How sad do you get about your aquarium?

Thle009 · Sep 24, 2016

I lost over $1K of corals once due to heater overheating. Since then I paid for an Apex controller to monitor the temp and so much more.

ngvu1 · Sep 24, 2016

That's not a reef! :-)

Paul B said:
So you can't put goldfish in a reef?

Alfrareef · Sep 24, 2016

Worst thing... ?

About 1 year ago, In 2 weeks time out of 15 fish I've lost 14.
It started with the pseudo anthias and the last to died was a mandarin that was playing and eating quiet well the day before it died. The only fish to survive was a yellow tang that's still with me.

All water parameters were ok and no fish had signs of illness.
From discussing with my reef mates we believe it was brokifuckinella but will never know. The rest of tank habitants were ok.

Frop · Sep 24, 2016

revhtree said:

I couldn't help but laugh when I saw that picture.. Kind of had to wipe my screen down (say it don't spray it! ;). Anyways so far the sad part is when everything is covered in what looks like diatoms.

Bob Escher · Sep 24, 2016

Now. In the last week I have lost 4 fish. Three over last weekend and one on Wed, no signs of ICH or Brooklyn or anything posted pics on here and a movie and we don't know why. Medicating tank now and I'm away for two days, Hope everything is fine when we get home. Lost one of our two first fishes which was a clown and had a partner. the partner is the one I'm worrying about now. Sat in the recliner looking at the tank for three hours on Friday debating and decided I'm going to keep trucking

LandenB · Sep 24, 2016

I was so unspeakably sad looking at an empty aquarium 2.5 months ago... so now my tank is young and full of coral... I pray the good do not die young in this case and am not deathly sad later!

jasonrusso · Sep 24, 2016

After reading through this thread, I'm glad I'm not the only "lunatic" that gets emotionally involved with my fish. I do buy snails and ghost shrimp that I know will get eaten (but that's the food chain), but I always feel terrible when a fish dies. Only people with aquariums understand.

madweazl · Sep 24, 2016

This week I received a Randall's goby from Live Aquaria that I thought was dead. The water was quite cold (shipped with an ice pack and no packing peanuts so they were right up against one another). Goby was completely motionless and I literally just about teared up. After about 30 seconds of inspecting what I thought was a corpse, I noticed one pectoral fin slightly wave. About 15 seconds after that it took a huge gasp. I started floating it right away to bring it back up to temp and started the acclimation process there after. As I added water to the bag, the fish would just float around (upside down, motionless). I moved the goby down to the sump so it wouldnt be disturbed and observed it for the next 10 hours. It would literally take a breath every 30-45 seconds (no other gill movement). I figured it was a goner for sure but by about 8pm it was starting to be more responsive. The sump lights would be on all night so I decided to move it to the display in the hopes it could get some rest. The next morning I saw the goby (paired up with an existing tiger pistol). Breathing was still erratic (better) but it was alive. Fast forward to today (goby was received on Wednesday) and the goby is eating like a champ and appears to have fully recovered from the incident. This is a true testament to just how hardy these little guys are! To say I'm relieved is an understatement; I take it so personal when something is lost. You can see his reflection in the back left (taken a couple hours ago).

bif24701 · Sep 24, 2016

I had a green mandarin for several months, my favorite fish. I would only see him once a week. Fat and happy. When I moved in Aug I made special care for him so not to lose him getting rocks out or squishing him. Everything went well and he was good, got the tank up and he was happy and fat. Two weeks after the tank was set back up I found him in my MP60, well half of him. His entire lower half had been cut off and the rest of him look fine, eyes still open. He was just stuck there. It crushed me.

I had a beautiful powder blue in QT that died when my air pump stopped working. I assume O2 levels dropped because the rest of the fish where gasping and he looked fine but caught in a power filter intake. That sucked! The power cord got pulled out just enough to stop it from getting juice somehow.

Had a really nice clown jump out about 6 months ago, found him dryer up behind my stand when we moved. Must have jumped doing maintenance because I have tight fitting screens.

bif24701 · Sep 24, 2016

When I first got my system set up my son picked one of the first fish, scissor tail goby (dart fish). My son loves it, looked for him everyday, showed all his friends his cool fish and his cave he made. Even researched and learned all he could about the guy. One day wife found him on the carpet, picked him up and walked over to the trashed and just before dropping him in a tail flick. Quickly put him in the tank and he darted away into the rocks. Didn't seem him for weeks until one day my son spotted him and from that day forward the fish comes out everyday about the same time my son comes home from school.

Orders screens the day after.

jasonrusso · Sep 24, 2016

bif24701 said:
When I first got my system set up my son picked one of the first fish, scissor tail goby (dart fish). My son loves it, looked for him everyday, showed all his friends his cool fish and his cave he made. Even researched and learned all he could about the guy. One day wife found him on the carpet, picked him up and walked over to the trashed and just before dropping him in a tail flick. Quickly put him in the tank and he darted away into the rocks. Didn't seem him for weeks until one day my son spotted him and from that day forward the fish comes out everyday about the same time my son comes home from school.

Orders screens the day after.

I found my diamond goby in my overflow 2 times and my filter sock once. Weird fish.

brotherd · Sep 24, 2016

I'm sad that I lost. All of it except for a few fish. Thinking of starting over but don't know if I have it in me.

Keepswiming · Sep 25, 2016

Purchased a "qted hippo" a couple weeks ago. Long story short, it brought velvet into my display and took down my flame trio, blue star leopard pair, leopard pair, and Achilles tang. All were with me for about or over a year. Just got done with a 80 day fallow and treating all the fish prophylacticly! Sadness is not a strong enough word for what happened to me this month... :(

bif24701 · Sep 26, 2016

Keepswiming said:
Purchased a "qted hippo" a couple weeks ago. Long story short, it brought velvet into my display and took down my flame trio, blue star leopard pair, leopard pair, and Achilles tang. All were with me for about or over a year. Just got done with a 80 day fallow and treating all the fish prophylacticly! Sadness is not a strong enough word for what happened to me this month... :(

Dude. That really sucks!!! Was it from a friend or someone you knew? That's the worst.

Keepswiming · Sep 26, 2016

bif24701 said:
Dude. That really sucks!!! Was it from a friend or someone you knew? That's the worst.

Just a guy on my local forum. It was my fault for not qting it anyways. I just didn't have one setup at the time. Lesson learned

themcnertney · Sep 26, 2016

Ive lost quite a few types of livestock over the years being fish, coral, inverts etc. But this definitely was the hardest for me...when switch to LED's from MH's, I had bleached all my monti plates. I had them for quite a few years. Was hard for me...

Alfrareef · Sep 26, 2016

Dan McNertney said:
Ive lost quite a few types of livestock over the years being fish, coral, inverts etc. But this definitely was the hardest for me...when switch to LED's from MH's, I had bleached all my monti plates. I had them for quite a few years. Was hard for me...

Man.... that hurts!! Just looking at pictures...

Ryan Hunter · Sep 26, 2016

Thle009 said:
Have you consider stocking lettuce slug? I heard they are good for that.

I have along with numerous types of snails, gallons of Kent Tech M and peroxide.

JLynn · Sep 26, 2016

I get sad when I lose a fish or shrimp or snail. But the most upset I've ever been was when I did a water change and misjudged the temperature difference between what it was before and what it was with the fresh water, and then got impatient because I had a class I had to get to and just plopped my betta back in the tank without acclimating him to the new temperature (the difference felt negligible to me, but for a fish...). He went into temperature shock and very nearly died of it. I felt so horrible and miserable; I couldn't even bear to look at him, I was so upset.

kennedpa · Sep 26, 2016

First year reefing,

120 gallon and 90 gallon plumbed together through the first floor into the basement with a 90 gallon fuge/additional space for live stock. 40 gallon long on separate system. Went to move, power was shut off before we were out, and everything died except for two clowns, my favorite fish, that eventually perished at the new place from stress.

They were running for just over a year, and I'm not even going to mention the number of fish, corals, nems, or anything inside that died because I'll have to go back to a therapist :(

As someone mentioned earlier regarding experience and life lessons in reefing. 8 months later ..... a jam-packed (120/130+ frags) 40 long with a GEO610 Ca reactor/?name? kalk reactor to keep up with growth demands that has gone off without a hitch (excluding two sick corals :/ )while we setup for the 120 again with a sump room containing 3 40 breeders for growout. Life is good when it's good, but when it sucks in reefing, it really $@^&*#! sucks.

Thanks for sharing everyone in R2R! At least reefers aren't afraid to admit they're Human.