End of one era, begininning of another

Been awhile sicne Ive posted, or even browsed these forums. Actually, this is my first post since the webstie underwent that huge overhual!

Life has been extremely busy and unfortunatly my 65gal tank has suffered. My HOB filter malfunctioned and froze and leeched ammonia into the tank. I only noticed it because I happened to walk by and the fish were all gasping for air! Upon investigation I noticed the filter was stopped and stunk to high heavon and I immediatly took it offline and put on a different one with new carbon and phosguard. I also dosed the tank with some Prime to detoxify the ammonia and then kept the lights off.

Unfortunatly 1 fish didnt make it, my little flame angel. The clowns, tang, and wrasse all survived and look like they made a ncie recovery. Those dang angels are so sensitive sometimes. My corals slowly dwindled to nothing over the net couple months and algae took over. My prized massive purple stylphora, elegance coral, multicolored hammers and frogspawns, and even kyptonight candy canes have all perished. My zoas, xenia, and jasmone polyp have survived they can live through a nuclear bomb. Im pretty sure when the oceans acidify and raise the temp drastically everytign will die and xenia will take over every reef in its place lol.

I came very close to taking down the tank since life is so busy and its hard to find time. All my prized corals gone and the rockwork being a mess of algae from all the death that has occurred. It is 100% my fault and I feel terrible causign the death of these creatures I kept alive for so long as they flourshed and grew and thought it would be irresponible to continue keeping any creatures if i can not provide the best care possible for them. My wife has convined me I love the hobby so much that she would hate to see me get out of it knowing it would be so ahrd to jumpstart from scratch again. Even said she misses watched me care for the tank and everything much to my surprise.

So at the end of this long post maybe I can admit that my title is a little dramatic, not exactly the end of an era but a tank. I did tell my wife that it will bascially be starting over as all that rock will leech nitrates and whatever else for God knows how long causing me to battle algae. At the end of the day I have decided to keep the tank up. I will order all new rock to make a new aquascape and new sand. The fish will remain in the tank with the algae as a new one cycles through and I will transfer them over as it matures. I am buildign a new stand learning from my previous stand building to make it even better and more conveinant to use. I will use the same tank which will be empties and cleaned before setting up again. I have the old 46gal everything came from empty so I will transfer everything over to keep the rockwork and fish living healthy while it recycles.

At the end of the day Im happy Im not getting out of the hobby, I do miss spending time at the petstores and with the tank. I am very excited to basically start over and hopefully have learned a lot from my previous experiance to help going forward with a new setup. After it is set up it will be a little slower of a build reef wise as corals are pricey and I bought them all before we got a house that was a fixer upper. A little overtime here and there will supply the cash for corals now and then. Its been a year since we bought our house so the biggest things are done so I will have mroe time g oing forward. A couple hours a week goes a long way in preventing disaster, lesson learned!

 

Glad to hear you are hanging in. Best of luck with the new plan.

 

Welcome back... or at least welcome back around. I was without a tank for a while when i moved and I missed it. My wife convinced me to get another tank and (for the love of god i have no idea how this happened) agreed to get rid of my motorcycle to purchase a new tank and set up. I must say, I have many more hours involved with the tank and hobby than i ever did with the motorcycle. I think I even enjoy this one more than my previous tanks. Keep us posted on your new build as that is part of the fun!

 

Thaks for the support. I will probaby create a new build thread altogether and keep every posted. I miss taking my monthly update photos!!!

I had a 46 bowfront at the hosue we rented and when we went to mcoed upgraded to a 65gal. That was the start of the demise as the move went pretty well with no losses but I neevr got a good sandbed established again and buying a fixer upper has consumed al my time!! This summer we rebuilt the deck and spread 10tons of topsoil by hand trying to regrade the yard with a shovel and rake. Also Rebuilt 2 bedrooms a bathroom and a livingroom as well as multiple projects in other rooms and trying to make a work station in my garage. There was sooo much to do I kept delaying tank maintence until it got to the point that I needed to spend more then a couple hours to clean and do whatever needed done to the tank. This made me put it off even more as I knew it would be a 4 or 5 hour undertaking and I just didnt make the time until it was too late.

 

And i thought I have it rough working 10 hr days.

 

It happens. I have lost favorite corals due to my neglect. You just have to move on, and that is what your doing, excellent. Nothing is more motivational then doing a build. You get to make those changes you wanted to make to the prior system right from the start.

Following.

 

Glad to see you back! Looking forward to your new build bud. Knowledge, heart and perservearence. We are true reefers.

 

so good to see you post again pgh and very sorry about your losses so, the way I'm reading this, you're going to restart the 65 correct and keep everything in the 47 while the 65 cycles? You know, we've all gone through those periods of neglect and it sounds like you've had A LOT of other projects that did get accomplished so congrats on that! I'm looking forward to seeing your progress and a new build thread sounds awesome! so glad you decided to restart and not give it up!

 

I can relate totally time is of the essence its been awhile sine I have been here myself 8 months to be exact but like a true Steeler fan you are not ever giving up ....LOL Welcome back and hang in there...................

 

Glad to see yore sticking with it. I was out of the hobby for a while but am now back. Too addictive, lol. Best of luck with the new tank.