Rebooting the Reboot – A Long Overdue Update
Hey Reef2Reef fam,
It’s been a long time since I updated my build thread, and I wish I were coming back with better news. Back in March 2023, my reef — my pride and joy — was devastated by a Category 4 typhoon. I lost virtually everything.
I never imagined how deeply this would affect me. The tank wasn’t just glass and water — it was years of blood, sweat, tears, love, and care. Watching the lives I was responsible for suffer and die broke me in ways I’m still trying to understand. I haven’t fully recovered, and honestly, I don’t think I ever will.
I thought I was prepared. I had a 10Kw backup generator, battery backups for my MP40s, and UPS systems for critical components. But here’s the hard lesson:
don’t trust your batteries blindly. Both MP40 battery backups lasted, I’m guessing, only a few hours. If you have a high bioload, your backups might not be enough. And the generator? It’s only useful if you can start it. The storm stalled over us for more than 24 hours, and I couldn’t get outside while the storm was still churning to get the generator running, and when I finally did, it was too late.
When I was finally able to get on to generator power, I flipped the breakers and saw the heartbreaking scene — most of my fish were struggling or already gone. My MP40s weren’t circulating. I tried everything — holding fish in front of the flow, increasing surface agitation — but I watched my powder brown take his last breath in my hands.
Over the next week or so, the few survivors perished despite my best efforts. Corals bleached, RTN’d, or just faded away. It was a slow-motion horror show. I was also dealing with the damage of our home, yard, neighborhood, and island. After losing my last SPS, I gave up. Literally. For 30 months, I did nothing but feed the remaining fish and make sure the ATO was working. No skimmer, no DI filter maintenance, no water changes, absolutely nothing. Just survival mode.
What’s left at this point? Two Skunk clowns, two green BTAs, a group of green fuzzy shrooms, a blue damsel that is to mean to die, and a black fish that I still only see once a month or so that came in on the live rock, and I have no idea what it is. The tank became a shadow of its former self — a painful eyesore.
So why now? Why restart?
Not because my wife’s been (rightfully) complaining about the tank for two years. The real push came when the power went out again recently. When it came back, the return pump didn’t. And my Tunze Osmolator was misreading the sump level. Huge thanks to
@rvitko for helping me get the ball rolling to get that unit repaired.
While troubleshooting the return pump, I cracked a union in the return line. That led to rebuilding part of the plumbing and discovering the Reef Octopus VarioS 6 controller had failed. I’m now trying to get in touch with Reef Octopus for a replacement. I’ve temporarily hooked up an old controller that doesn’t respond to Apex commands, but it’s keeping things running.
Encouragement from a friend (
@Jaag , thanks, brother) who’s also thinking of restarting his tank helped me make the decision: it’s time to clean up the wreckage and see what can be salvaged.
Here’s what I’ve done so far:
- Removed and cleaned: refugium, skimmer, calcium reactor, bio-pellet reactor (now converted to GFO), Purigen media bags, Trident, and some wavemakers.
- Skimmer is running again.
- Purigen regenerated and back in place.
- All operable wavemakers are online; I need a new Jebao PP20 to get Apex programming going.
- One MP40 is working.
- Filter socks cleaned and in rotation.
- Salt is up to 31ppt (from 30), alk at 10.3, phosphates at 65ppb.
- No water changes in over two years — planning several 40% changes over a couple of weeks once salinity stabilizes.
I’ll be updating this thread with progress photos and asking lots of questions — I’ve been out of the hobby for over two years, and I know there are new tools and techniques out there that might help with this resurrection.
Please go easy on me. This has been a long, painful journey, and I’m just now finding the strength to start again.
Thanks for reading — and for being part of a community that understands what this hobby means to us.
