(I got the silicon out well 99.9%) Throwing in the towel

Good idea. I wouldn't really use bleach either, but I would suggest still running carbon atleast for a while after you set it back up to play it safe.

 

I wouldn't bleach either.

Oh the things I've learned over the years..... :-/

 

Ok, in reading through this, I see that you said that your fish all died .....I know we've all felt frustration at one point or another in this hobby. Just taking some time and refueling is probably just what you need (you mentioned time to cool off). You can do just that for a bit and then may look at doing the repair on your 72 when you get the "bug" again and miss that beautiful, interesting bowl of water in your view Don't be hard on yourself because as jimmy and renee have mentioned, we've all made mistakes and I know I was ready at one point to just hang up my efforts on turning my tank into a reef, but a little time and some more research and then when refreshed came back and hit it hard with a renewed motivation.

 

The biggest question that pops into my mind though, is you talk about throwing in the towel with your small tank.... then what? sell it? are you going to clean it up right for the next guy? Or you going to sell him bad gear and lead him to failure with fish magically dying and so forth? or you going to advertise it as contaminated?

 

+1 Absolutely.

 

No I would probably just store it till a later date or if I do sell it I would clean it up.

I can save the rock I have a big enough bath tub to rinse it all of with. But what about substrate should I toss it or try to clean it cause that's a lot of substrate

 

For a tank that size, you could get some really nice substrate (Tropic Eden Reef Flakes.... <3 it!). Two bags would do it for you, and that's like $55. I realize that sounds like a chunk for substrate, but it's amazing stuff. My Biocube ended up turning into some nasty stuff when I got super busy. Learning I was going to become a father, while preparing for dissertation, raising a puppy, blah blah blah... life happened. Point is, we've all been there. In fact, even after I researched the silicone thing, it still took me 30 minutes in the store and additional research at home trying to make sure I got the right one... it can be confusing. I do enjoy the hobby, and now that I'm getting into dosing... I think it's going to get challenging but more enjoyable. After all, it feeds my chemistry side (chemistry minor) and my biology side (grad school).

 

That my problem I can't let go cause it feeds my chem side and my creative side. After have a good nite sleep I'm just going to clean it all up and reset it. And this time I can use the macrorock I have to make some new rock and use my old rock. Not going to let sll my salt go to waste either

 

that is the spirit! It's amazing what a little breather/sleep/step away time can do. So glad to hear it.

In reference to the sand, I know greg on from lionfish and I believe Mr. Bill ^^ have said they reuse sand a lot and just rinse it really, really well.....

 

I lost all my first set of fish except a couple. That's when I stopped naming things because everything with a name died and all the nameless lived. At the time I didn't even know about the superstition to not name fish (internet wasn't invented yet).