What would you do with this reef?

[SDguy]

So death paid me a visit, and decided to take a swim in my reef tank. Here's the breakdown:

SPS - most all dead (brown jelly - weird, never seen brown jelly on SPS). A couple are still alive, and look fine, but I don't really care if they live. All the good stuff is gone.

Euphyllia - most all dead, a couple heads of some FS survived. All the nice Aussie stuff is gone.

Acans - all dead

Favias - all fine

Clam - derasa - dead

Chalices - lost the Orange Immolation, then moved all others to a friends reef. So they are gone, just not biblically

Rics - all bleached

shrooms - OK, not great looking, but OK

Fish - all fantastic!

So, obviously I can't make heads or tails of what is going on. What would you do. At the end of the day, I don't want to remove the tank itself, which would require a full re decor of the livingroom....

My issue at this point is I have all sorts of fancy stuff on this tank (MH, chiller, ozone, beckett skimmer, ca reactor, etc.). I've already turned off the chiller and set the MH to only 4 hrs per day....

 

[Aquaph8]

Sorry to hear Peter, I think your too good a reefer not to restart it. I vote for a do over.

 

[SDguy]

Yeah, I guess I should have mentioned, I've been in this hobby for a long time... I honestly won't get any satisfaction from "starting over"... it's going to have to be something different... like throw a giant nem in there, or make it a gorg tank (gorgs are also fine BTW)....

 

[OurReef]

Sorry for your loss! That's a rough start to your day... Our vote, take a deep breath, and start over. Tearing down a tank and rearranging the room sucks, it never feels "right" again.

 

[Spaceman Spliff]

Wow sorry to hear of your losses....you had some great corals! Being the tank is built into the livingroom and you already spent the money on quality equipment, you may as well suck it up and start over. Technically you have everything you need....will be minimal cost to restart except for the stocking of corals. Now is the time to make any changes to your scape and change out your live sand if you have a sandbed. If you don't want to go through the expense and possible loss of corals again, just make a nice fish only tank. You have everything you need including your fish....should be much cheaper to just keep it running with fish only than remodeling the livingroom to take the tank out of a wall.

I know you're not feeling too humorous right now but I take it there's a little less competition for the Cherry Corals live sale today?

 

[ritter6788]

Sorry to hear about your losses.

I vote redo but do it will something simple and attractive for a while to give yourself a mental break. Something like; large soft corals (toadstools, sinularias), anemones, zoanthids, LPS colonies like torches, frogspawn, hammers. Set up a tank that doesn't require constant testing, dosing and tons of equipment. Simple set up with lights, skimmer, chaeto, ATO. Just a set up you can look at and enjoy but not stress over.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

 

[Spaceman Spliff]

Is your tank big enough for a moray eel?

 

[SDguy]

Here is my issue with a full blown start over... I can't ID the problem that killed everything in the first place. It's one thing to say, yeah, my kalk reactor dumped into my reef, and my pH was 12. I tested and retested and double checked and triple checked against other test kits. Nothing I can test for explains this death.... I was hoping I could find some crazy burned out equipment... nothing. When this happens, I'm telling you, it breaks you. The idea of restarting, and possibly the same thing happening (since I don't know what that "thing" is)... no way.... I am done, and have been for a while now.

Luckily I have a gorgeous 240g FOWLR filled with butterflies and angels to keep me occupied

 

[returnofsid]

I'm so sorry to hear! Do you have any idea what caused this?

 

[SDguy]

I'm so sorry to hear! Do you have any idea what caused this?

No, and that's the main reason I won't start over full blown reef....

 

[SDguy]

I know you're not feeling too humorous right now but I take it there's a little less competition for the Cherry Corals live sale today?

LOL, thanks! I actually already have a 240g FO, and a 20g clown cube, so it's not like I'm getting out of the hobby or anything like that. Just trying to figure out what to do with this 150g reef.

 

[SDguy]

Set up a tank that doesn't require constant testing, dosing and tons of equipment. Simple set up with lights, skimmer, chaeto, ATO. Just a set up you can look at and enjoy but not stress over.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

My thoughts as well.... but I want LED's, and a non-beckett skimmer (sick of my electricity bill), so I find myself redesigning and buying all sorts of equipment for a dying reef.... makes it hard to not just toss the whole thing

 

[ritter6788]

Maybe when you clean it out you'll find a (un)lucky penny in there or something.

 

[SeahorseKeeper]

I would do something different from what you had. Maybe with macros and gorgs. It's so frustrating when something like this happens and you cannot pinpoint the cause.

 

[H2O]

Post some pics before and after there has to be a reason why... I went tru the same thing and I'm making improvements as we speak it happens to everyone sooner or later so don't beat yourself up ,, how did u monitor ozone I bet it was it I hard a lot of people bleched their tanks by messing with that

 

[Kworker]

Give planted tanks a try. New objective. I love them. Plantedtank.net is a good place to roam. Could set up African cichlids or a discus tank.

 

[SDguy]

Post some pics before and after there has to be a reason why... I went tru the same thing and I'm making improvements as we speak it happens to everyone sooner or later so don't beat yourself up ,, how did u monitor ozone I bet it was it I hard a lot of people bleched their tanks by messing with that

I'm not sure how pictures of the carnage will help, but here you go...

Give planted tanks a try. New objective. I love them. Plantedtank.net is a good place to roam. Could set up African cichlids or a discus tank.

I have always loved discus!!!

 

[SloppyJ]

That's sad bro. Those were some nice pieces. Good luck with whatever you decide. I like the idea of a planted tank.

 

[marcof]

Sorry to hear Peter. Hey let me know if you need help with anything. If you decide to rebuild let me know, i have frags of a number of chalices and sps....

--Marco

 

[Salty D]

A big red carpet nem would be an eye catcher in the living room.