o2manyfish 400g Tank, 1100g System "Built" Thread

[o2manyfish]

My previous full tank shot.



On Tuesday morning at 3am my girlfriend took the dog out and noticed the outside sump overflowing. She woke me up and I can downstairs to find the tank a cloud with only about 6" visibility. The bottom of the tank was lined with dead tangs.

I went outside and found the sumps overflowing. My topoff had stuck on and added Kalkwasser to the tank for 7 hours. I have a double float switch, one measures the sump low, and a second measures if the water level goes to high. The switches are mounted inside a Black PVC pipe so that no snails and no algae can grow on them. Both switches coincidentally failed at the same time.

I did a 350g water change at 3am. The next morning the tank had almost zero visibility and the house smelled of dead fish. There were a scattering of carcasses in the tank. I had about 120 fish when the accident hit. There were still some clowns and Bangai cardinals moving about the tank. I did a 400g water change and added 5lbs of carbon.

While changing the water I was surprised to find 5 baby Bangai surviving in my outdoor rock sump.

Then after the water change I found another younger clutch of 3 Baby Bangai in the display tank.

Some of the fish which survived have surprised me. So far the survivors are 5 clowns, 5 Bangai, Orange Spotted Blenny, Mandarin Goby, Target Mandarin, Tail Spot Blenny, Several Firefish, Red Sea Regal, Blue Hippo, Chevron Tang, Dragon faced pipefish, a couple of damsels, Red Sea Regal and Multicolor angel. There may be more but the tank visibility has only reached the point where you could see the back of the tank today.

Fish loss between the display tank and the outside tanks is about 130 fish.

All the acros in the display tank are gone (about 126 pcs). The Montis are a mix there is about 50% tissue loss on them so far.

My LPS seem to be surviving but as a precaution I moved them to a friends tank for a week or so.

Zoa and Palys are a mixed some are open and some are closed and some are wilted.










I do have an Apex, and it was busy emailing me in the middle of the night but I was asleep.

Lessons I learned. My Apex topoff was programmed for the float switches, now it is also programmed to shut off based on Salinity and pH.

Hopefully things will continue to clear up and in a couple of weeks I can start rebuilding. The girlfriend has decided that Hannukah gifts to each other this year is going to be limited to fish and corals... What a great girl!

[dave.m]

Another typical tale of float switches on an ATO failing and causing a near or total wipeout. May I suggest some timers on the pumps so that top off can only occur for a few hours per day?

Dave.M

[worm5406]

WOW... I have always been amazed by your tank.

Now this... And the one earlier.

Sorry for your losses.

[ingtar_shinowa]

Man... I feel for you.

[danfeig]

You know how I feel pal. For Chanukah, I am sending you frags....

[scott821]

Dave, good to see you on here!

I remember going to frag swaps at your house (~10 years ago...?).

This is my first post in RC with a new username, for some reason I can't login with my old one, I decided to login after being away for quite a few years. Reading your story and seeing the pictures have convinced me (not that I needed much convincing...) to get back into the "hobby"

[bullitr]

Sorry Dave

[o2manyfish]

Thanks for the condolences guys.

Dave.M. Timers wouldn't really work for my setup. With all my filtration outdoors I have a ton of evaporation. I also use Evaporative cooling when possible to increase my evaporation to top off with more Kalk to keep my levels high.

In the summer time the top off can't be active all the time because I have to turn the top off off when the surge tank runs. So on hot weekends, and hot summer nights the topoff has to run for hours and hours to keep up with the evaporation.

I don't know of a better way (or safer) way to monitor the sump water levels. I have already tried using Ultra Sonic tank monitors and they are just way to finicky. From a mechanical standpoint the dual float switches seems to be the best solution.


Dan, Looking forward the Latkes and Frags in a few months!

Scott821 - Welcome back! Get yourself back up and running and lets start collecting corals.

Lawrence - Thanks.

[reef_of_flames]

Awh man, soooo sorry Dave! To put it simply, this sucks!

[h.cordero]

Thats the worst news that you could give me today! Can't you program the apex that if surge in on, then not to top off? I think you can! You could also program your top off not more than number of time two times a day?

[o2manyfish]

Hey Guys,

So here is the current update....







So the tank ain't pretty. Brown algae everywhere.



But it's time to start moving forward.



New baby yellow tangs, got stupid and got a little purple too. Some new Kupang Damsels and....


The girlfriend got her surge damsel, yes I bought what I believe to be one of the ugliest damsels I have ever seen again to keep the girlfriend happy. And I bought her 2! In this pic I think it's a great looking damsel. The previous one was this colored for about an hour. Let you know tomorrow what these two look like.

I will pickup some test corals in the next few days and see how they do.

Dave B

[ingtar_shinowa]

Glad to see you optimistic Dave, I have always liked damsels, but have only had the stones to keep a yellow tail blue damsel. My wife wanted a school of surge damsel and I told she could have some in her 4000g system, she got the point lol.

[Eville]

Ive always loved inspecting your tank pictures because you've had such a mixture of fish, both small and large. I wish you the best in rebuilding! Sad to hear your Golden angel pair didn't make it.. they might be my all time favorite

[reef_of_flames]

Like the school of yellows! I don't think you're dumb by buyin a purple tang- one of my fav tangs!!

[o2manyfish]

Originally Posted by reef_of_flames

Like the school of yellows! I don't think you're dumb by buyin a purple tang- one of my fav tangs!!

My comment was not explained well. I love purple tangs. After diving in the Red Sea with them I was enamored. At one point in time between a few different tanks I had about 20 of them and some I kept for over 10 years.

My stupid comment, was that for adding new fish into the system, to pick one of my favorites with such a higher price tag was not wise. But I saw the yellows and the purple all in the same tiny size range and my brain just can't say "NO"

Dave B

[slief]

While I don't normally like yellow tangs and have avoided them for as long as I can remember, that school of them looks great in your tank! Maybe one day, I will consider the same. I really like them in schools as opposed to one or two.

Im really happy to see your tank and the fact that it's improving. It's a slow and painful process, especially when you reach the levels of success you have achieved. I was poking around the So. Cal section this morning to see if there were any updates and then I saw your update here. Glad to see you slowly getting things back on track. You've been in my thoughts!

[roni]

Sorry for your loss. I went through a similar loss recently (though not quite to the same level as you) and can definitely relate. I was pretty crushed the last couple months. Good to see it hasn't dampened your enthusiasm.

How many yellows do you have in there? I've been debating what to do when I rebuild my fish population as I had a large number of angels before and am unsure whether I'll repeat that. How many tangs have you had in at any one time? I imagine the dynamic is different with 20 tangs instead of 2-3. Any success adding multiple acanthurid tangs together?

Also, how do you like the surge damsel so far? I've actually been really intrigued by the one that popped up on LADD recently.

[o2manyfish]

Slief, It's been really depressing seeing just a brown algae filled tank. Even with the fish that survived it's just so empty. Are you still getting that batch of fish from out of state ?


Roni, I added a dozen yellows and a purple yesterday. Before the crash I had 15 tangs in the display tank. I also had 15 angels, most of them were dwarfs. In my tanks over the years I have always kept lots of tangs. My experience is when you have a bunch they don't seem to have aggression issues. I love the activity the tangs bring to the tank. And when you have a bunch of them they do a great job at algae control.

I avoid Clown Tangs and Sohals because they are just mean regardless of the fish in the tank. And strangely I have not been successful in keeping Nasos in my reef tank. When I had a fish only tank I kept them for years with great success. But in the reef tank, when I try them they just hide in the rocks and don't swim around much. In my reef tanks I usually only keep one Acanthurid. I really like small fish. So an Achillies or a Powder Blue is usually the large fish in the tank. When I had my fish only tank I kept several at the same time.


The Surge Damsel is a funny story. About 8-10 months ago I came across a surge damsel for the first time. It was a gorgeous fish - Bright blue topside, electric yellow body. I had never seen one before, and I have always liked damsels and kept many of them in my tanks.

So I get this pretty surge damsel home and release him into the tank and after 15 minutes in the tank he turns into one of the ugliest fish I have ever seen. No more electric blue, no yellow, just a grey brown damsel with a light grey stripe in the middle of it. So as I am watching this ugly fish swim around in the tank, he is chasing everything around. Stereotypical Bad Damsel behavior.

So I was disgusted with this fish in the first hour of putting it into my tank.

The second day he was in the tank, he wasn't picking on any fish. But he was still ugly as can be. But my girlfriend fell in love with the fish. This surge damsel was super active. He was all over the tank, in and out of the rocks and the corals, from one side of the tank to the other. I kept saying I was going to get rid of him because he is just so ugly, and the girlfriend said no way.

But having the support of your significant other in this hobby is very important. Especially, when you go through a situation like this, and you know it's going to cost you a vacation or two to restock the tank.

So, as luck would have it the first trip to pick up some new fish for the tank, they have surge damsels. So I buttered the girlfriend up and got her two of them. And these actually kept their color for more than 15 minutes so far

Dave B

[hedgedrew]

Omg. Dave liter meter the ro in set evaporation rate.

[hedgedrew]

Do you have to wait to out acros back or is your water fine now?

[slief]

Originally Posted by o2manyfish

Slief, It's been really depressing seeing just a brown algae filled tank. Even with the fish that survived it's just so empty. Are you still getting that batch of fish from out of state ?

I know how you feel when it comes feeling depressed about looking at a near empty tank. I do plan on getting the fish from out of state. I shipped the fish shipping boxes, bags, heat packs and rubber bands up to him Monday. He got them yesterday. The plan is to have them overnighted Monday or Tuesday. In the mean time, I got another 11 fish last night and am now up to 25 fish in the tank. With the ones coming next week from Wyoming, I will be pretty close to my previous stock levels.

Fortunately, every fish I've added over the last couple weeks has thrived and my ORP is back to near normal levels. It hit 329 this morning according to my Apex which isn't far off from the 350 it was at before my disaster. I figure by Monday my ORP will be back 100% and by mid next week, my tank will be well stocked again. I've been keeping my build thread up to date and will post another update next week when the shipment arrives.

I'm really looking forward to seeing your tank back on track. I'm sorry I missed that last So. Cal meeting at your house as I would have loved to have seen your tank in all it's glory. I'm sure with your level of dedication, your tank will be back on track sooner than later. Please keep us updated on your progress.

[roni]

Originally Posted by o2manyfish

Roni, I added a dozen yellows and a purple yesterday. Before the crash I had 15 tangs in the display tank. I also had 15 angels, most of them were dwarfs. In my tanks over the years I have always kept lots of tangs. My experience is when you have a bunch they don't seem to have aggression issues. I love the activity the tangs bring to the tank. And when you have a bunch of them they do a great job at algae control.

I avoid Clown Tangs and Sohals because they are just mean regardless of the fish in the tank. And strangely I have not been successful in keeping Nasos in my reef tank. When I had a fish only tank I kept them for years with great success. But in the reef tank, when I try them they just hide in the rocks and don't swim around much. In my reef tanks I usually only keep one Acanthurid. I really like small fish. So an Achillies or a Powder Blue is usually the large fish in the tank. When I had my fish only tank I kept several at the same time.


The Surge Damsel is a funny story. About 8-10 months ago I came across a surge damsel for the first time. It was a gorgeous fish - Bright blue topside, electric yellow body. I had never seen one before, and I have always liked damsels and kept many of them in my tanks.

So I get this pretty surge damsel home and release him into the tank and after 15 minutes in the tank he turns into one of the ugliest fish I have ever seen. No more electric blue, no yellow, just a grey brown damsel with a light grey stripe in the middle of it. So as I am watching this ugly fish swim around in the tank, he is chasing everything around. Stereotypical Bad Damsel behavior.

So I was disgusted with this fish in the first hour of putting it into my tank.

The second day he was in the tank, he wasn't picking on any fish. But he was still ugly as can be. But my girlfriend fell in love with the fish. This surge damsel was super active. He was all over the tank, in and out of the rocks and the corals, from one side of the tank to the other. I kept saying I was going to get rid of him because he is just so ugly, and the girlfriend said no way.

But having the support of your significant other in this hobby is very important. Especially, when you go through a situation like this, and you know it's going to cost you a vacation or two to restock the tank.

So, as luck would have it the first trip to pick up some new fish for the tank, they have surge damsels. So I buttered the girlfriend up and got her two of them. And these actually kept their color for more than 15 minutes so far

Dave B

Always a good idea. I've always found mixing zebrasoma tangs not difficult but I think you're probably right about the acanthurids. I usually have at least one tang of each genus and then a bunch of zebrasomas and that's probably what I'll do again. I lost all my angels in my crash as well.

Thanks for the info on the surge damsel. I was afraid it would lose it's color once in the tank. Will be interested to see if the new ones keep their colors.

Thankfully the wife is generally on board with me not moping. Between college football season (Longhorn fan) and the tank wipeout, I think she'll pretty much allow anything within "reason" at this point.

Are you qting? What other fish are you adding?

[zotiri]

ATO disaster again.
my friend has overflow drain at pump section of sump
that connected to the kitchen's drain

[o2manyfish]

Roni,

I do not QT. I don't knock or discount it, but I don't do it. If you have questions for my reasons, feel free to PM me.

Once I know that the system is stable and the fish are flourishing then I will start adding fish as I find them. One of the first things I am going to do is order a bunch of pseudochromis from Sustainable Aquatics. I have seen their stock in the past few months and the quality is as good as wild.

I will also start working on rebuilding my Angel collection. Might take awhile to get what I had back, but searching for the fish is part of the enjoyment of the hobby.

Along the way I will grab any cute and unusual goby or blenny I come across.

The last things fish wise to be added to the tank will be Goldflake Angels, and Anthias.

Dave B

[ingtar_shinowa]

i bet its alot easier to find unusually blennies in CA