the sump back in the tank and fix it later when I mellowed out a bit. As I am bringing my large orange monti from the sump it slips a bit from my grip and as I try and save it from hitting the floor, I squeeze and snap it into about twenty pieces

Then last night I had to switch my lights off manually because I changed the timer from "timer" to "manual" mode. I guess the sudden and unusual blackout spooked my male hooded fairy wrasse and he "Peter Panned" 6' out of the tank onto the hardwood floor.... I was standing right there and if I was on the ball probably could have caught him...as it was, he wasnt out of the tank for more than 15 seconds but when I put him back in the tank he spiraled down to the bottom and disappeared in the rockwork. I looked and couldnt find him this morning when the lights were off, but found him dead this evening when I got home. I know its entirely my fault for not covering the tank which makes me feel even worse.

*takes a deep breath*