College Nano ~ 20L style

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Phew, wow........... so finals are over, ive become single again, and my room is starting to reveal its floor to the world (kind of ;) ) And now I have to turn back to my tank for some major upkeep!

So Ive had a slight breakout of aptasia in both tanks (the 2.5 more so than the 20L) and ive tried to iraddicate it multiple times now. I bought some joes juice online and have been using that to combat the anemones..... but i think its messed up some of the parameters on my tanks. A nice "film" coated the surface of my water for about a week after I did it, and it looked real bad. Also, corals started to look poor in health and a few died. :( Ive never been so depressed about this hobby ever..... i felt helpless.

Welp i did a water change, and things are starting to perk up a bit. All of my fish are doing great, and so is my mantis shrimp Loki! The eel is loving the tank, and is way more active than I had imagined it would be. There is something quite satisfying about watching this creature swim through the tank at night with only the night lights on, the white ribbon effect is mesmerizing.

Anyway, Im leaving for about 3 weeks for christmas break, so I have my buddies girlfriend watching over the tank while im gone.... Pray for the health of my tank! Im hoping nothing happens (like the power outage that happened this week with that crazy wind storm! I hope everyone else's tanks are okay!)

Here are a few pics that ive taken over the past few weeks here and there...... and ill try to update again soon!

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This picture is of my mantis shrimp, Loki, as he's inspecting the astrea snail on the glass. He has destroyed every other invert ive placed within the tank, EXCEPT this snail! I think they must have formed a bond, or my mantis just wants a piece of snail a$$ haha

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Loki in threat position!
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Merry Christmas everyone!!!!! Spread the cheer!
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sigh............. unfortunatly, i have a bad news update.......

apparently, the person I had watching my tank over christmas break did not do the best of jobs (aka, not topping off, overfeeding, ignoring, etc etc).... I got a phone call last night from one of my roommates to tell me that the house smelled bad and the tank looked like death. :( I wanted to cry. I fly back tomorrow, so Ill do a full evaluation then, but man, am i completely demoralized....

My roommate was amazing, and he offered to do anything that he could. He said the tank was extremely low on water (about half full), so I told him how to add water over the course of the next 24 hours to bring up the salinity slowly enough to not shock anything that might still be alive. My two clownfish were still alive at the moment, and there was no sign of the goby or eel. The 2.5 gallon tank he said was really really bad, and im guessing most of the smell came from that tank..... he added water slowly to that as well, but my outlook is very dim for that one.

The eel was missing, and at first i told him to look around the outside of the tank to see if it had gone carpet surfing... fortunatly it hadnt, and after my roommate bravely went eel hunting (he was scared, but actually kind of intruiged to find the eel) found the eel ALIVE!

I will be home tomorrow afternoon to do what Im guessing is a must needed waterchange, and an evaluation of the destruction to my tank....... sigh, im so depressed. Hopefully some stuff is still alive coral wise, as there are corals I have had since i started this hobby and would be severly dissapointed if they were dead. I cant begin to explain how thankful I am to have great friends as roommates.... most people would be so overwhelmed with something like this, and he jumped right in to help me out. I am in debt to him for sure.

As for the person who was supposed to take "care" of my tank, i am severly dissapointed. I wish i could chew her out, but alas, its my other roommates girlfriend, so I have to tread carefully on how I handle telling her how she messed up. I guess if anything its my fault, I should have made sure that she was better prepared/educated maybe, or I should have just found someone with saltwater experience to take care of it. (for the record, I had approached my LFS several times to have someone take care of my tank, but they were always too busy or the guy who takes care of tanks was out on a job)

man..... im basically speechless about the whole thing, yet i think that ive written a lot about it. Oh wells, i guess thats the ups and downs of reef keeping..... a never ending learning experiance.
 
man ohhh man im very sorry to hear that... i haope everything will turn up for you and your tank. good luck with the water changes and everything keep us updated if you can..
 
so the lfs even though they do tank maintance for clients wouldnt do it for u whats with that
 
Bummer:doubt: Sorry to hear that... Hopefully things are not as bad as it sounded and everything will be brought back around. Let us know how it goes:)
 
Just to let everyone know, when I get home tomorrow Ill be trying to do a full documentation of this disaster. Ill be taking pictures and seeing exactly what I find to be still alive, what i find dead, and what I can help recover over the next few days/weeks/years. Will keep everyone posted!
 
talk about a cliffhanger...

I've just read the entire thread and then the last post... was way to depressing, and nerve wrecking (going away for the first time since setting up my tank)

I really hope the tanks are okay, your tanks are awsome, very cool tanks!
( I want to start a mantis tank now...)
 
ilektrik......... oh wow, thanks for reading the entire thread, i appreciate it! I wish i could tell you that my tanks are fine, but alas, that was not going to be.

.................grumble grumble.......... it's a good thing i had stuff going on today to keep me away from my room, cause I got back to my house today to see the damage done to the tank, and it was almost unberable....

it was worse then i thought. I havent seen so many skeletons of corals ever, and there is literally nothing left alive except one half dead clown, and an eel that is so shocked it probably will starve itsself to death before it calms down. I have pictures, but havent taken time to get them on the computer yet.


AHHHH! its so frustrating to loose everything youve watched grow for so long! I dont want to even think about it.....

And yet i must, cause i mean, honestly, what else would i do with my life? i gotta have something going on with nano reefing! So i guess i should ask suggestions..... what do I do? Should I go for a recycle of everything? do waterchanges and just let it sit till it balances out again? get rid of everything and start over? (Im already going to have to do that in my 2.5, which is completely dead! aaaaaahhhhhh!) any advice would be greatful, or any bright ideas to do take to these tanks.

Ill try to get some pics up tomorrow or sunday sometime......sigh.......
 
Well if it was me i would take everything out that was dead and just start over. Make sure when you buy all new corals you give the reciept to the girl that took care of the tank and tell her to pay you when she can...I hope you can keep the eel and the clown alive man good luck.
 
Sorry to hear that man...Hope you don't lose interest in the hobby :doubt: I also hope you can bounce back better than before:)
 
would u really give that chick a bill it could be like hell big she wouldnt pay it
 
sorry guys, I thought I had posted an update, but i guess i didnt......

Here are the pics i took........ didnt take too many cause it was just depressing.


This was after my roommate had added water and so had I...... it was only about half this full when he found it originally. :(
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Trying to look through the glass..... :(
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Top down...... :(
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and then here's my 2.5 tank........ the pump pooped out on it as well, so its now just standing grossness :(
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yuck :(
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I thank everyone for the encouragement...... but as a college student, i wont be able to bounce back very quickly from this loss. I plan on staying in the hobby for sure (I cant leave this community, it is far to amazing not to be a part of, both for the people and the creatures in it), but its going to be a long, slow process.

The clownfish both died over the course of a few days since ive been back.......

There is one shining thing throughout this though.... the eel lives!!! For being a fish that is reguarded as a difficult fish to keep, mine has been quite the trooper. In fact, it is even eating healthily and has been active and acting normal for the past few days. This has me greatly excited, and only makes me want to keep on pressing through these hard times.

I just want to say that my heart goes out to all those people who are suffering through the same thing I am, their losses coming at the hands of the power outtages in our area. It is so depressing and difficult to handle the death of all these amazing creatures..... I only hope that we can continue to help create a better aquarium trade in the future, learning more about these animals and catering better toward their needs as pets. Aquaculture is a big step toward this, as well as supporting reef protection around the world.

Im going to try to head to the fish store tomorrow to see what my next step should be..... i dont know, we'll see. The rest of this week is dedicated to my tanks, so hopefully I can get something worthwhile out of it.
 
Bummer:doubt: That is a real shame they let it go that far. Good luck on bouncing back. I'm sure there are people willing to offer some frags to get your tank stocked again:)
 
Just to let everyone know, I recycled my tank, and now Im in the process of restocking it.... Ill be making a new thread, as Im looking at this as a fresh start. ;) See you all soon



Just for everyone who followed this thread, here is the link to the new thread after I have begun restocking the tank after the crash.......

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22685
 
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