Good morning, dear reefies.
So, this just has not been my season. As if everything that has transpired has not been enough, my loving and incredible grandmother passed away yesterday morning. I was closer to her than any person outside of my children. My last conversation with her, she told me that I was her in every way. She told me not to come because she wanted me to remember her beautiful. I knew she was saying goodbye. I'm not ready. We're never ready. I feel like the world opened up and swallowed me whole.
I'm trying to distract myself from grief by focusing on anything else. I finally tested my parameters yesterday. Turns out that my ReefDose4 has not been a good friend. It has been telling me everyday that it has not been able to dose alk, when in fact it was - a lot. My alk is up to 14. It told me it was dosing calcium, and it wasn't - the container was bone dry. My calcium dropped to 310. Mag remains high at 1400, which I was not dosing. The supplement monitor on that thing just does not work. Nitrates are at 8.9 but ammonia is still at zero and PH is 8.2. Essentially, the tank looks good. I lost one fish, which could just be old age - it was a chromis. I also lost a few nerite snails. I actually hope getting the paramenters back in line does not have an adverse impact. My nem split and she is thriving. My bubble coral is enormous. (still concerned about what the heck is growing on it's base but it's localized so I'm just going to wait and see)
With the knee injury, it is incredibly difficult to do any tank maintenance right now. I'm going to thank the reef god's (Neptune?) that the tank has not gone completely haywire.
Today, I need to go tell my daughter who was out of town that her great grandmother has passed. This will mean that she has lost every biological grandparent she had within 6 weeks. I need this year to be over. If ever I needed a fresh start and a do-over ... I'm there. I've had another company trying to recruit me for months. Maybe it's time to listen.
Thanks for listening. I'll probably read this later and realize that I make no sense. Sleep has not been my friend.
Hugs and well wishes to you all. May your travels be safe and your tanks be spectacular.
;Joyful
Yesterday I had my hands in the tank and this morning my thumb is super sore and a little red. Not too bad but I did put some Neosporin and a bandaid on it. Was going to do maintenance on another tank today but my hold off now for a couple days. Have heard of people getting bad infections this way. Guess I will work on a woodworking project instead
I hope the reset goes well. Keep in touch!
