Hi,
Today I have had one of the worse days imaginable. I've had my tank up and running for around 4 months now, this was my first saltwater aquarium and although it has been a steep learning curve, I have enjoyed every second of it. I absolutely love the hobby. Due to work, myself and my partner have to live away from family and friends so this Christmas we made our annual trip back home to see everyone. As you can imagine this posed a huge problem for me. I've just spend the last 4 months, working, spending wages and time and just generally obsessing over my new tank and now I have to leave it for two week. The tank was stocked with 4 fish, a Midas blenny, a Kole Tang and two clowns and around 8 different SPS and LPS corals. A month before we were due to leave I starting planning how to have the tank automated so that it would be okay while we were away. I installed a Ehiem Automatic Fish feeder, a feeding station so food wouldn't go down the overflow, a Tunze nano ATO, timers, collection containers for my RO and for my Skimmer overflow. The tank had Radions and a Vortech which had a good schedule set up for I didn't need to worry about that. The day finally came when I had to leave for the holiday and everything was setup and ready to go. Unfortunately due to living away I didn't have anyone that could come and check the tank regularly while we were away and change the filter socks so I took the socks out so they wouldn't fill up while i was away.
Below are pictures of what the tank looked like before I left.
Throughout my time away all I could thing about was my tank, hoping everything would be okay until today when I returned. As soon as I parked up, I jumped out the car and ran in to check on the tank. What I walked into was my worse fears.
After the initial shock and the sudden realisation that my tank has crashed, I tried to work out what I was looking at and what I could do. My first though was to check what was alive and save it. Both my clowns were alive and looked healthy as did my clean up crew however every single one of my corals had died and my Midas blenny and Kole tang were missing. I found my Midas blenny on the floor, how he managed to jump out the tank is beyond me as I had a mesh cover over the tank with only the smallest of gaps. I couldn't find the Kole tang and can only presume he perished and the clean up crew took care of him. I grabbed a container and filled it with some tank water then fished out the two clowns and clean up crew and took them to my LFS. Since then I have spent the last 5 hours stripping the tank down and cleaning everything up. I've come to the conclusion that the reason my tank crashed was due to my fish feeder. It was quite obvious that the latch on the feeder was open a lot wider then I set it and the tank had huge clumps of pellet that had gone mouldy in the tank. I can only assume that the entire contents on my feeder had been dumped into the tank within the first few days of me being away which set about a huge increase in nitrates and phosphates in my tank. Now I have to come to terms with losing everything I had invested so much time in and decide what to do from here. One thing is clear to me, I love this hobby and although I am totally gutted at what has happened, I will learn from my mistakes. I couldn't afford to buy an apex or controller before I left for the holidays but if I had it could have warned me and I may have been able to do something so save the tank. I'm still a little in shock from the whole situation and hopefully in the coming weeks I can start again (maybe with a new tank). I wanted to get a bigger tank and was looking into a Red Sea reefer tanks so now may be a perfect time to invest in one with a controller as well.
Today I have had one of the worse days imaginable. I've had my tank up and running for around 4 months now, this was my first saltwater aquarium and although it has been a steep learning curve, I have enjoyed every second of it. I absolutely love the hobby. Due to work, myself and my partner have to live away from family and friends so this Christmas we made our annual trip back home to see everyone. As you can imagine this posed a huge problem for me. I've just spend the last 4 months, working, spending wages and time and just generally obsessing over my new tank and now I have to leave it for two week. The tank was stocked with 4 fish, a Midas blenny, a Kole Tang and two clowns and around 8 different SPS and LPS corals. A month before we were due to leave I starting planning how to have the tank automated so that it would be okay while we were away. I installed a Ehiem Automatic Fish feeder, a feeding station so food wouldn't go down the overflow, a Tunze nano ATO, timers, collection containers for my RO and for my Skimmer overflow. The tank had Radions and a Vortech which had a good schedule set up for I didn't need to worry about that. The day finally came when I had to leave for the holiday and everything was setup and ready to go. Unfortunately due to living away I didn't have anyone that could come and check the tank regularly while we were away and change the filter socks so I took the socks out so they wouldn't fill up while i was away.
Below are pictures of what the tank looked like before I left.
Throughout my time away all I could thing about was my tank, hoping everything would be okay until today when I returned. As soon as I parked up, I jumped out the car and ran in to check on the tank. What I walked into was my worse fears.
After the initial shock and the sudden realisation that my tank has crashed, I tried to work out what I was looking at and what I could do. My first though was to check what was alive and save it. Both my clowns were alive and looked healthy as did my clean up crew however every single one of my corals had died and my Midas blenny and Kole tang were missing. I found my Midas blenny on the floor, how he managed to jump out the tank is beyond me as I had a mesh cover over the tank with only the smallest of gaps. I couldn't find the Kole tang and can only presume he perished and the clean up crew took care of him. I grabbed a container and filled it with some tank water then fished out the two clowns and clean up crew and took them to my LFS. Since then I have spent the last 5 hours stripping the tank down and cleaning everything up. I've come to the conclusion that the reason my tank crashed was due to my fish feeder. It was quite obvious that the latch on the feeder was open a lot wider then I set it and the tank had huge clumps of pellet that had gone mouldy in the tank. I can only assume that the entire contents on my feeder had been dumped into the tank within the first few days of me being away which set about a huge increase in nitrates and phosphates in my tank. Now I have to come to terms with losing everything I had invested so much time in and decide what to do from here. One thing is clear to me, I love this hobby and although I am totally gutted at what has happened, I will learn from my mistakes. I couldn't afford to buy an apex or controller before I left for the holidays but if I had it could have warned me and I may have been able to do something so save the tank. I'm still a little in shock from the whole situation and hopefully in the coming weeks I can start again (maybe with a new tank). I wanted to get a bigger tank and was looking into a Red Sea reefer tanks so now may be a perfect time to invest in one with a controller as well.
