Rough summer/concrete dust

[asylumdown]

Well crap. Got in to the tank is an understatement. I just spent the last several hours cleaning the cabinet out. My dosing solutions had turned dark grey, you can see the line in the sides where the demo started, the carbonate crystals that collect as the level in the container drops go from bright white to dark grey in one line. I drained and cleaned them, but I'd wager several pounds of dust collectively settled on the water over the past few weeks.

I'm also a little freaked out that we've been living in the house without it having been properly cleaned a final time. I've changed out the furnace filters, but every day a new, fine layer of the crap settles out on everything.

Strangely, the one thing that doesn't seem harmed at all is a burgeoning population of berghia nudibranchs I didn't think had survived past the initial 10. In my 45th hour of emergency tank rescue work tonight I noticed one in the display. Then I noticed another. I stopped counting at 40. I might not have any more coral, but at least my aiptasia population should collapse...

I'm kind of grasping for a silver lining here.

[hfp75]

The only option it seems from what I'm hearing is to view this as an opportunity to restart the tank - fresh. Wash your rocks one, twice, three times. Dump everything to be safe....

[asylumdown]

Well I've thrown out a full garbage bag of dead coral, and fragged off what remained as best I could. There's a lot more dead stuff that still needs to be cut away, but between work, putting my house back together after a major Reno (it will be months before all the dust is finally cleaned out of every nook and cranny), trying to save th tank, and getting the house ready for sale again... Well there's only so many nights you can go to bed past 2am and still function at 8am the next day. 14 nights, to be exact, and I'm not sure I'd say I'm highly functional today.

Anyway I've done a cumulative 400% water change, ranging from 20 to 60% in volume each time as I can only make 100 gallons a day. The carnage seems to have slowed down, and a couple pieces are showing heal lines were the tissue stopped receding, but by the time I'm done cutting back all the way to healthy tissue on all colonies, most of the survivors will be frag to mini colony sized. Thankfully my largest "show piece" acro smack in the middle of the tank only lost a few of its tips.

I'm a little nervous as I'm on the plane right now headed out of town for 10 days. My dosing rates got soooooo whacked with everything dying, so I have no idea if the amount of chems I'm adding through my doser is going to keep things stable until I get back. Im going to try and find someone to at least do an alkalinity test mid week for me.

Moral of the story - this sucked. I have an A. Lokani I hanging on by a thread. Given the recent legal shenanigans I hope it makes it as I doubt its replaceable

[hillegom]

Sorry to hear about all your problems. Hopefully it will turn around.
So is cutting new tile in the house a standard practice? I know there was a lot of dust made in the demolition, but to cut new tiles in the house to add to the mess doesn't seem right to me.
My neighbour redid his tile and they hung plastic around the job to try to contain the dust. Most of it, can never totally mask everything off. But when the new tiles were cut, they were cut outside.

[gregzz4]

So sorry to read this
I hope you get things turned around

[mihaivapler]

Originally Posted by hillegom

Sorry to hear about all your problems. Hopefully it will turn around.
So is cutting new tile in the house a standard practice? I know there was a lot of dust made in the demolition, but to cut new tiles in the house to add to the mess doesn't seem right to me.
My neighbour redid his tile and they hung plastic around the job to try to contain the dust. Most of it, can never totally mask everything off. But when the new tiles were cut, they were cut outside.

They should use a wet saw to cut the tiles and go outside for when they use the grinder. Unfortunately most of the trades they don't care about your house.they make it easier for them and not to protect your house..just sad for all..the tank was looking awesome lots of colonies....

[monza]

Wow, your like the reef tank punching bag. Sorry for your issues.