Better than ever after tank crash

Squamosa · Oct 25, 2017

Hi all
Its taken time but I finally have my tank back to being the best it could be after a wave maker pump took out all the power when we were away on holiday in December 2016.
As Murphy would have it the tank sitter had just left when the pump blew and by the time I could react it was just a soup of white bacteria!
Needless to say, I removed all the dead animals, did a water change, turned off the lights and walked away for December and January of 2017.
This is what the tank looked like in January and early February 2017 and I was deciding if I should pack it in.

Squamosa · Oct 25, 2017

I decided to restart at the end of February 2017 using frags I could get from fellow reefers at no cost, the sizes of the frags were not important, I was not one to refuse a generous donation, so I built my tank again mostly from frags or at least 90% of it is from frags.
I even managed to get a few pieces back that I lost, from a friend who had received frags from me in the past.
This is February 2017.

After going through a phase of GHA, diatoms, cyano, nutrient fluctuations and even dino's my frags stated growing and thriving.

Squamosa · Oct 25, 2017

I took in 'rescued' frags from tank shut downs, bargain bin brown corals from LFS's and so the system took shape.
By April it was on its way.

Squamosa · Oct 25, 2017

Besides dosing the basics I also dose trace-elements (trace-metals). My corals respond very well to this and growth and color picked up tremendously.
Nutrients are kept low but not ULNS, typically PO4 will range from 0.03-0.05 ppm and NO3 at 0.5-1.5 ppm.
Here are a few frags in April.