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View Full Version : A Fatal Mistake?


Josh Candiotti
01/02/2010, 09:10 PM
I went away for 9 days, and my tanks secondary care taker, for when I am away, happened to be out of town as well, so I had my third care taker, watch my tank, I turned the skimmer off, because he wasn''t trained in emptying it. And he just fed for me. I have no idea what I was thinking, I came back and my clam was dead, and I couldn't find my firefish goby. I still can't find the goby, and it has been 4 days, the skimmer is back on, and I did a 10 gallon water change, How and when can declare the goby to be sadly dead? And what do I do next?

Playa-1
01/02/2010, 09:37 PM
My first step would be to test the water and make sure everything is in order.

redfishsc
01/02/2010, 09:42 PM
Agreed, test water.

Also, put in some fresh activated carbon and, if you use it, GFO.


I hate to hear about this, that's a hard loss. I have considered getting a clam but just can't bring myself to do it yet for this kind of reason.

How did you have the tank-sitter feed the tank? Personally on a 9-day trip, I would package up, in a ziplock bag, only two or three portions of food, and tell him "one on Monday, one on Thursday, and one on the next Monday" and be done with it.


I recently was gone for 4 days and had a friend who knew nothing about reefs watch mine. I cut the photoperiod back to 2 hours (evaporation control), showed him how to top-off, gave a list of emergency "how-to" in case of power outage, and left. No food for the 4 days. Tanks were great when I came home and some hair algae had receded from the reduced photoperiod.

gtaylor67
01/02/2010, 09:43 PM
I would try to do a bigger water change and watch your params.. the fish could still show up but you never know... Find a new sitter for the next trip and leave lots of questions and answers on a sheet to follow and your number... It's just like a child sitter... LOL hope all works out...

lordofthereef
01/02/2010, 10:40 PM
I would be shocked to hear that 9 days without a skimmer would kill your clam and fish unless there was just a whole lot of overfeeding going on. I would do some tests and checking to see if there is anything else amiss.

njdevilsfan
01/03/2010, 12:58 AM
I would be shocked to hear that 9 days without a skimmer would kill your clam and fish unless there was just a whole lot of overfeeding going on. I would do some tests and checking to see if there is anything else amiss.

thank you
thats what i was thinking
ive had a tank running without a skimmer for 10 years

Flipper62
01/03/2010, 02:12 AM
My first step would be to test the water and make sure everything is in order.

+ 1 with Playa.......Anytime you have a situation like this, the first thing that you want to do is test everything in the water. This can tell you alot about what is going on.

Flipper62
01/03/2010, 02:16 AM
Add to the above...... 1 week without the skimmer.....I dont think thats what caused your problems

Rysam
01/03/2010, 11:40 AM
I havent had a skimmer on my fairly heavy stocked 135 since a week or two before Xmas. No issues with critter health at all, the hair algae is a different beast. I have lots of SPS and a few clams too, all fine.

something else happened.

Josh Candiotti
01/03/2010, 04:05 PM
Well, I had him pre bagged food, and he fed 6 of the 9 days I was away, but no top off, the salinity was at 1.028, which clearly very high. Now that is back to its normal place at 1.025, and i tested the water, Nitrate 0, Nitrite 0, Ammonia 0, Ph 8.2, CA 480, so everything seems to be ok now, did the salinity level do it?

Josh Candiotti
01/03/2010, 08:15 PM
bump?

Josh Candiotti
01/04/2010, 05:58 PM
help please?

Juruense
01/04/2010, 06:02 PM
In my opinion the salinity did not do it if it was increasing from evaporation. Evaporation would cause it to ramp up slowly enough to be a non-lethal change. Often with salinity it is not what it currently is but how fast it is changing. And one way is worse than the other but I cannot remember if increasing or decreasing too quickly is the harmful one...