I might be done...but not today

[Delphinus]

I had a tank incident last night. I'm not really certain what happened, my best guess is some kind of clam spawning event.

I've had spawn events happen before, they're never pleasant but never have they been this bad. I can't get the water to clear, I can't get my skimmer running (there's no surface tension in the water, it looks like it's trying to skim freshwater).

I'm watching my raccoon butterfly die, I mean, he might make it, but it would be a miracle. He's on the ground panting heavily.

I've lost my flame hawk. He would be nearly 6 years old. :cry:

To lose them like this. I can't take it. Yesterday, everything was fine. Even at midnight, the last time I checked on things before going to bed. This morning I woke up to a disaster.

Two 25 water changes, a sump cleanout, some carbon, and a double checking of all equipment to rule out equipment failure.

Sorry guys, I just need to vent. It's been a rough couple of weeks, I lost a couple clams over my vacation and a couple others were not looking so good lately, but I thought things were improving. Now this. I honestly feel cursed because anytime I've sort of posted anything about anything that was doing well, or even just feel "hey, this isn't so bad after allo" I get squashed.

I'm obviously not making any decisions in this mental state but I hate to say it, the writing is on the wall. My mental and physical health can't take this anymore.

[Delphinus]

Oh My God. It's the brittle stars. I can see them. They're all spawning, all the hundreds or thousand of the little tiny brittle stars. Or they're now spawning now at least, maybe in reaction to the water changes. I'm out of RO/DI, I'm out of salt. Even if I wasn't though I'm not sure more water changes tonight are the answer. Maybe tomorrow.

[Leah]

Oh no, so sorry to hear this

[hillegom]

Thats all so unfortunate. Hope it doesn't all go down the toilet

[fishoholic]

:hug: So sorry to hear, I know how horrible it is to watch the fish you love die :sad: Also how frustrating it is when nothing you do helps.

[Carmen]

Oh Tony, so sorry to hear! :sad::cry:
Hope things turn around....:neutral:

[christyf5]

Oh man Tony I wish I was there to help. What a nightmare :cry:

[md14]

Oh that sucks, Hope everything turns around

[365seasons]

Oh No!
That sucks!! Let us know if theres anything we can do to help!

[marie]

That was my biggest nightmare when I went into my sump room noticed my skimmer wasn't skimming and smelled coral spawn a few weeks ago. luckily non of my fish were affected or I might of thought of quitting myself :sad:

[Navarchus]

So sorry to hear!
Don’t give up…not yet….keep on the water changes, use some 100 micron socks! It will help the skimmer. Add some aggressive bacteria supplements…and add some prayer...Good luck

[Youngster Dan]

That sucks Tony. Good luck, hope things work out.

[kien]

Sorry to hear about your tank :-(. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help!!

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

You can do larger water changes. I just did a 140g water change on my 210g reef & the corals loved it.

Anthony

[Delphinus]

Thanks all. Hopefully the tide is turned but it's still pretty cloudy. I can't much keep my eyes open much longer, I'm going to go empty the skimmer collection cup and call it a night I think. I know I shouldn't say things like "I might be done" when in this state but man alive, the frustration was right off the chart. What a way for the poor guys to go.

[bulletsworld]

Tony, You can't quit. Don't worry the tide will subside. You can make it through this!

If there is anything I can do to help, let me know. *Super hugs*

[ElGuappo]

that sucks man. good luck .....

[lastlight]

Don't give up man. Your perseverance is an insipration.

[Skimmin]

Sorry to hear about your luck. The little buggers just did that in my tank the other day. Neat to see but my tank only clouded for and hour or so. I don't know if you are using Ultralith or not, but if you put in some UltraLife it may help clear your water. I will probably make it cloudier at first but it really seems to help nutrient export. Just a suggestion. Good Luck

[Leah]

I might be done, I am sure that it is more a common statement then not, been there and thought the same. It is good to vent. Hope it gets better soon.

[ponokareefer]

Oh man Tony, that really sucks. I really hope that your livestock turns out okay. And hang in there, things will get better.

[Jan]

What's with all the spawning?.I was lucky to catch my 10 inch squamosa a week ago.Was doing my morning check and noticed the 180 gal tank was cloudy...turned on the lights and the big clam was spewing...quickly went to Google and found this article.
http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2009/8/inverts

This helped me alot...I think I would have lost everything as the tank got more and more milky...thought the clam was done when it started again. I had a 25 gal quarantine set up so put the clam in there where it finished it's thing in another half hour.The stuff in the quarantine was like silt.
In the 180 I added air pumps and changed out my filter pads frequently..also had some poly filter pads ..added extra bags of carbon..and did a 20 gal water change.Everything is good in the tank...the skimmer has been working overtime and the pads are very dirty.The ammonia is 0.
The clam was not so lucky....ammonia up to .5,cloudy water then stopped reacting...and started to stink up the house.Deceased.
Good luck.

[michika]

Hey,

Let me know if you need anything. We'll babysit, or bring you water, whatever you need. We're close, plus Kevin is literally right down the street from you throughout the day.

[Jason McK]

Oh no Tony I'm so sorry to hear. Please hang in there. Wich I was there to lend a head.

J

[Delphinus]

So the water still hasn't cleared as of this morning. I got to thinking, this just doesn't seem like any spawn I've had before (usually I see the spawn, or at least, I'm able to figure out who's done it because they have a "I'm spent" look to them. Nobody has that look.) Plus there's that whole "the sump looked like it was covered in fried egg" thing.

It occurred to me, there's a tiger tail cucumber in the tank. He was a hitchhiker on some rock I bought a year or so ago. So I wonder if it's cuke nuke. I guess the only way to know for sure is take out all the rocks and either I find the cucumber, or I don't.

At least 2 confirmed losses. As of this morning I've seen all the big fish, my tang, rabbits and angels. Who I haven't seen yet are my dottyback and the 2 chromis. But lights don't turn on until 10:30 and it's not unusual to not see these guys in the morning so time will tell.

Completely stunned that nearly a complete container of carbon has not been able to clear up the cloudiness yet. This too, doesn't fit the typical spawn, usually the skimmer goes nuts and pulls it out quickly and it's back to clear within 6 hours or so. Not 36 hours of cloudiness.

At least the skimmer has finally started working again. It's weird I can tell you to the minute when it started up again last night. I'm not sure if it was the carbon that kicked it on or the brittlestars spawning giving the water the right surface tension to start foaming up correctly again.

[banditpowdercoat]

AHh A cuke. Ya that verry well could be the possibility. I had a cuke once, and the crabs got it, it was oozing stringy mucous stuff too, I took it out before anything really bad happened.

[christyf5]

Tony, the cloudiness may not be completely resolved by carbon. I've dealt with my own cloudy tank lately and waterchanges were the only way. Also make sure your ammonia hasn't gone nuts too (I know you know this but...well just covering all the bases). Filter floss may help too.

[Aquattro]

Tony, for next time, keep some zeo coral snow on hand, it may help with clearing the water. It appears to be some type of surfactant that helps binds organics and allows them to be skimmed out. Not sure how it would work for this, but I use it for polishing, and do notice increased skimmer output.

[Lance]

I feel for you Tony. Hang in there man!

[Phanman]

keep your chin up Tony, things will improve im sure. I almost quite myself this summer after i lost 10 sps pieces and 2 fish. Give it time and you will realize your love for the hobby and continue. Dont do anything rash like me, lol.

[Delphinus]

Thanks guys. Yeah, the problem is I love my fish .. almost too much. I mean it's almost sort of child-like, the adult in me knows that to the fish it's a one-way ticket one way or the other, but you have this hope that when they go, they go due to old age instead of "Ohhhhh, I guess I shouldn't have had that cucumber after all."

(I haven't confirmed that it's cuke nuke but the more I think of it, the more I'm convinced that this is not a clam spawn. It would certainly explain some things. The sump was in way worse shape than the main tank, I noticed immediately when I took the sump offline to check all my pumps that the tank started looking better with the sump offline, and the smell was 10 times worse in the sump. If the thing, say, managed to crawl into a return pipe and got stuck and the force of the water tore it apart, it would all have been flushed down into the sump. The skimmer too, it looked like when you try running a skimmer with freshwater, the bubbles were huge and there was zero foam production for the longest time.)

Coral Snow - great idea, thanks Brad. I do have some kicking around somewhere from when I was running Zeo, I just stopped using it when I stopped the rocks-in-a-reactor thing, I guess it couldn't hurt to add some in.

Anyhow I do apologize for the "I feel sorry for myself" post, and really do appreciate the support and kind words of the community. It really helps to put things in perspective, last night I really was done, this morning, maybe not .. I don't know, but you're right, I'm too far into this now to just walk away from it all.

[christyf5]

Good to hear Tony. And there is nothing wrong with venting or feeling sorry for yourself. As long as you post it on here so you can keep you in the hobby to suffer...ahem, I mean enjoy it as much as the rest of us :wink:

[Zoaelite]

Really sucks to hear about your lose Tony, I know it might seem discouraging during the rough times but you just have to remember all of the joy that the tank has given you. That's 6 years of Flame Angel antics, countless new discoveries and I'm sure a whole whack load of bonding time with your kids :biggrin:! It's impossible to put myself in your shoes but I would continue with that massive tank you have going. With increased water volume comes increased stability and perhaps you could finally get some SPS to grow :mrgreen:! Keep the the tank in ICU for a little while, your much more of a experienced reefer than allot of us here so I'm sure you can pull through. If you need anything at all I'm just over in Douglasdale and would be more than willing to help!

Levi

[PoonTang]

Time for an UPGRADE. When life hands you lemons....well you know.

[Treebeard]

Hang in there Tony. Things will get better and you will regain your enthusiasm for the hobby you know you really love!

[Myka]

Oh no Tony!!! Keep your chin up. These things happen. It really sucks to have to take some steps backwards right when you start to feel happy about the tank. I think we've all had disasters at some point or another. I've had heaters fail twice cooking two entire tanks. Now I am smarter than the heaters. :D I am due for a disaster though...maybe my recent brush with red bugs will cure me for awhile. :p It's easy to toss in the towel and give up. Sometimes it's good to do that. Or downgrade. Everyone is always on the upgrade...sometimes downgrading is better!! ;)

How are your corals looking?

[Delphinus]

Thanks Myka. Corals, interestingly enough, don't look too bad today, but bear in mind I only have zoanthids and gorgonians and clams. The zoanthids were quickly receding on account of the butterfly, the gorgonians seem to be bulletproof anyhow, and the clams.. well, two of them look like hell, one of them looks like heck, and then the last 4 of them look like nothing was ever the matter. I'm sort of expecting the lose the two hellers (they look that bad.. :( .. kind of wondering if I should maybe just .. er, do something about it .. like freeze them and put them out of their misery), and I'm hoping for the best for the hecker, sometimes they just seem to gape for a day, and well the tank did go through a trauma so it's not unexpected to see reaction .. just hoping for the best right now, you never know, maybe they'll pull through).

[Pazil]

WOW!! Tony this sucks... Let me know if you need anything. Good luck and keep your chin up!!!

[fishoholic]

Good to hear Tony. And there is nothing wrong with venting or feeling sorry for yourself. As long as you post it on here so you can keep you in the hobby to suffer...ahem, I mean enjoy it as much as the rest of us :wink:

+1

Tony I know it sucks now, I went through 2 weeks of hell and hung in, when almost anyone else would of quit. I have faith that for the love of the hobby you'll hang in too.

[fkshiu]

Don't do did, dude! Think about all you have to live for!!!!!!

Seriously, if you think about it - it is usually a GOOD thing when creatures spawn in our tanks. It's a sign that they're happy and healthy enough to reproduce. It happens and can be easily fixed with enough water changes.

It would really be a shame to lose somebody like you Tony to something silly like some sperm in the water. ;)

[Snappy]

Hey Tony just saw this, bummer. It does sound like cuke killer toxins to me too. I had mine start to puke out the creamy slime awhile back, luckily I noticed it doing the deed and yanked it out and through it in the trash. Wierd thing is it was gone 2 days later when I looked so either a cat or our nieghbourhood racoons ate it.....yuck! Anyway let me know if I can be of help. My RO unit can put out 300 gal per day if you need some quick water. I also have a spare skimmer if you need to borrow one.

[Myka]

Thanks Myka. Corals, interestingly enough, don't look too bad today, but bear in mind I only have zoanthids and gorgonians and clams. The zoanthids were quickly receding on account of the butterfly, the gorgonians seem to be bulletproof anyhow, and the clams.. well, two of them look like hell, one of them looks like heck, and then the last 4 of them look like nothing was ever the matter.

Clams are weenies. I hope they pull through for you. Why do they have to be sooooooooooooo perdy when they are such a pain in the butt??? :mrgreen:

[sharuq1]

So sorry to hear about this Tony :( I hope what's left pulls through. You've been a real inspiration to many of us (including me) so I'm really rooting for you to stay in the hobby.

[LostMind]

Tony, you were here when I started my crazy reef tank adventure many many years ago. You're still here. Don't do what I did... faced a little adversity and I quit (broke my 320g dream tank). Since the day I tore down the 120g and 90g, I've been looking to get into another tank.

I regret my decision to give up those two tanks nearly every day. I've since moved to a newer house with much less room to keep tanks and am searching for ways to fit in a new tank.

You do not want to be me! Although, I do not want to be you right now :)

Then again, I don't think you need a pep talk.

Good luck though.

[Delphinus]

Thanks. :) To be honest the sheer logistics of pulling out are daunting enough to keep me to press on. I'm also too far along on my inwall (despite the running joke of how long it's taking to put water in it) to really abort that, the whole basement has been drawn up around it so .. so I guess that's that. Just have to find a way to make it work is all.

If this isn't an argument to consider BB tanks though and forgo the need to have cucumbers in the tank, I'm not sure what is. Although it's weird, if it was the hitchhiker cucumber, I thought it was a garden variety tiger-tail, and I thought these were reasonably safe to keep. Although I suppose if something happened like it went into the overflow pipe or a pump intake, who knows, maybe in that case still, "anything goes."

[Myka]

If this isn't an argument to consider BB tanks though and forgo the need to have cucumbers in the tank, I'm not sure what is.

You don't need cucumbers in the tank. I have never put one in any of my tanks simply because I think they are disasters waiting. Plus, there are other critters that do the job just as well - particularly conches and sand sifting gobies.

[Delphinus]

YOU may be convinced but others may not be. I was just speaking some idle thoughts here in retrospect. After all, there is a certain appeal to a creature that eats dirty sand and poops clean sand. I didn't buy the tigertail, it was a hitchhiker. I guess I could have torn apart the whole tank to get at him but I didn't, for reason #1 the sand cleaning thing didn't hurt, but #2, what exactly do I do with it? Condemn it to death because of what it is, or pass it along to another reefer, who may not know the risks? Not really comfortable with either option there.

Is it what it is now though. I lost two fish, so it could have been worse, but the sting of losing a 6 year old fish to something seemingly with no forewarning for still disappoints me.

[aquatic_rice]

Damn, sorry to hear Tony. Hope everything turns out well.
My condolences. It sucks to lose a pet youve cared for so long.
Good luck.

[Delphinus]

I sort of debated with myself about bringing this thread back up but have decided to add this footnote to this story.

In the end, I lost 4 fish in this event, one of my doliatus rabbitfish, my flame hawk, my raccoon butterfly and my sixline wrasse. Some of these fish were longtime keepers, the sixline was in fact my oldest fish (bought in 2001), the flame hawk in 2004.

One night earlier this week I was doing some fish spotting at night (some new fish, thought I'd see where they were hiding). Anyhow, I spotted the cucumber: alive and well.

So, that means that whatever this was, it wasn't "cuke nuke" after all. Unless maybe the cucumber had split and one of it's offspring or clones had kicked off, but now I'll never really know. My first theory that it was clam spawn just doesn't seem to fit the pattern: I have had clams spawn before on me, and there are usually two distinct telltales: 1) you know who is doing the spawning. Even afterwards, they will have a "I'm spent" look to them for up to days afterwards. None of my clams ever had this look at the time. 2) There is a distinct smell usually. While this event had a smell, it's wasn't the smell of .. um, how can I put this delicately, it wasn't the smell of spawn.

I do think that whatever it was did cause the brittle stars to spawn, but the initial thing is still the mystery. And there is the issue of the mystery substance that looked like fried eggs covering the entire sump, no idea what that was. Weird, just weird, weird weird weird. I've been doing saltwater now for close to 12 years and this is the first time I've had an incident of this nature that I cannot conclusively determine what the actual cause was (just to be clear - I've had many incidents: but I can always trace it back to a "the ultimate cause was 'X'". Where 'X' might be equipment failure, power failure, human error, livestock issue, etc.)

It really does irk me to have to walk away from this incident and not have a "lesson learned" aspect to it. No idea what went wrong, so no idea what to change to prevent or lessen the likelihood of a reoccurence. :neutral:

On another note though, for the record, I am not quitting (the initial theme of this post was that I was deciding whether to continue on or not, and the decision is to make the best of things and forge ahead.) I have some progress on my tank build that I should probably post about at some point in my build thread, and some new livestock that has rekindled some of the excitement I have about this hobby. :)

[lastlight]

I was a little scared to open this thread.

Bad news about the unsolved reef mystery but I'm glad you're making progress on the new tank. Can't wait to see some new pictures. Of course I know I'm not going to find that your sump has moved or anything TOO crazy because I'd remember having met you!

[Delphinus]

Thanks Brett. I'm thinking maybe this weekend for grunting that sump over. It would be nice to have it outside of the middle of the basement where I have to step over it (it's like a magnet for other junk: I don't know where to put this spare 30g, so I'll put it in the pile. Hmmm, a bucket full of heaters that I should check to make sure still work. One day when I have time. In the meantime, I'll just leave it next to the sump. What's this Home Depot bag full of? Screws? Why did I buy a bag of screws again? Hmmm, ok, I'll just leave it here until I remember what they're for...)

I forget where I was going with this. Oh right, the sump. Yes, the sump. I'm thinking of maybe moving it into the stand this weekend. Right now it's in the middle of my basement and it's like it's a magnet of distraction and other things that I don't know what to do with, so it ends up in a big pile, and.....

[lastlight]

Lol. Saturday might work out for me...

[Treebeard]

I am not sure if it has been brought up before, but is is possible that something was accidentally dumped in the tank?

[Delphinus]

The thought did occur to me. I don't think so. No evidence of anything spilled or dumped, and even though I have small kids, they aren't in the basement without me, so I know it wasn't them. I also checked the ceiling to see if something could have been spilled from above that seeped through the floor, but I couldn't find any evidence of anything like that.

Another theory I had was that a pump failed and released oil but that too wasn't it. I don't have any oiled pumps anyhow. Heater was fine too.

[muck]

The cats... :surprise: