melev

I had a rockslide happen in my 90 gallon, where all my rock fell and completely crumbled my reef. I took all the rocks out had them all sitting in the bathtub, all the corals laying around the bedroom floor and managed to get it all back together (epoxied this time), with no deaths and very little accidental coral fragging along the way.

About six months into reefing I made a "I was in a hurry" mistake and unfortunately turned on my ATO just as my kalk mixer went into a stir cycle. I had been working on the tank for near half the day and the sump was near three gallons low. You could imagine what three gallons of kalk slurry did. At near nine in the evening I noticed the tank was so milky white I could hardly see a large naso tang swimming an inch from the front glass. I didnt know what to do..... I quickly went on line to my favorite forum and asked for advice. Someone quickly responded by saying to add 5Ml of vinegar every half hour until the Ph went down. 5Ml for how many gallons? I replied but, unfortunatly no answer came. I started adding a quarter cup every fifteen minutes in hopes that I wasnt going to kill everything in my new reef. At the time all I had was a salifert Ph test kit and the vial was turning violet blue after adding only one drop. After near two hours and two cups of vinegar later, I could finally see a change in the Ph test kit. I could get four drops in the vial before seeing the violet blue show up. I kept up with the fifteen minute vinegar treatments. The water was starting to clear. Finally, three hours later, I had 40 gallons of water ready to change into my 160 gallon system and did an emergency WC. This helped alot. I tested the Ph again. I was finally able to add the amount of drops the kit called for but the chart still didnt read that high. I added another half cup of vinegar and waited. By this time, I could see all of the SPS corals in the tank. Much to my suprise, they all had polyp extension and werent sliming. I was releived. It was three in the morning before the Ph was down to 8.5 and I finally went to bed. I had saved my reef. Amazing!!!

4 years ago I was watching my baby oscar in his 33 gallon tank....I was just nodding off to sleep when SNAP! the tank split from corner to corner.

I would have won the jump and sprint that day. Could have sold my medal to pay for new towels. hehe

Just an aside. I am loving the Olympics. I live a few minutes from the speed skating oval in Richmond. The city turned our biggest park into a party zone. We have bands and fireworks going off 600m from our balcony. Some said the Olympics weren't worth the cost. But I can tell you that it has given our city a huge boost. Everyone is so happy and spirited. You can't put a price on that.

Definitely not a gold medal, probably not even bronze, but mine is in progress. I came home today to my sump not functioning - no return pump, skimmer, heaters etc. Apparently ice damning infiltrated an outlet on my porch, which is fed from the GFCI that runs my sump so the GFCI did what it is supposed to do...no power for 8 hours according to my refugium light's timer. So far I've moved half the cords to a different outlet and disconnected the wires to the porch so everything is working again. My basement is cold so I've got 5 heaters running to regain the 10 degrees that I lost for my ~90g of sump water until I can shunt water back to my display. This is going to take a while! If I had a giant glass pot then I'd just start boiling water but I worry about doing it with metal pots. And...to add insult to injury, my sump thermometer broke in half.

Oh well. I guess it could be worse as there are only liverock, chaeto and snails in the sump. The dispaly tank has a small heater that kept it warm and has good flow from the powerheads so everything there is oblivious.

Guess I'll be running a new circuit this weekend. I just wish that the rafters didn't run perpendicular between my sump and the circuit breaker...