Hello my fellow Reefer's. I hope all is well. Myself, after going on my 3rd day after a severe tank crash I find myself still feeling sick and depressed. I have been in the hobby about 26 years and my latest reef tank I have had running for about 21 years. Nothing special but a 40 breeder that was a fully wall to wall stocked beautiful mixed reef tank. I come from the old school world of saltwater and been using older out dated equipment from back when I started. It all still worked and my reef was my daily motivation as it always offered that beauty and just peace of mind to sit and watch it. I went as far to have a camera on it so I can look at the tank throughout the day on my phone just to make sure all is well. Friday while at work, I finished my lunch and did the usually camera checkup on my phone. Right away I knew something was wrong. The water looked cloudy white and the corals instead of being out and flourishing were hard to see being all shrunk down in their skeletons and shriveled up. I just told the boss I got to go and went home. Walking into the house I about got sick. Everything was pretty much dead and the few things that were hanging on looked terrible. At 1st I though it was a small frag rack I just bought off Amazon that I put in the day before as it requires glue to hold the weighted bottom onto the top holder. The glue is reef safe and had me thinking about the recent dosing I been doing. I have had a good amount of calcium consumption and using the ESV Bionic I was struggling a bit to keep up with the daily usage of late and increased the dose the past week. Getting frustrated and not wanting to over do it on the ESV dosage I decided to add Kalk at night. This is where I apparently screwed up (going to fast with adding to much) as on night 2 of adding it brought me to the tank crash. I used to think I had a pretty good knowledge of this stuff and always stayed away from dosing and all that. Yet so much is talked about it I started following suit. And now here I am. Of course doing that you need to test your water and often. I got into the mode of doing it once a week thinking I was understanding my consumption but apparently I didn't. I was able to save an elegance and a set of palys that I put in a Small Fluval EVO 13.5 tank I had laying around. All the zoa's I put in there also but have yet to open up. The SPS for sure all died as they were bleach white and I tossed. I still have the tank to take down but I cant even look at it. A few people just told me to start over but I just cant do it. I'm fine with the Fluval EVO and keeping the couple corals that pulled through. I hoping over the course of the days the zoa's may come to life. Anyways, I needed to share my story. Its's a humbling thing to happen. Just when you think you somewhat know what your doing you find you don't. I should have just stuck with the routine water changes I would do that got me many years of success.
Happy Reefing.
Happy Reefing.