I have become one hard luck story after another on my build threads. So this is yet another restart of this tank. In May of this year (2021) our neighborhood was flooded by a freak thunderstorm that dumped 16 inches of rain on us in only 6 hours. A lot of the city's drainage is still clogged with Hurricane Laura and Delta debris from last year. That certainly did not help. So anyway, all of the houses in our neighborhood flooded around May 17th.
We had about 6" of water throughout the house and we ended up gutting most of the house four feet up from the floor and replacing all of the flooring. We had to cut our power off temporarily and this tank was on battery air pump life support once again. I was not as lucky this time. Once the sheetrock was removed, the dry-out process with heaters and dehumidifiers going got the house up close to 100 degrees and a mildewcide was sprayed throughout the house. That was the end of the hurricane survivors in the tank - except for the snails.
I had to move the tank outside while all of the repairs were going on and it sat on my carport through a Louisiana summer where we were often in the high 90s. Still, the snails survived, and apparently some Bryopsis that was starting to grow when the flood occurred. Fluconazole is on the way. But with the tank running all summer I was able to keep the bacteria in the tank going and have a modest clean-up crew that has been through hell. Oh, and a small ball of Chaeto that stayed alive despite no refugium light.
Anyway, to cut to the chase, I have now brought the tank back inside, cleaned it up once again, and have it running. Starting to add corals now and keeping my eye peeled for some good nano fish at PetCo - our only LFS. Fingers crossed that nothing else happens and I can get this tank to start thriving again and then restart my 125 again also.
Today I took apart the OceansMotions Squirt Compact and tried to get it working again. This thing is ancient but worked pretty well for a while. Once I got it apart I found that the magnets in the drum had badly corroded and it was beyond repair. You can't really get parts for it anymore, so I removed the drum and motor and it is now just a 4-way junction. Sure wish I had not thrown away the one that I broke years ago. I could have used the parts to fix this one. I rarely throw stuff away because you never know when it can be repurposed or cannibalized for parts. Oh well.
I will keep this zombie thread updated from now on - good or bad. Thanks for reading my ramble.
We had about 6" of water throughout the house and we ended up gutting most of the house four feet up from the floor and replacing all of the flooring. We had to cut our power off temporarily and this tank was on battery air pump life support once again. I was not as lucky this time. Once the sheetrock was removed, the dry-out process with heaters and dehumidifiers going got the house up close to 100 degrees and a mildewcide was sprayed throughout the house. That was the end of the hurricane survivors in the tank - except for the snails.
I had to move the tank outside while all of the repairs were going on and it sat on my carport through a Louisiana summer where we were often in the high 90s. Still, the snails survived, and apparently some Bryopsis that was starting to grow when the flood occurred. Fluconazole is on the way. But with the tank running all summer I was able to keep the bacteria in the tank going and have a modest clean-up crew that has been through hell. Oh, and a small ball of Chaeto that stayed alive despite no refugium light.
Anyway, to cut to the chase, I have now brought the tank back inside, cleaned it up once again, and have it running. Starting to add corals now and keeping my eye peeled for some good nano fish at PetCo - our only LFS. Fingers crossed that nothing else happens and I can get this tank to start thriving again and then restart my 125 again also.
Today I took apart the OceansMotions Squirt Compact and tried to get it working again. This thing is ancient but worked pretty well for a while. Once I got it apart I found that the magnets in the drum had badly corroded and it was beyond repair. You can't really get parts for it anymore, so I removed the drum and motor and it is now just a 4-way junction. Sure wish I had not thrown away the one that I broke years ago. I could have used the parts to fix this one. I rarely throw stuff away because you never know when it can be repurposed or cannibalized for parts. Oh well.
I will keep this zombie thread updated from now on - good or bad. Thanks for reading my ramble.