KrazyKuch's & Michika's 180Gal Tank Build

[christyf5]

Wow thats brutal. I always thought the two heaters thing was bulletproof, I guess that theory is down the tubes.

I'm of a mind that 65 is better than 95, I'm sure everyone will come out of it okay

[michika]

Well at about 3:30 I should know how it all went down today. Kevin gets home 2 hours before I do, and he is going to start transfering everything back into the display, provided everything looks okay.

I'm looking at nice photos, ToTM, the Show Me Your _____ ones, and a few others to keep me positive.

You are right though, colder seems to be better then hotter. The only fish I didn't see this morning were the chromii, the purple tang and the scopas tang. I saw everyone else briefly. I am holding out a lot of hope for my clams and corals. Starting over last time was devistating enough, I'm not sure if I can deal with doing it again.

In the very least when everything goes back into the 180g there will be more water volume, and better flow. We ended up having to cut off the bulkheads from the overflow to get it down our stairs in the new house.

Any tank we build will definitely have to be build on site!

[michika]

Alright so everything is back in the 180g, there have been 3 casualties. They were the pocci colony, the neon green one ( ), and a frag from Snappy/Coral Master. All the fish made it, and I attribute it to the temp going down, not up.

The fish also seem to have lost some of their mass, so I am kind of pleased I overfeed, because everyone is looking quite a bit skinnier now.

There has been, what I can guess, is browning out of the SPS. It was expected, and I am now taking steps to slowly acclimate everything back to my usual lighting regimen.

Two clams don't look super fantastic, one being the gigas. The gigas however did not smell at all when I pulled it out of the holding tank. I am now in a better position to get better photos. The second clam that doesn't look so great is placed a bit funny. It used to be placed straight up, and now its at more of an angle. I will fix it tomorrow morning and see if that helps things out.

So overall it was very stressful, especially the part with the heaters. We figured out that one of the heaters just stopped working, failed in the off position. The second one failed with the light on, but the heating element not working at all.

[fishytime]

Oh no! Guys Im sorry. Dieing for an update. How is everything doing?

[michika]

More casualties this morning I hear. I didn't have time to look myself, not that I really want to see any death & destruction. Per Kevin my favorite deliciate cream colony with blue/purple tips is gone.

Once the tank stabilizes out I will put up a post to see who got duplicates from Red Coral. I really want frags of all of these back.

Tonight there will be a big WC, and we'll pick up more carbon, and continue to run that 24/7. I think its the temperature that has done in the SPS. I also worry that the temperature may have also done in some of my biological filter. Tomorrow I will pick up a couple of pieces of LR to put in the tank just in case.

When I had die off in my little 28g long it was because the biological filter got killed off or maimed in some way that it couldn't come back.

So the plan;
1) WC
2) Run more carbon
3) Add more live rock to system
4) Get new plumbing to replace the stuff that had to be torn off
5) Overskim like crazy
6) Fatten up the fish
7) Don't panic

[christyf5]

Aww sucks to hear that. I had hoped you would escape unscathed

I think you should move #7 to #1

[Delphinus]

Good luck. Sorry to hear about the corals but hopefully you can find pieces of them, or others that are as nice (or nicer) down the road when things stabilize. Hopefully things can start bouncing back up from here on.

If you're concerned about your biofilter I might consider looking into a bacterial supplement. I know Zeovit for example has a bacterial product (not the regular probiotic treatment) for this sort of thing. I'll see if I can find an URL for what I'm talking about.

[Delphinus]

Can't find what I'm looking for. At one point it was on J&L's site but isn't anymore. I had spied it at Wai's about 6 months ago too. A clear plastic bottle made by KZ and was some kind of bacterial infusion for cycle-starting a new tank sort of thing. Was nothing to do with the typical Zeovit daily additions stuff.

Anyhow thought this might be a more direct approach than just a new rock but since I can't find it anymore maybe it's not worth the goose chase. Although there are other similar products from other brands out there..

Whatever you decide is best though, good luck, hope things come back quickly..