My first tank crash in over 13 years

[3mm3]

Just wanted to share my experience in the last 4 months.
First I began this aquarium almost 3 years ago. I decided to run this system different from all the others. LED lighting and full zeovite system no refugium.
First sps was added after nearly 1 year of break in.
For fish I had
Potters angels
Bangaii cardinals
Six line wrasse
Achilles tang
Hippo tang.
All of my fish and coral where healthy and the tank looked great. My coral was growing very fast and had excellent color.
Things changed when I came home to see I had a new present a coral beauty angel. All of my fish where wiped out except my hippo tang.
Then began the sps decline.
I believe the issue began when my nutrients where undetectable.
Sps all began fading and this happened over about 2 months.
I began dosing nitrate and phosphate last month but I believe I acted too late.
The only other thing I had changed was running carbon in a reactor vs bag.
Basically in the last month I have lost all sps. All zoanthids are still doing great and the few lps I have are alright.
All of my parameters had been tested constantly and kept where I wanted.
I have already shut down zeovite reactor, carbon reactor and calcium reactor (alk demand has nearly stopped).
The only thing I can point a finger to is I starved my coral to death.
Anyways just wanted to share my experience and say that if you have coral not looking right react fast.
This was my first tank disaster ever. I am completely tearing this system down by summer.
New system is being built and will hopefully be running within a month. Back to the basics for me.

 

[Rick.45cal]

Oh man, sorry to hear. Having run a full zeovit system I can understand your frustration. I'm glad it didn't cause you to leave the hobby. ULNS are exceptionally difficult to manage, IMHO there's no benefit too it either. I went back to doing things my way, and you know what... everything is doing 100x better than with the zeovit system, and trying to operate with undetectable nutrients.

Sorry for your experience, just know you aren't alone!

 

[3mm3]

Oh man, sorry to hear. Having run a full zeovit system I can understand your frustration. I'm glad it didn't cause you to leave the hobby. ULNS are exceptionally difficult to manage, IMHO there's no benefit too it either. I went back to doing things my way, and you know what... everything is doing 100x better than with the zeovit system, and trying to operate with undetectable nutrients.

Sorry for your experience, just know you aren't alone!

I didn't mind the zeovite system it ran great for me until I lost my fish. I'm guessing the fish waste was keeping everything balanced nicely and when I lost that I began a downward spiral.
For my new build I'm going back to running a big refugium though. Display will be going back to halide/t5.
Definitely wont be leaving the hobby. Been keeping fish tanks for way too long to quit.

 

[daelie]

Did you alter your dosing and reactor after losing all your fish? Zeovit and similar systems in my opinion shine in medium to high bioloads. With no fish you just, like you said, starve everything.

Having undetectable nitrates and phosphates isn't all bad, as long as the fish load is higher. Because in that case you know the nutrients being put into the system is great, they're just also being process ed as well, by both corals and the system. When you lost all the fish, your nutrients got processed as before, but nothing ever probably became available to your corals.

I really enjoy systems like zeovit because they keep people more engaged. There are a lot of people even in the zeovit forums that dive into the system without knowing how it works or why it works then blame the system when their corals die.

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Sorry to hear!

 

[prsnlty]

Sorry about your crash. I had a coral beauty take out all my fish several years ago except 1 who survived - the coral beauty! I still have him even though at the time I wanted to flush him...

 

[3mm3]

Did you alter your dosing and reactor after losing all your fish? Zeovit and similar systems in my opinion shine in medium to high bioloads. With no fish you just, like you said, starve everything.

Having undetectable nitrates and phosphates isn't all bad, as long as the fish load is higher. Because in that case you know the nutrients being put into the system is great, they're just also being process ed as well, by both corals and the system. When you lost all the fish, your nutrients got processed as before, but nothing ever probably became available to your corals.

I really enjoy systems like zeovit because they keep people more engaged. There are a lot of people even in the zeovit forums that dive into the system without knowing how it works or why it works then blame the system when their corals die.

Nope I did not adjust my additives. Completely didn't even register to do so until too late.
I'm definitely not blaming the method as it worked great while I had fish and everything was in a nice balance. I just literally forgot to account for a sudden zero fish load. It was a very hard lesson. Lost a lot of very nice and big colonies.
I'm always messing with my tank it keeps me out of trouble lol.
The other lesson I learned was to always keep a quarantine system available for unforeseen surprises.

 

[3mm3]

Sorry about your crash. I had a coral beauty take out all my fish several years ago except 1 who survived - the coral beauty! I still have him even though at the time I wanted to flush him...

Sadly he was the first death. Was covered in what appeared to be marine velvet but not positive.

 

[daelie]

Nope I did not adjust my additives. Completely didn't even register to do so until too late.
I'm definitely not blaming the method as it worked great while I had fish and everything was in a nice balance. I just literally forgot to account for a sudden zero fish load. It was a very hard lesson. Lost a lot of very nice and big colonies.
I'm always messing with my tank it keeps me out of trouble lol.
The other lesson I learned was to always keep a quarantine system available for unforeseen surprises.

That really sucks in any circumstance. The comment about blaming zeovit wasn't really for you as you seemed to know exactly what went wrong. More so just a comment about what I commonly see when the system doesn't work for some people. You seemed to grasp that and velvet is just crap, I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

I'm always fiddling with my tank too, trying new things and additives just to see what they do. It bites me in the butt every so often.

 

[malira]

Something similar happened to my son's tank 1.7 years ago. He didn't realize he was running an ulns but when he lost 4 of his 9 fish his tank took 4 weeks to go from great colorful to pale and dying.

 

[vlangel]

Ha ha, I am so old that I can remember when running a fuge was cutting edge, and now that is old school. As for me, since I am an old dog I don't think I want to learn any new tricks so its a fuge and a skimmer for nutrient control for my seahorses.