Big Mistake/Vent

[Dorkel Marine 1]

Well my first big foo paa and at a terrible time. I haven't been religious with my top ups. I mean I was ok but just did weekly changes. Well I've been waiting a long time for my first introduction of a coral. But a day before I bought my polyps I did a change. But a few extra days had transpired. I just siphoned out my usual water and then added the salt water right to the top. The next day i introduced my polyps. 2 days later I introduced my 2 frags from smokin reefer. When "I'm so stupid", I checked the salinity the needle went right up. i foolishly thought it was my meter. Well the next day those poor corals. I felt sick. I didn't twig in til about 2 hours later. what a dope. Well I'm carrying on here and this bulletin is not for therapy. One question thou. Can the frags recover. The polyps(yellow) are just tucked in no mucous or anything just in. the anthelia's trunk is peeling a white skin. I could just vomit. The xenia is just real droppy and a little of color. The salinity is back where it should be. I did it over a 3 hour time block. slowly. I hope it wasn't too fast. Sorry for the vent and thanx in advance to the question.

Happy reefin I've learned a good lesson though. A basic truth I just didn't pay much attention too.

[smokinreefer]

heh heh...no problems george.
sometimes corals are more resiliant than we give them credit for. everyone makes little mistakes sometimes. hope they recover for you.

if not, i willhook you up free of charge! no worries.

[Delphinus]

Yes they can recover. Unfortunately, of course they might not. But as Smokinreefer said, something things can pleasantly surprise you.

We've all made stupid mistakes along the way. Unfortuantely it is part of the learning process, as we try to find our "groove." One of the worst things I ever did also involved topup. I hooked up a float valve to my cold water supply. Didn't have to top up for a year, it was perfectly automatic. Then one day I fiddled with my flaot valve water line, and unbeknownst to me I had somehow popped the line off the valve. The line fell into my sump and started pumping fresh water in. I went to bed, woke up in the morning to find about 50 gallons of overflow in my basement and my reef was a perfectly freshwater tank (and not only freshwater, but cold freshwater). "Oh, the humanity" -- what a scene of carnage. Lost many things, as you would expect. However, many things did live through the moment though, and are still with me, about two years later.

So don't worry. If you feel stupid, remember this, there's always someone out there who's stupider (that would be me ;) )

Things will get better.