(this is Danyelle, posted it under dads on accident so thats why its talking about him haha)
So, the first few days corals were open and happy. But, a few days after we had the setup up and running, the corals starting closing up, kenyas were receding. Now I know if the softies arent surviving, something is up.
We took tests of all parameters. Took tests on EVERYTHING. Nothing came up. Ammonia 0, nitrates/nitrites 0, phosphates little to none, etc. Then he thought about the pump. He called the manufacturer, Aquatic Eco-Systems, and they reasured us that there is nothing in it that could cause this. So then we thought it was the makeup water tub, a rubermaid tub. We had replaced this with our old 200 gallon tank that has the failing seals. Still, things were dieing. We gave up. After 2 years of fighting the invisible killer, we Sold everything, except for some of rock that didnt sell. We started taking stuff apart, and dad got curious and thought about the pump even after being reasured.
So dad took off the volute on the Dragon pump we got from, that is guaranteed saltwater safe. And sure enough, there was the lime green/blue streaks coming off of two brass insert bushings - a sure sign of copper.
For the last 2 years we have been fighting copper poisioning.
bum bum BUMMMM
The relief we feel after finally finding the culprit, we are back in the game. We redid some piping, got new pumps, cleaned everything, made modifications we always wanted to. System was up and running with saltwater for the last two weeks. We bought some rock from local fish stores to get things started. Picked up some nice rock from Will at RM and Dennys pet world of all places. We had to have something in there. :badgrin:
And then on Saturday morning, I checked craigslist and ran into the basement with a phone number. He pulled the 'Oh, I dont know...' I forced him to call. This was something we couldnt miss out on. Its what we had been waiting for.
He called, I listened. I could see his grin begin to grow, and he had the guy email us pictures. Once I opened the email, dad called the guy and was driving down to Puyallup within the hour. He had to make two trips. It was stressful to keep everything alive, there was so much stuff! We didnt loose anything, and only a few tips of the sps were broken off in transit. It was a300 gallon mixed reef, setup for almost 3 years. LR was imported from the Red Sea, about 400lbs of it, with a majority of the rock being over 30lb pieces, multiple reaching 60lbs. To give you an idea, there were about 16 pieces of it...
The setup contained over 70 corals, to name a few there were 7 different types of zoos, hairy mushrooms, trumpets, 2 brains, bubble coral, monti caps, and acros just to name a few. (we are having Eric with veraltiaquatics come over to help identify some of these and give us some expert advice on their care...
) Once I have all the names, Ill list what all we have. Ill post pictures of the venture in a minute.
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