Rhodes87
Active Member
- Joined
- Mar 29, 2019
- Messages
- 262
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- Location
- Athens Tennessee
- What state or country do you live in
- Tennessee
Ok so I want to make a post to document my come back from the brink of grabbing a hammer and smashing my tank last year. Kind of a long story but here we go.
Been in this hobby for 10 years now. Most of those years I've had a tank. Maybe 7 or 8 out of the 10 years. Had to take a break a few years back to get the family settled. Now to my current tank. 65 gallon reef ready with sump, skimmer, fuge, and UV.
Tank is a little over 3 years old now. Towards the end of 2020 I had a tank crash. To sum it up it was all my fault. Trying to adjust a neptune AFS while still on the tank I learned was a very bad idea. Dumped half of a large pouch of pellet food in the tank at once. I did what I could to fight it but sh&* got out of hand fast. I had a small patch of Aiptasia that had started as one on a frag plug before all of this that turned into thousands within no time after. Cyano, algae, and Aiptasia explosion was just to much. I lost every bit of coral (over 3k worth) most of it I had just added that year and around 1K in fish. GONE!! I pretty much threw my hands up at that point and said **** THIS.
All of 2021 I pretty much just let it be. Glass covered to the point we couldn't see inside. I did add the UV at the first of 2021 and added 2 file fish and about 15 pistol shrimp to the display and 5 or 6 down in the sump to fight Aiptasia.
Ok so fast forward to the end of 2021 and me and the wife sat down and talked about what to do with it. At one point it looked like we would be braking it down. But I love this hobby way to much and have been in it way to long to just let this defeat me. So we started really cleaning stuff up. Then I found something. I didn't even realize all of the Aiptasia was GONE! That was really when I said heck no! We are bringing this thing back!
Red slime had really covered every thing with lots of GHA. So I Started to fight the slim first. I used chemiclean to clean the red slim up and installed my reactor with GFO. Phosphate was at .78 before adding the reactor and nitrate was off the chart. Currently I have got my phosphate down to .07 and no more red slime.
I'm waiting on my hanna nitrate checker so I can get a good reading on them. I dont have a high range nitrate kit because my phosphate and nitrate was always 000000. never use to be able to keep them lol. Systems has always been a low nutrient system before this.
After the red slime was gone GHA got even worse and Dinos started showing up. I went to the LFS a few weeks ago and picked up 10 hermits. They have taken care of the dinos fast and trying their best with the GHA.
Next and currently I am fighting the GHA. We have cleaned it off a few times and have done a treatment with reef flux a bit ago but it really didn't help at all. Its comes back every time we clean it off, although it has been slower to come back each time. I've been doing water changes. Some WC I do big ones all at once then others I let my apex do a 24 hour AWC. changing out between 15-20 gallons each time I do them. I'm just trying to get and keep my levels down at this point. I did take the GFO off line for a few weeks recently to see where they would rise to and while they did rise way higher then where I want them they didn't go completely nuts. Only up to .33. I have added it back on and got them back down to .07 last I tested.
I have started slowly adding some coral back to the tank over the past month. Sadly the first zoas I added back ( fruit loops and Pandoras) My file fish mowed through after a few days. I added some other zoas and a duncan frag the next week and was able to catch both of the file fish picking at them. One at the duncan and the other at the zoas. Both of them was taken out and taken to the LFS and traded in. I added a real small flame fin tang over a month now and he's been doing awesome.
As of today I have 4 Black axil Chromis, 2 Clowns, Watchman Goby with pistol shrimp, and the flame fin Tang.
Coral: 4 frags of zoas, duncans frag and 2 headed torch coral.
Will be adding a my flame hawk and green maderain back some time soon and thats it for fish.
Told you this would be a long story lol. I am going to add some pic that I took over time of all this. I don't have many because I was so Depressed with it all but I'll share what I do have. Most of my pic of when the tank was good are on a smashed Iphone and I cant get them to post here.
I wanted to share this journey for one, just to save it here, but to also maybe just let someone that might be down with their tank and almost out of the hobby to give them hope and to maybe help them to see you can get through anything in this hobby. I thought I was done. This hobby isn't easy once you get to a certain level. One small mistake and boom. But we spend so much time and energy and MONEY to let something make you hate this hobby. Push through. There is a reason everyone of us got into this and thats the love of these animals. There is always someone that will be willing to help you out in this hobby. We have a great community that loves to help. Dont give up. Keep on fighting.
I will post updates as I continue to build it back.
Been in this hobby for 10 years now. Most of those years I've had a tank. Maybe 7 or 8 out of the 10 years. Had to take a break a few years back to get the family settled. Now to my current tank. 65 gallon reef ready with sump, skimmer, fuge, and UV.
Tank is a little over 3 years old now. Towards the end of 2020 I had a tank crash. To sum it up it was all my fault. Trying to adjust a neptune AFS while still on the tank I learned was a very bad idea. Dumped half of a large pouch of pellet food in the tank at once. I did what I could to fight it but sh&* got out of hand fast. I had a small patch of Aiptasia that had started as one on a frag plug before all of this that turned into thousands within no time after. Cyano, algae, and Aiptasia explosion was just to much. I lost every bit of coral (over 3k worth) most of it I had just added that year and around 1K in fish. GONE!! I pretty much threw my hands up at that point and said **** THIS.
All of 2021 I pretty much just let it be. Glass covered to the point we couldn't see inside. I did add the UV at the first of 2021 and added 2 file fish and about 15 pistol shrimp to the display and 5 or 6 down in the sump to fight Aiptasia.
Ok so fast forward to the end of 2021 and me and the wife sat down and talked about what to do with it. At one point it looked like we would be braking it down. But I love this hobby way to much and have been in it way to long to just let this defeat me. So we started really cleaning stuff up. Then I found something. I didn't even realize all of the Aiptasia was GONE! That was really when I said heck no! We are bringing this thing back!
Red slime had really covered every thing with lots of GHA. So I Started to fight the slim first. I used chemiclean to clean the red slim up and installed my reactor with GFO. Phosphate was at .78 before adding the reactor and nitrate was off the chart. Currently I have got my phosphate down to .07 and no more red slime.
I'm waiting on my hanna nitrate checker so I can get a good reading on them. I dont have a high range nitrate kit because my phosphate and nitrate was always 000000. never use to be able to keep them lol. Systems has always been a low nutrient system before this.
After the red slime was gone GHA got even worse and Dinos started showing up. I went to the LFS a few weeks ago and picked up 10 hermits. They have taken care of the dinos fast and trying their best with the GHA.
Next and currently I am fighting the GHA. We have cleaned it off a few times and have done a treatment with reef flux a bit ago but it really didn't help at all. Its comes back every time we clean it off, although it has been slower to come back each time. I've been doing water changes. Some WC I do big ones all at once then others I let my apex do a 24 hour AWC. changing out between 15-20 gallons each time I do them. I'm just trying to get and keep my levels down at this point. I did take the GFO off line for a few weeks recently to see where they would rise to and while they did rise way higher then where I want them they didn't go completely nuts. Only up to .33. I have added it back on and got them back down to .07 last I tested.
I have started slowly adding some coral back to the tank over the past month. Sadly the first zoas I added back ( fruit loops and Pandoras) My file fish mowed through after a few days. I added some other zoas and a duncan frag the next week and was able to catch both of the file fish picking at them. One at the duncan and the other at the zoas. Both of them was taken out and taken to the LFS and traded in. I added a real small flame fin tang over a month now and he's been doing awesome.
As of today I have 4 Black axil Chromis, 2 Clowns, Watchman Goby with pistol shrimp, and the flame fin Tang.
Coral: 4 frags of zoas, duncans frag and 2 headed torch coral.
Will be adding a my flame hawk and green maderain back some time soon and thats it for fish.
Told you this would be a long story lol. I am going to add some pic that I took over time of all this. I don't have many because I was so Depressed with it all but I'll share what I do have. Most of my pic of when the tank was good are on a smashed Iphone and I cant get them to post here.
I wanted to share this journey for one, just to save it here, but to also maybe just let someone that might be down with their tank and almost out of the hobby to give them hope and to maybe help them to see you can get through anything in this hobby. I thought I was done. This hobby isn't easy once you get to a certain level. One small mistake and boom. But we spend so much time and energy and MONEY to let something make you hate this hobby. Push through. There is a reason everyone of us got into this and thats the love of these animals. There is always someone that will be willing to help you out in this hobby. We have a great community that loves to help. Dont give up. Keep on fighting.
I will post updates as I continue to build it back.
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