Worst weekend ever.

[asylumdown]

So, this month has been rough, I've been out of town for work more than I've been in town, not more than 48 hours in the city in a row since the last weekend of June. So my tank was looking a little rough around the edges, but my tank sitting team has done me a serious solid and kept things running. Until to worst happened:

Was out of town all week last week, came home Thursay night to fin out one of my 8 radions is pooched, keeps blinking on and off. I think 'no big deal, I can fix it later'. So I leave Friday morning again with detailed instructions for my tank sitter. But I made one tactical error. No one who feeds my fish ever wants to deal with the stinky effluent from my protein skimmer, so when I go out of town, I point the hose on the collection cup at my dedicated drain and don't worry about it. It's worked so far, but this weekend it went seriously sideways.

First, on Friday after we left the HVAC company came to install a second AC unit at my house because the one they originally put in couldn't keep up with floor to ceiling south facing windows (which I tried to tell them multiple times but what the hell do I know), but they didn't finish the job so they just thought to themselves 'hey, let's just leave for the long weekend, and yah, don't worry about turning any of the furnace system back on'. The tank sitter calls on SUnday to let me know that the coolest room in my house was 34 degrees. I don't have a chiller.

Second, I guess at some point my skimmer went nuts. From the looks of it, it went nuts either late Friday or Saturday. It started overflowing, and since the effluent was going straight own the drain, it just kept overflowing. And my ATO just kept topping up. And up. And up. Thankfully, (or not, depending on how you look at it), the skimmer emptied the sump faster than the top off could fill, so eventually the pump started blowing air and shut off. Since I only gave the sitter instructions on how to run the vortech pumps for feeding time, and what to feed, and he was only here a couple times a day, he didn't know anything was wrong. From his perspective, the fish were still eating, and the water was still moving.

Fast forward to me coming home today. The pump was trying to re-initialize itself and sucking air in the process (hurray for Jacuzzi tank). Half my coral is dead, with another 20% looking not long for this world. The Salinity in the display was 1.013, and the sump smells like rotting fish.

I'm hoping this isn't the preamble to a massive tank crash, because right now, the fish are looking fine, even my new CBB seems totally unfazed. I'm working on getting the display out of the danger zone, and doing a 100% water change in the sump.

Everything all at once right?