Vacation Disaster: A very sad tale.

Last month, murphy's law hit me pretty hard. My wife and I were on vacation in Playa Del Carmen/Cozumel for a week for our anniversary. During that same week, there were several lighting storms in the Cedar Rapids area. Evidently, a lightning strike hit close enough to my house to take out 2 GFI circuits. They were of course the 2 main circuits that ran my main system.


My in-laws, who were admittedly not trained enough to watch the tank, just assumed that I had "shut everything down" while I was on vacation. They didn't realize there was a problem until things started to smell, and by that time it was far too late. Needless to say, everything in my 125G display, my 40G frag tank (including a 8" hawkin's blue colony) and everything in my refugium died. The sole survivor was a 50 cent snail who is now living happily in my biocube. I figure I lost about $4K worth of fish and coral when it's all said and done.


Needless to say, this sucked and sucked hard. There are a few silver linings however… 1) I finally got rid of all the aiptasia and purple mushrooms in my tank. 2) I've been wanting to start over for a while, but didn't know quite how to do it (problem solved) and 3) I've started to enjoy my biocube a lot more the past couple of weeks.


It's amazing that this tank had been up and running for over 5 years with almost no issues. I had sometimes gone months and months without touching anything on the tank (other than feeding) and everything thrived. The one week I go on vacation, Murphy shows up...


When I first found out that this happened, I decided that I was probably going to get out of the hobby all together as I had not been enjoying it for quite a while do to what I call "well established tank syndrome". However, after some time to reflect on things, I think this is an opportunity, albeit an expensive one, to regain some of the joy in the hobby that I had lost over time.


So… I'm pretty sure that I'm going to setup a new/different system. Probably a 60 or 90G cube tank with a select set of corals. Probably mostly LPS with some select slow growing, colorful SPS and a different selection of fish.


I need to get everything cleaned up first, but I'll be making a post in the B/S/T forum putting my old tank, stand, canopy, led lights and a few other pieces of equipment up for sale, so if you're in the market for a nearly complete 125 setup, keep an eye out for it.


-JB

 

I may take you up on that. There are a few corals that I used to have that I'd like to re-aquire. Namely the Hawkins Blue, Various Torts, Red Planet and maybe the ponape birdsnest.

 

Thanks everyone. I'm sure that I'll take everyone up on there offers to recover a few of my prized SPS corals. I'm going to do mostly LPS which will be a new thing for me. I will definitely do some things differently this time.

1) There will be no softies in my tank with the possible exception of some particularly spectacular zoanthids (I would like to find some of my old dragon eyes if anyone has them). Absolutely no Xenia, Anthelia, GSP or mushrooms.

2) I'm going to take the time to create an awesome rock sculpture as the center piece of my aqua-scaping.

3) A bit less water volume and space to light will help save a bit of $$$ over the long haul.

4) I've got a great idea in my head for a combination refugium/frag tank.

5) Might try some new stuff this time like an algea scrubber and a remote DSB.

 

Oh, and Roman gave me a lead on an potentially awesome new tank.

 

Yeah, Vidarock makes some nice stuff. I remember seeing it at MACNA. I think I'm going to try and go the DIY route with a drill, acrylic rod and epoxy. I've got some pretty decent pieces of live rock to work with.

 

Unlimited frozen drinks made it easier to drown my sorrows... /DesktopModules/ActiveForums/themes/_default//emoticons/smile.gif