Well... to say that the past two weeks were rough for my tank would be an understatement. I fragged my Hawkins and I don't know if it was too stressed from the cuts or if I had it out of the water for too long, but the whole colony RTNd. I now have a ghost white skeleton in place of the 7" colony that once stood in the center of my tank. Two years of growth down the toilet, but at least I was able to salvage a 1.5" frag. It'll be a long road to get back to where it once was, but I'm up to the challenge. To top that off, I came home from work this morning to find my water alarm screeching and a flood inside my stand. I have waterbugs wired to a Breakout Box on my Apex, but they don't do much good when you're in Washington, CT.... a place where not a single cell provider gets one bar. I mopped up the water (thank God I sealed the stand with silicone!!) and spent the better part of three hours trying to find the leak. I searched all the common areas... no leaks at the bulkheads or fittings, and all reactor hoses were dry. Then I finally saw it. The moded TLF 550 I'm using as a EcoBak reactor somehow managed to get a pinhole in the bottom, creating a nice stream of water. Not sure how this happened, as it's in a spot that nothing could have banged against it, but that's a whole other mystery. The pellets were rinsed and thrown into a spare TLF 150 I had laying around, so at least they're back online. And the saddest news of all... I lost my mandarin two weeks ago that I've had for almost 7 years. It was the most personable mandarin goby I've ever had, routinely "dancing" in front of the glass to show off his beauty. Now the hunt is on for another healthy looking male mandarin...
