72 Bow, journal? More like a short story with a dose of Murphy's Law!

[Piscez]

Hi everyone, Well after a 30 year hiatus from fw and always wanting sw I finally decided to take the plunge in October last year. My wife and kids we're happy as it was a hobby that kept me home! After 8 years of renting our basement we were finally at the stage of needing the space which in turn gave me some tank space! Started with a 33gal and quickly discovered this wasn't going to cut it. So in February I went on the search for something in the 4ft range as that was the space I had available. I really liked the look of the bowfront tanks, so when a used one came up here on Canreef I had to have it. With the help of one of my soccer team buddies we got it in the house in one piece:

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll35/20Works4me/Aquarium/Arrival.jpg?t=1240590949

The lighting it came with was a non working Coralife PC so during the wait for the tank to be available I picked up a used (1 week only) Current USA Nova Extreme Pro T5HO 6x54w from another forum member.

Here's a pic of the relatively small sump, but this is because the shape of the stand, sump size espcially width is very limited. It came with bio balls which I decided not to use to free up more sump space:

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll35/20Works4me/Aquarium/Sumpdirty.jpg?t=1240599187


Starting the fill:

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll35/20Works4me/Aquarium/Startingthefill.jpg?t=1240599380

Later that evening:

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll35/20Works4me/Aquarium/CLoudylight.jpg?t=1240599411

Next day, some more LR added, let the cycle begin:

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll35/20Works4me/Aquarium/Letthecyclebegin.jpg?t=1240599510


I must say none of this could have happened with out this forum as I'm a complete newb in the sw world. Even though my post count is very low mainly because I didn't have anything to offer I spent countless hours reading and more reading. I'm not one to post an obvious question that couldn't be answered with a decent search. Again thanks to all, I've already made what I would consider a friend or two from this forum.

Also thanks to the helpful staff at J&L and Aquatic addictions!


Knowing I was going for a fairly heavy bioload I thought it best to upgrade my skimmer from a Coralife 125 to this monster Marinetek 250 comes with the Sedra 9000 pump, the build quality on this unit is "A1":


http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll35/20Works4me/Aquarium/SKimmers.jpg?t=1240600193


So far so good by early March I had reached this stage.........:

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll35/20Works4me/Aquarium/Candycanefulltank.jpg?t=1240599594


That's when all :evilbat: broke loose!........






.

[Piscez]

One week later, three days before my family and I are about to head off to Mexico for two weeks I go down stairs for my morning tank visit and the main tank is ^&**% leaking! :eek::eek::eek:

Fortunately I still had my 33 gal, so out everything went, LR in plastic tubs and fish back into the 33gal. The leak was coming from the bottom seal, so I ran out to Rona and picked up their aquarium safe silicone and resealed the whole bottom.

48 hours later ( and a lot of stress!) everything was back in the tank except 1 cleaner shrimp that didn't survive the ordeal, I'm thinking "not bad considering" or so I thought!.... Anyway the next morning off to Mexico we went, leaving my mother with a few "to check" items. My lighting is on timers, I have the Tunze 3155 Osmolator, and auto feeder, all she needed to do was to drop in a bit of Myis etc every couple of days what could go wrong???......grr grr


Well after two glorious weeks of sun and surf I came home to another disaster!!!!!!!!!!

I don't know how and still haven't been able to figure it out but my sump was almost dry! There was only approx 2" water in it ( usually 9") my return pump was screaming, yet my top off bucket was still half full?? Consequently my tank had no circulation and the temp in the tank was 68! For a WEEK!:bad-word: I lost 7 fish! Amazingly my foxface, 2 clowns, 6 line & solar wrasse along with my Cleaner ( Jacques) and fire shrimp survived. Basically my fish and corals had gone through hell and back twice in less than a month!


Unfortunately a few days after getting things back to normal my clowns died. I'm guessing from velvet. So I'm now waiting for 1 month ( from March 31st) before adding anymore fish.

[gobytron]

the tunze pumps that come with the ATO are not that reliable IMO.
I have had mine quit for no reason in the past and I haven't even had it for long.
It seems to work a lot better if the bottom of my top up tank is highert han the bottom of my sump.

Tank sure looked nice when you had it running optimally.
I love bowfronts, I almost set up a 72 myself...

Hopefully this is just another step in the road...
good luck the next go 'round....

[Piscez]

update: I decided to change my skimmer again as I mentioned the Marinetek is a monster! The footprint on this sucker is 11" x 14" it was literally vibrating the sides of my little 12" wide sump and making a horrible noise. So I found a good deal on a used Reef Octopus NW150 out of the USA, of course Murphy's Law had to rear it's ugly head on this issue as well!

I open up the package to find this:

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll35/20Works4me/Aquarium/Octopusdamage.jpg?t=1240602267


Needless to say I was choked! At least the guy who I bought it from got insurance on it so we are currently working on some kind of compensation. I am using it now as I was able to glue and silicone it back together. The octopus sure pulls great skimmate and is nice and quiet!


Here's of couple of recent shots as my tank rides out the velvet issue. Despite all my setbacks I love this hobby :biggrin: patience is something I'm battling with as I want to get more beautiful fish! I'm not going to go crazy on corals as for me it's about my fish wishlist. I'm slowly adding a few soft corals etc and probably minimal SPS. Here's a couple of recent pics:

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll35/20Works4me/Aquarium/Fullshot2.jpg?t=1240602829


http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll35/20Works4me/Aquarium/Fullclose.jpg?t=1240602917


Oh and my 5 yrs old daughters current fav.......Patrick!:

http://i284.photobucket.com/albums/ll35/20Works4me/Aquarium/Patrickonthemove.jpg?t=1240603008

Of course Nemo and Dory will be coming soon!!! Jacques is hanging in there!