A
Anonymous
Guest
I will be honest with you, my tank looks like crap now. One year ago, it was awesome. It had been stable for years- zero ugly algae, and a very full and healthy looking tank with simple maintenance. But it's been a rough year for my tank. Here's what happened:
First mishap- heater malfunctioned and got stuck "on." Cooked the tank to about 98F and I lost a ton of coral and fish. Only the sarcophyton, gorg, red sea xenia, shrooms, and bubble survived. My colt shrunk from 9-10" across to one inch. Just melted away.
Second mishap- I moved. A lot of the coral fragments did not survive the move, as careful as I tried to be. Luckily I had a lot of fragments of each kind so I didn't lose anything that would not grow back.
Third mishap- I moved AGAIN. Again, I lost some coral, but nothing that wouldn't grow back. This time when I moved, I added a couple inches of sand to the bed (I know, I know). It is going through a sort of mini-cycle now, with unsightly algae that I haven't had for years.
Ok, one more mishap- My significant other dunked the lights into the tank. She even got a bit of a zap. Tank was without lights for 5 days or so. They were compact fluorescents, which I replaced with 250K MH.
Now that I have MH over the tank, the corals are bleaching, the bubble won't extend much and has been steadily shrinking, the sarco doesn't extend its polyps much, the xenia isn't growing like a weed, the blue shrooms are small and turning gray, the purple gorg has totally died and is covered with algae. I'm just depressed with the whole thing.
BTW, I realize that the lighting is more powerful. I raised the MH to about 14" over the top of the water, and reduced the photoperiod to about 7 hours per day. I have done lots of healthy sized water changes, and continue to drip kalk. I expected to see a rebound. It just sucks because my tank was just really great, and now it's blah. Fish are healthy and happy, but corals look like junk. I can't seem to get anything back to thriving.
Any suggestions would be helpful.
Thanks,
HD
First mishap- heater malfunctioned and got stuck "on." Cooked the tank to about 98F and I lost a ton of coral and fish. Only the sarcophyton, gorg, red sea xenia, shrooms, and bubble survived. My colt shrunk from 9-10" across to one inch. Just melted away.
Second mishap- I moved. A lot of the coral fragments did not survive the move, as careful as I tried to be. Luckily I had a lot of fragments of each kind so I didn't lose anything that would not grow back.
Third mishap- I moved AGAIN. Again, I lost some coral, but nothing that wouldn't grow back. This time when I moved, I added a couple inches of sand to the bed (I know, I know). It is going through a sort of mini-cycle now, with unsightly algae that I haven't had for years.
Ok, one more mishap- My significant other dunked the lights into the tank. She even got a bit of a zap. Tank was without lights for 5 days or so. They were compact fluorescents, which I replaced with 250K MH.
Now that I have MH over the tank, the corals are bleaching, the bubble won't extend much and has been steadily shrinking, the sarco doesn't extend its polyps much, the xenia isn't growing like a weed, the blue shrooms are small and turning gray, the purple gorg has totally died and is covered with algae. I'm just depressed with the whole thing.
BTW, I realize that the lighting is more powerful. I raised the MH to about 14" over the top of the water, and reduced the photoperiod to about 7 hours per day. I have done lots of healthy sized water changes, and continue to drip kalk. I expected to see a rebound. It just sucks because my tank was just really great, and now it's blah. Fish are healthy and happy, but corals look like junk. I can't seem to get anything back to thriving.
Any suggestions would be helpful.
Thanks,
HD
