What was your worst setback in 2014?

Daniel@R2R · Dec 31, 2014

What was your biggest reef setback/tragedy in 2014? How did you handle it? Have you recovered?

Diesel · Dec 31, 2014

Crash in March, lost 25K in corals, bounced back pretty much.
Never give up in anything!
Thanks to Will (ASD), Kien (TCK), Mike (SC), Matt (Mattscorals), Brad (reefnJunkie) and a special thanks to Adam (BC) and Tony (RR USA) for getting most of the corals I had back in the Diesel tank.

As of now.........

tyler1503 · Dec 31, 2014

I lost almost all of my coral. All my LPS (bar one) and some of them were priced pieces. Luckily the only surviving LPS is a suitable centrepiece. It still hasn't bounced back 100% but it looks like it will.
I have no idea what caused it, but water changes seemed to be my best friend during the ordeal. The only other survivors were mushrooms.

fishmommy · Dec 31, 2014

I bleached most of my stuff. On the mend now and only lost a couple luckily. Sorry for your losses.

bocomo · Dec 31, 2014

House fire. Have not recovered yet but most of stock was saved by friends. New tank should be here in about 2 weeks & home renovations should be done right about then too so we can get moved back in and start the tank cycling.

DaveMorris · Dec 31, 2014

My setback was just in time getting my 130g tank up and running. I finally had water in the tank exactly one year after picking up the tank from AquaSD. My problem was my back severely limiting my ability to get work done on it. I will be having surgery to fuse 4 vertebrae in a couple of months and I am glad that my tank is up and running well. I am going to need the peacefulness of watching my tank for my recovery.

mike007 · Dec 31, 2014

Losing my Harlequin Tusk. I am still grieving over this loss.

tyler1503 · Dec 31, 2014

mike007 said:
Losing my Harlequin Tusk. I am still grieving over this loss.

Im sorry for your loss.
I recently lost my all time favourite fish. My Valentini puffer. He was part of the family and had the BEST personality of all fish I've ever had experience with. Lost him on Christmas Eve. It was my worst set back, but losing the corals I mentioned earlier was my most costly and most obvious aesthetically.

Oscaror · Dec 31, 2014

Ruthless nitrate spike 140+ppm
Whelp, now that's under control, time to get those acros!

Oscaror · Dec 31, 2014

Diesel said:
Crash in March, lost 25K in corals, bounced back pretty much.
Never give up in anything!
Thanks to Will (ASD), Kien (TCK), Mike (SC), Matt (Mattscorals), Brad (reefnJunkie) and a special thanks to Adam (BC) and Tony (RR USA) for getting most of the corals I had back in the Diesel tank.

As of now.........

Is that before or after the loss? Looks beautiful!

dantimdad68 · Jan 1, 2015

Heater broke and electrocuted my mated clowns and my juvenile blue tang. Even though the corals survived, I went out of town for a week and some sort of freak macro algae breakout that killed them all two weeks later.

I ended up sellng the tank and starting over with a 180. The only resident in this tank from the old one is a sand sifter star.

Steven

rlman41299 · Jan 1, 2015

Double whammy for me. Due to back problems which resulted in surgery to releive a pressure pressing on a vital nerve. I neglected my tank due to severe pain and crashed my tank. Lost 90% of corals and livestock.

11f150 · Jan 1, 2015

Diesel said:
Crash in March, lost 25K in corals, bounced back pretty much.
Never give up in anything!
Thanks to Will (ASD), Kien (TCK), Mike (SC), Matt (Mattscorals), Brad (reefnJunkie) and a special thanks to Adam (BC) and Tony (RR USA) for getting most of the corals I had back in the Diesel tank.

As of now.........

Wow Diesel I didnt know your tank crashed. What caused it? Funny thing is mine crashed around the same time and I remember always seeing you on the ASD live sales and chatting with you. I am just returning and starting completely over. I also lost alot of $ in coral, gonna be tough but ill bounce back.

Diesel · Jan 1, 2015

11f150 said:
Wow Diesel I didnt know your tank crashed. What caused it? Funny thing is mine crashed around the same time and I remember always seeing you on the ASD live sales and chatting with you. I am just returning and starting completely over. I also lost alot of $ in coral, gonna be tough but ill bounce back.

I more called it a hiccup as I still don't know what cause it.
Did completely empty the tank Acid washed the rock, new sand, got rid of my Radions Pro, dumped my GHL dosing.
Within 4 weeks tank was up and running again, this time with a CaRx and the flagship ATI hybrid power module.
As you can see all is doing well and I have crazy growth and color.
I forgot to mention that I have been talking over the phone to figure out what was the cause and the proper way to rebuild with Mike Paletta and Adam (BC).
Mainly cause of these guys it went all smooth.

cmaxwell39 · Jan 1, 2015

Wow diesel,

Did you lose all of your corals in one shot? That would be devastating.

For me,I started losing large colonies of SPS in March/April and continued to lose some off and on until Oct/Nov. most were lost at the beginning, but the last big colony to go was my huge pink lemonade (well over 12") that I had grown from a tiny frag. That one hurt some.

I haven't lost anything recently so I think I am in the clear. I am not entirely sure what caused it do I guess I can't be 100% positive, but other than some STN on a couple of colonies that I can directly correlate to a drop in Alk everything has been stable for a while.

It does give me a chance to restock with some different corals so that should be exciting.

sureal00 · Jan 1, 2015

wasting money on live real reef rock(500 bucks).Ended up hating it

GnarleyMarley · Jan 1, 2015

I suffered a total crash when I moved to Charlotte. I lost tons of $ in acros, but thanks to some good friends and a great community I am on the road to recovery, and the tank is starting to fill back up. The one lesson I learned is to always back up your corals with people you trust

thanks to that I have been able to reclaim many of my favorite corals I thought were gone forever.

Before the crash...

The crash....

After the crash

aautio1004 · Jan 1, 2015

Mine was a fire caused by water dripping out of a fitting on my overflow. Shorted out a power strip and caught a black sheet I had surrounding my stand on fire. The flames came up against the glass and shattered it. I lost a couple thousand in corals and all but one fish and a starfish were killed as well. That was not a good day.