Tank Journal Archive

Matt_95 · Feb 17, 2014

Disaster struck last night, I helped a friend move into their apartment last night and I ended up staying over. At some point in the night the outlet for the chiller pump came out of the aquarium. I walked into my room to smell the unmistakable smell of dead coral and I saw the tank was half empty. I lost the sps, along with some new acans, new hammer and a few others. Looks like the green hammer will make it along with a few acans that were on the bottom. Although some have started to recede, hopefully they recover.
It appears that the chiller and pump are fried, the screws in the chiller have rusted and there are rust stains on the carpet as well. Skirting boards are absolutely ruined and I am trying to dry the carpet out as we speak.

holly · Feb 17, 2014

Oh my god how awful!! :eek

I hope there isn't too much damage and things recover okay.

MagicJ · Feb 17, 2014

Sounds like one of those times when, as soon as you enter the room, you just know that something is wrong.

Hope you get things back on track quickly.

chimaera · Feb 17, 2014

:mad::(

OSCAR85 · Feb 17, 2014

Sorry to hear :(

leodb89 · Feb 17, 2014

:( so sorry to hear please let us know if we can help you back on the wagon by donating some frags

aussieant32 · Feb 17, 2014

balls. Always happens when you are not there. I had a pump and osmolator fail literally the night before I went on holidays 2 trips in a row.

Sorry to hear man

Jimsim · Feb 17, 2014

sorry to hear, you will bounce back!

RobbieMVFC · Feb 18, 2014

Sorry to hear that mate.
Get one of those steam crapet cleaners thingo that you can hire It will do your carpet the world of good.
I think I paid $40ish for it plus another $15 for the shampoo.
worth the hire.

daveH · Feb 18, 2014

That's the things nightmares are made of - hope you can get it all back together OK.
I'll just go and tighten a few connections and put zip ties on my chiller hosing!!!!

Sam Parker · Feb 18, 2014

Real life nightmare :( sorry to hear mate, please let us know how we can help.

Sam

jimbo · Feb 18, 2014

bugger! good luck with the recovery

Matt_95 · Feb 18, 2014

Thanks guys! Only one loss overnight, another acan, everything else seems to be doing well albeit stressed. Chiller is still not hooked up although I think I have found the problem, going to replace the ruined bit this afternoon. Even the pump is working after a quick clean!

It's a smell I've only once before, when my fathers tank crashed when I was 8 years old, it's an awful smell. I've managed to remove most of the smell from my room which is good!

Thanks for the tip about cleaning the carpet Robbie, I think I've got it pretty good now though, it just needs to dry a little more. I am most concerned about the skirting boards, they're all swollen. I'm going to move my bed to hide them I think and keep some damp rid in that corner to slow down the rot now they have salt in them.

Thanks for the offer Leo, that would be very much appreciated :)

I'm thinking I will try get my hands on a Halea 130a so I can upgrade to a slightly larger tank for added stability.

mscott · Feb 18, 2014

The skirting boards are probably MDF, they will be ruined if they stay wet. IMO drop as much salt (not salt water, table salt) on them as you can, without grinding it into the carpet, the salt should help dry the boards out and push the water into the carpet, which is better than rotting MDF, that stuffs poison

Matt_95 · Feb 18, 2014

I'll go buy a bag of pool salt tomorrow to do that, although now they have been exposed to salt, they will continue to attract moisture won't they?
They're already ruined so I will be replacing them as soon as I can, I don't want to be exposed to any toxins though.

mscott · Feb 18, 2014

Naa the salt will dry out the wood. so the more salt on there the quicker it will dry out, it wont look pretty, but itll mean you will be eventually able to get the water out of the carpet

Matt_95 · Feb 28, 2014

Floor is now all dried up and salt has been vacuumed away.

The tank has also settled down, sorted the chiller, however later on the the power supply started smoldering. Doesn't look like I need the chiller anymore anyway, everything is doing well. I've also added a hydor 900 as the only circulation and that has dropped the tank a few degrees. The cheaper power heads must have run hot. I ended up loosing a fair few acans, my reverse stem hammer and by the looks of it a maxi mini nem. Would really love to get a head of the reverse stem soon, it was amazing. Funds aren't too free at the moment though, may take a little while to restock this baby.

Matt_95 · Mar 21, 2014

Tank has settled down now and I've given it a rescape, much happier with the new look. I am hoping I can start fragging some things soon so that I can do some trades and get some new corals in here.
I have actually got one new addition, I added a small elegance coral that I saw at the LFS cheaply. I'll try get some photos soon.
The tank is now lit by a Coral Flare Max III, I love it so far, the reds look much better with this bulb.
I have also decided I want to add a 20l refugium to this tank, I'm going to have to drill it and what I want to do is build something like an external overflow, I don't know how I can explain it better sorry. I'm very nervous about drilling it though.

holly · Mar 21, 2014

Nice one Matt, you should be able to frag that elegance within a year for trades. They just keep growing in the right conditions. Glad to hear it's all settled down

Matt_95 · Mar 22, 2014

I didn't know you coukd frag them! I was thinking I would have to move it to a bigger tank if it grew much more. It already has two mouths :)

I'm hoping I'll be able to find someone locally to trade mushrooms with, mine are propagating very well and I have a shaded spot I want to fill with a few different ones.