snowpunk Posted April 30, 2011 Share Posted April 30, 2011 (sad)(sad)(sad)(sad)(sad) I had to go to Boise for work for 3 weeks. I did everything to make sure my tank was self sufficient. Cleaned everything, double checked all connections, even put in a 55g auto top off for the 75g tank just to be sure. I also had my mom coming over daily to feed the cat and check up on the tank and a local reefer as a backup for any issues. Well, you just can't think of everything I guess. My mom noticed the carpet being wet the 5th day I was gone but I figured maybe I had spilled a little in the rush before I left since she couldn't find any wet near the tank itself. The next day she noticed a lot more. So after 3 days of this I had her heavily inspect everywhere. She couldn't find anything still. Fish friend comes over to inspect later and doesn't see anything out of order either. At this point I'm thinking it has to be from the ATO tank since that is the only new piece to the equation. So I say just sop up as much as you can and I'll have to deal with it when I'm home. A few days pass with water still leaking into my floor from somewhere and it's beginning to really bug me that I can't figure this out. Not to mention I am ruining my carpet and their isn't a thing I can do about it for a few weeks. I had my mom look again and this time she has a flashlight and can see some wood that's wet on the stand in the rear of the tank. A wave of fright goes through me! That means this is for sure salt water not ATO water. That is bad for the carpet for sure, and even worse for my tank. That means that over the past days my tank has been leaking salt water. If you haven't had the frightful thought yet, here it comes... If my tank is leaking salt water, it's now going to need much more water to refill to the ATO level. Good thing I switched to a 55g ATO tank before I left huh? WRONG!(nono) I am now converting my reef into a fresh water tank slowly and I have almost enough water to completely do it too. I immediately called the go-to reef help and explained. He came over and tested the salt and it was indeed very low. He mixed some water and poured it in the sump to help a little. Then mixed some very high salinity water and put it in the ATO to let it slowly raise it back up. This raised it back up to normal over about a 36 hour period. I really didn't know the best choice at that point. Do I hurry and raise it fast and stress what corals and fish are left or do I do it the slow way and risk letting the few that had survived this far just die waiting for relief? This is by far the worst thing that I have ever had happen to me in reefing. While I was gone, the sump(an older bioball converted style) decided to crack at the seam under the pressure of the water in it. Perfect timing too, since I almost never leave town. I just got home today to view the graveyard... It doesn't look good. I think some things have survived but a lot is lost and I think all fish and inverts are dead. I haven't even really taken inventory on corals yet and I really don't want to. I had things such as: Tyree Supernova LE, Tyree Undata, Tyree Babies breath favia, My beautifully huge pink and green lobo, Cali Tort, Oregon Tort, lots of Rics and yumas, Gobstoppers, Red hornets, Purple Hornets, all the other growout frags, meteor shower cyphastria, a few really nice chalices, a few(no name)choice acros and stags, and a softball sized peice of rainbow stylo and pink birdsnest. I'm sure there is more I'm missing but I've been up all night and I am tired and really just don't want to think about it all... I think some things will survive but it'll most likely be the cheap stuff(you know how that goes). I have a lot of work to do starting by replumbing this tank later today to a new sump so I can drain the old and stop the leak. Then I guess I'm gonna set up another tank in the garage to get everything out of the 75g so I can rip it all down and get to the soaked carpet. It may be time to do those hardwood floors I wanted now..lol Then after I figure out what the floors are going to be it'll be time to finally put the 180 up if I can find the cash to do it. This will be built the way I want it and not the way I received the 75g. I didn't know better then though and now I do. Then it'' be time to transfer whats left living into the 180 and build the 75g right and sell that and the holding tank. But for now it is simply bedtime... Thanks for letting me rant, don't let this happen to you...DOH! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hozer21 Posted April 30, 2011 Share Posted April 30, 2011 Wow man sorry to hear about all the things that went wrong . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stylaster Posted April 30, 2011 Share Posted April 30, 2011 whoa that is horrible! Man if you need any help with restocking let me know i would be happy to donate frags to you. BTW i run at auto top off too, but i use a 5 gallon bucket. Maybe not the best size if im gone for more then 3-4 days. Im glad you where able to find someone who could correct the issue, even though late. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheGooseWhisperer Posted April 30, 2011 Share Posted April 30, 2011 Bummer dude so sorry for your loses and headaches. I cant imagine being away from the house and knowing there is a big problem:( Keep up hope though. Corals can be amazingly tough and I'll bet you'll still have more than you think...just dont get discouraged and throw in towel or slack off on caring for whats left. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
racefan Posted April 30, 2011 Share Posted April 30, 2011 WOW! That was really painfull to read. That's a heck of a hopeless feeling being that far away & knowing there's something going bad & not squat you can do. Good luck & hopefully more survived than first thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReefStar Posted April 30, 2011 Share Posted April 30, 2011 Sorry to hear about that! If you need a holding tank and a sump, I have a spare one you can borrow. 180g tank and couple of sumps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reefnjunkie Posted April 30, 2011 Share Posted April 30, 2011 DUDE-sucks is an uderstatement-I like the positive in it all and that's the 180 gets set up-(clap) I can hook you up on the red, and purple hornets gratis as well as the undata-The piece i have came from you so its only fair, I am sure I got others I can toss in the mix but they are only frags- It blows me away how nothing goes wrong until we leave town-I had a ultra maxiam for nearly a year, I leave town for the weekend come back to an empty shell-I would have not done anything different had I been in town so it nothing was "new" Truly **** happens-hit me up if you need anything Totally sucks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bigjohnwoody Posted April 30, 2011 Share Posted April 30, 2011 I feel really, really bad for ya. So sorry to hear that. I am with Brad though. It's cool you are positive in the whole thing. Sounds like this will get your 180 up and you will be a lot more happy. Just sucks it had to happen like this, and that you lost a lot of nice stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emerald525 Posted April 30, 2011 Share Posted April 30, 2011 That sucks Brandon. Beth and I have been there just this October when we left town. It would have been worse if Gillian and Kendaroo hadn't checked on the tank. Same thing the tubing from the calicium reactor fell out and spilled saltwater all over the place and ATO kicked in and dropped the salinity. We lost half our sps and a few chalices but most things did well and fish did fine. Things seem to happen out of town that's for sure but I really think it's just that things happen when we are in town too it's just not as dramatic because we are able to be on top of it. I have a cali tort frag I would be happy to donate to the sucks to be out of town fund. Things like this can make you want to give up but hang in there..... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Harold B Posted April 30, 2011 Share Posted April 30, 2011 O-Man Sorry to read about this. Hopefully things will pull through. If there's anything I can do let me know. Harold Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miniwhinny Posted April 30, 2011 Share Posted April 30, 2011 OH NO !!!! I'm so sorry that this happened. I'll keep my fingers crossed that more survived than you first thought. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
markvo Posted April 30, 2011 Share Posted April 30, 2011 WOW. I'm sorry this happened to you Brandon. It seems like almost all of the disaster stories I hear that happen to knowledgeable reefers involve a loss of salinity due to ATO systems compensating for a leak or excessive skimmer overflow while the owner is gone for a period of time. Maybe we need to back each other up more when one of us is gone. Let me know what I can do to help you get going again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowpunk Posted May 1, 2011 Author Share Posted May 1, 2011 Huge thanks to everyone for the kind words of encouragement. I needed that pretty badly. I'm not letting this detour me at all though. That 180 will go up if its the last thing I do! Too much planning and care has gone into it this far to give up. I know little(and big) mishaps happen to the best of us so I'll just roll with the punches. When it all gets said and done I think I'm gonna have a "tank warming party" to welcome the thing in so maybe I'll take a few of you up on the frags at that point and trade you some food, drink, maybe some cash, and an all around good time for them... I feel much more positive with a little sleep:) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Topher Posted May 1, 2011 Share Posted May 1, 2011 sorry to hear that Brandon. wow Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael7979 Posted May 1, 2011 Share Posted May 1, 2011 Sorry to hear. :( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
racefan Posted May 1, 2011 Share Posted May 1, 2011 Darn you snowpunk! I was reading & responding to your post while I was adding some BRS alk & calc. to my ATO reservoir. Well, I added it, unhooked the powerhead to circulate & forgot to take the hose off of the powerhead & it started a siphon!! I was doing computer stuff & turned & looked at the tank & it was all milky looking! Well while I was standing there staring at the tank mumbling what the ..... I looked down & noticed the 5gal ATO bucket with enough alk & calc to be dripped in throughout the course of about a week just went in lickety split(scary) I just stood there thinking to myself didn't I just read about this? I checked it & had an alk of 12 & sg of 1.020. Luckily it was only for a couple of minutes, on the down side, I had done a 10 gal water change just before that & did not want to do too much more of a water change so I did 5 more gals(it's a 40B) & mixed up some really strong salt water & slowly brought the salinity back up. Thanks for that tip snowpunk! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandinga Posted May 1, 2011 Share Posted May 1, 2011 Brandon, so sorry to hear about this man....have some Frags for u when u are up and running...cyphastrea and undata for sure. I was just talking to epic1 yesterday about how many super experience reefers tanks have crashed due to something going awry with the ATO.... Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grassi Posted May 1, 2011 Share Posted May 1, 2011 Sorry to hear that Brandon. I know how it feels. Every time I leave town something goes wrong. This time in 20 days: display ballast gone, skimmer pump stuck, the valve that regulate the gfo/carbon gone, one of the tanks started to leak and was tore down by my wife by phone, the calcium tubing from the doser got clogged, a yuma felt on top of a scoly, a milli felt on top of my loved setosa, ruining most of it. I had a few sps going into rtn and most of my sps changed color... All this a few days before to start moving my tank to the new location... This hobby can be frustrating sometimes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smann Posted May 1, 2011 Share Posted May 1, 2011 I'll set a side a few pieces, i'm going to prune some also so I'll mount them on some small rock and they will be ready when you are! I know the feeling I've had my share! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowpunk Posted May 1, 2011 Author Share Posted May 1, 2011 That's awesome you guys/gals. Thank you all for the overly generous offers for frags and help. It really helps make something like this not near as bad when you can hear stories about it from others and really get a sense that in a way your reefer family is there for ya:) And a special shout out to Racefan. I JUST TOLD YOU NOT TO DO THAT!!! hope yours works out better... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jgf86123 Posted May 1, 2011 Share Posted May 1, 2011 Hey Brandon, look at it this way, now you have an excuse to get your 180 up and running finally you lazy bastid :-P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
racefan Posted May 1, 2011 Share Posted May 1, 2011 Darn you snowpunk! I was reading & responding to your post while I was adding some BRS alk & calc. to my ATO reservoir. Well, I added it, unhooked the powerhead to circulate & forgot to take the hose off of the powerhead & it started a siphon!! I was doing computer stuff & turned & looked at the tank & it was all milky looking! Well while I was standing there staring at the tank mumbling what the ..... I looked down & noticed the 5gal ATO bucket with enough alk & calc to be dripped in throughout the course of about a week just went in lickety split(scary) I just stood there thinking to myself didn't I just read about this? I checked it & had an alk of 12 & sg of 1.020. Luckily it was only for a couple of minutes, on the down side, I had done a 10 gal water change just before that & did not want to do too much more of a water change so I did 5 more gals(it's a 40B) & mixed up some really strong salt water & slowly brought the salinity back up. Thanks for that tip snowpunk! EDIT: I re read that a day later, what I meant to say was I took the hose off the powerhead but not out of the bucket & that's when the siphon started. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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