i welcome all holy gral and like you i used to get real upset when things happened...my first blue tang died after nealy too years... i almost shed a tear thinking bout "mister boo vein"...i loved that guy.... but int he yeas that have passed i have had many fish... some died some dissapeared some jumped to there death cause my dub ass likes a open top tank...its life thats how it goes..yes i spent money on this stuff but i also have recieved alot of free things that have lived a long time and some that bleached form the parameter changes o f the water from tank to tank....at this poiutn all themoney i have spent withthis experiemnt i cant do anything other than laugh...sure i am attached to it but its just stuff and you cant expect a confined enviroment species to last for ever...
so the water issue...yeah im not even gonna post the finding s of my tests last night... holy chit man off tha charts... i removed most all my rock and the few corals that were still alive to a 20 gallon tank i set up real quick.... i found made it found my sixline dead...my tang was pretty large and i think its either dead or hiding very well...gonna change out some water so i can see in it and figure out if any of my clean up crew lived..
.. I am leaning towards the reason for this tremendous loss is the two gen x pump that ceased to work are leaching somehting out of the seam were they are assembled its a wierd orangish almost jelly type stuff...kind of like a rust but he consistencey of it is wierd. they weren't hot at the time but looks like they may have got hot some distortion on the case...
besides i got into this tank as a never been before aquarists as an experiment to see if i was capable and how much interest it would garner from me and i consider this a win win... i learned things i will employ in my next aquarium which is on the shelf at my work and drilled 280 gallon aquarium...I already have a sump fo r it too... some things i learned from this tank are 10% water changes work for me and will continue to be style in the 6 week range...I started out changing alot of water regularly and found imo that i was changing to much water every three weeks and was experienceing far more death and dead loss then i did when i changed less water at a little longer interval... my levels were staying at a more consitent level when i stretched out tolonger and less water, than i was when i was change more more frequently ...i took away from that that i had great water movemnt and plenty of filteration...something else i will definately employ that i didnt on this tank...digital monitoring, the monitoring has come along way from whhere it was at when i started in aquariums and its a vital tool that will allow me to avoid things like what happened...I will also stop dosing with calcium and just got to a reactor... far more effeicient and easier to control and the intial investment pays for it slef in a year...i alos experimented with different forms of tempature ocntrol during the warmer months on the next tank to go along with my controller will be a chiller...temp variations in the first few years killed me and some hard corals that i had...i wont mess around trying diffent experiments like running a ccoil in my pop machine that sits next to my tank inorder to keep tank temp down... worked but was very hard to control....i will alos use close loops in the next tank..you cant subsitute for a firm current...and it seemed to me during this tanks life cuycle that lots of movement from one or two locations was not as effective as when i changed to a lesser but more steady current through out the tank.... so in the end i learned alot, some things worked somethings didn't and for the last year or so i been considering starting my new build and will start working towards it ...for now i ma down sizing to a nano for my few corals that lived gonna put sme effort ninto my planted tank with some of my unused resources and start aquiring towards the next tank...so i didnt expect this tank to end this way but it did ....and even in the way it eneded i learned some things...never trust a syphon break...overflowbox's have therebenefits but also have some downfalls too...its learning thats how it works... so dont say your not gonna contribute to my thread cause you think yournot helping cause you are ... your passion for this hobby motivates me to work twoards my next accomplishment as a refe and thats setting up the 280....it will get set up and it will be a success just like this tank is and was...so it didnt end the way i wnated it to but i have acepted it and turned the page and started a plan working towards my next goal as a refer...the 280, my planted fw tank and seeing if i can have a relitvely large nano thats successfultill my 280 is up and running...plus i have to decide where the 280 is going if i stay at the house i am in might go through wall...in bed room .. but might put it up front at my business since i am here 12 hours a day...or might mmove and find a nice home for it in a new house....timings is right so i guess it s just worked out that a wierd mid summer power outage pushed me to my next project...sucks the way it went donw but thats life , ownt doenst kill you makes you stronger....there is one more thing...I love going to fish stores with cube tanks ...i love cube tanks....always have always will... towing withthe idea of a 6x6x3 ....thats my dream love a 3 foot depth...part of the reason i bought the 280 its three feet deep....my current black hole is 3 feet deep...so I am toying with the idea of selling my starfire 280 and building the rubicks cube...man i love a cube....oops already said that...did i mention i love a cube...anyway please dont hestitate to comment every lesson in life irs a learned experience and i learned planty in this one... on to the next challenge...i will post apic i took last night before dissaebling the rock work, not that you can see it, but its spooky looking...
ps sorry if my post is all over the place i been writing here and there as i help customers and get work done so sorry if its confusing, didn't spell check or proofread any of it...
