It's been quite awhile since I've been around. Hopefully some of you remember me [smilie=smile.gif]
I think my 180 crashed at the beginning of 2007, and the thread on the topic is gone, so I'll recreate the situation as best I can remember and post pics in the next couple of days.
My tank was up and doing wonderfully when the pump feeding my skimmer exposed its core to the water column. This caused my red flatworm population to die off and release their toxin which was the beginning of a chain reaction that took out all sps, lps, clams, and most of my softies. My house smelled like dead ocean for two weeks. I tried restocking a couple months later, but it was too early and everything I added died. I never seriously tried to revitalize the tank because I had started my own business, had a son, and no money or time for it. Of course, my toadstools, xenia, palythoa, mejanos and mushrooms survived in this nutrient rich condition and spread until they had taken over the entire tank like the plague. I gave them to my favorite local coral farm and was left with FOWLR for the last couple of months before the breakdown. I took it down in June of this year in order to stage our house to sell. All fish went to my favorite LFS to hold onto for me. In the process, my male clown (part of an 11-12 yr old pair), potters angel, and orchid dottyback died. The tank went on a dolly in storage, the LR was allowed to dry out in tubs in order to kill all of my softies and pests that remained, and the sand is in buckets, semi-dry. All of it needs to be cleaned prior to reassembly.
We moved into our new house a month ago and I'm just now starting to consider setting it back up. I'm shopping for a chiller because I don't want the humidity that we lived with in the old house. I'll try to enclose the top a bit to avoid having 12 sq ft of evaporative area. I'm also going to replace the pump on my custom TriggerSys skimmer with a Bubble Blaster and not use it as a recirculating system.
Has anyone used diluted muriatic acid to clean equipment?
Has anyone tried a setup where the chiller was outside? (protected)
Stay tuned!
I think my 180 crashed at the beginning of 2007, and the thread on the topic is gone, so I'll recreate the situation as best I can remember and post pics in the next couple of days.
My tank was up and doing wonderfully when the pump feeding my skimmer exposed its core to the water column. This caused my red flatworm population to die off and release their toxin which was the beginning of a chain reaction that took out all sps, lps, clams, and most of my softies. My house smelled like dead ocean for two weeks. I tried restocking a couple months later, but it was too early and everything I added died. I never seriously tried to revitalize the tank because I had started my own business, had a son, and no money or time for it. Of course, my toadstools, xenia, palythoa, mejanos and mushrooms survived in this nutrient rich condition and spread until they had taken over the entire tank like the plague. I gave them to my favorite local coral farm and was left with FOWLR for the last couple of months before the breakdown. I took it down in June of this year in order to stage our house to sell. All fish went to my favorite LFS to hold onto for me. In the process, my male clown (part of an 11-12 yr old pair), potters angel, and orchid dottyback died. The tank went on a dolly in storage, the LR was allowed to dry out in tubs in order to kill all of my softies and pests that remained, and the sand is in buckets, semi-dry. All of it needs to be cleaned prior to reassembly.
We moved into our new house a month ago and I'm just now starting to consider setting it back up. I'm shopping for a chiller because I don't want the humidity that we lived with in the old house. I'll try to enclose the top a bit to avoid having 12 sq ft of evaporative area. I'm also going to replace the pump on my custom TriggerSys skimmer with a Bubble Blaster and not use it as a recirculating system.
Has anyone used diluted muriatic acid to clean equipment?
Has anyone tried a setup where the chiller was outside? (protected)
Stay tuned!
