My Tank Crashed

Well it has finally come where I can talk about this publicly. I've gone through all the stages of grief and having just fought down depression I am now at acceptance and hence this post.

This all started last Summer and Fall 2015 when I got a case of the LARS (lazy *** reefer syndrome) and just didn't watch what was going on in my tank. I was feeding heavier than normal as I was on a LFS frozen food kick (still am) but was also feeding pellets automatically from a feeder. Anyways my glass got cloudy and I didn't care, then it got pink from coralline and I still didn't care. Once I couldn't really see what was going on in there I think my phosphates spiked and a hair algae outbreak occurred. I didn't see it at first and then a cyan outburst hit and smothered some of my corals. I suffered some coral loss (mostly tiny colonies) but overall my corals and fish looked pretty good once I finally cleaned the glass. Lots of hair algae on every rock but the fish and coral were overall healthy and thriving.

Last Winter I started an intensive hair algae cleanup to much success. I manually removed most of it, beefed up the clean up crew, and removed some rocks and sprayed them with hydrogen peroxide (which is BY FAR the most effective way to deal with hair algae. BY FAR) By the end of Feb the tank was looking pretty good, or at least MUCH better than it had been looking.

Over the next couple months the hair algae came back to some degree (of course). So I starved my tank of light and my fish of food. I had a laser beam focus on removing the hair algae to save my corals and over a few months my fish really got skinny and it pains me beyond words to say that I killed several fish through starvation. I didn't mean too but I got too focused on the coral and forgot about the ecosystem.

Let me stop and tell you guys that I don't know or are newer to the club that I have been at this for 10 years now and I know what in the hell I am doing. Many of you have bought frags from me through the years, and me from you. Many of you have been in my home and have complimented my tank. For those of you that aren't aware I have a 240 gallon, eight foot long tank with all the bells and whistles and latest technologies. I am not trying to brag but in a way I guess I am... I'm just trying to convey that I freaking LOVE this hobby and it totally consumes me and my daily thoughts and actions.

So anyways the hair algae cleaned itself up and I lost a lot of fish and some corals. But besides the fish (and again I'm dying here thinking about those fish) overall the crisis averted, right? Wrong.

The REAL tank crash started when I left for Jazzfest last May....I was gone a week and when I came home my lights were on a 'new' time cycle....100% on for 24 hours. I'm still not sure how many days it was on...the graphs on my apex don't help much and even if I knew it wouldn't matter. All my SPS were bleached almost white and my LPS looked mad and the few zoos and softies that I have were all shriveled up and hanging on.

So what happened? I'm not really sure. I stayed true to my #1 rule....never make any changes 10 days before vacation. Tank was running fine (for ten years) prior to the trip. I have every backup system in place that you can imagine. I have notifications for email and text when things go even slightly out of whack. (I didn't get any of these notifications while I was gone...my lights are run on their own AI ecosystem separate from the APEX)

Since May I have been watching my system go downhill fast. As I watched SPS colony after SPS colony RTN it became too much. I just quit caring I guess. I kept up with water changes and decreased the light cycle to just what corals need. I boosted some flow here and there. But otherwise I have been helpless with this freaking tank. I've had triton tests on my water three times. My water is perfect. I even ran cupric-sorb hoping to clean up the almost undetectable copper that triton detected and the aluminum that was not detected but I am all freaked is there and leaching from my bio-blocks. (long debate on this in other forums)

Paralyzed with the zero knowledge on how to move forward, I just decided to go with it and see what happened. Over the summer I started to see some rebound in the tank. The motiporas started to show some white tips and edges, and I was seeing some other coral growth as well. Since I shoot fireworks all summer I was able to really kind of lay back on the tank and let it do its thing.

I am happy to say that it is October and the tank has rebounded almost completely. I am sad to say that it I lost every piece of SPS in my tank except for a few montiporas. I am sad to say that I have a total of five fish left in my tank. I guess I am happy to say the LPS and softies are doing fine, but they have been fine this entire time. I am also sad to say the hair algae is back but only in tiny spots on a few isolated locals.

That being said I have been cooking rock for the last month. That process is for another post but I am very stoked to have 100% rock that I know is pest free, phosphate free, and in a couple weeks perfectly aquascaped in my display tank.

OK so one last thing. I'm coming to the Fest on Saturday but I don't have any frags to sell. This might be the first show I have ever been too where I didn't sell. Anyways now that my tank is stabilized I am coming with cash to replace some of my SPS. I am starting completely over so SPS like green slimer and try color valadia and the like are all of a sudden interesting to me again. If any of you are willing to sell me frags for $5-$10 max I would be forever grateful. I really can't afford to spend more than that on a frag since I need so much. And yes I realize they go for MUCH more than that...I'm asking for a little charity from the club. There I said it. I have no shame. (I'm looking for basically every SPS you can think of.)

Thanks for reading I hope if you are down in the dumps over your tank this post gives you some encouragement.

POT ROAST