cstewart79
Supporting Member
I have throughly reviewed my tank and what happened and while I can not draw an exact scientific cause, I pretty much know what happened to my tank. I am pretty sure that the loss of my skimmer in addition to a low alkalinity caused retention of CO2 and low pH and a total sps kill off. While that was a supplementary cause, the basic cause was my own hubris in my reef keeping skill. I believed my own hype that I could keep anything and did not need to follow basic reef keeping maintenance. I am disappointed in myself and ashamed of the loss of my corals. A new job, massive responsibilities and a busy family life made basic maintenance difficult but not impossible. I made bad choices which resulted in obvious bad outcomes. I still have a lot of my lps corals and my fish so I have recommitted to keeping my tank the way my animals deserve. This is my current plan.
Today I did a 30 gallon water change and will do one twice a week until my skimmer returns. I ordered the part from my skimmer but it will take 3 weeks to get here from England. Today I pulled algae out and dead corals for a basic tank clean up. I moved a lot of rock and found my return drain for my closed loop. My closed loop was totally pinched off by dead snails and monticap skeleton. After cleaning it, the pump opened back up and flow returned to my tank. This made a massive difference in flow. I removed my canopy and am going to sell the lights. I bought a 12 bulb t-5 array from 3cc. I dosed my first dose of prodibio and am looking at at adding a np pellet reactor or a vertex reactor.
I am going to wait on adding phosphate resin until my skimmer returns. I am going to change out my sump and fuge to a deeper model allowing more water. REmoving the old sump combo is gonna stink. I have tons to do, to get my tank back to TOTM status but in time I am confident I will do it.
Today I did a 30 gallon water change and will do one twice a week until my skimmer returns. I ordered the part from my skimmer but it will take 3 weeks to get here from England. Today I pulled algae out and dead corals for a basic tank clean up. I moved a lot of rock and found my return drain for my closed loop. My closed loop was totally pinched off by dead snails and monticap skeleton. After cleaning it, the pump opened back up and flow returned to my tank. This made a massive difference in flow. I removed my canopy and am going to sell the lights. I bought a 12 bulb t-5 array from 3cc. I dosed my first dose of prodibio and am looking at at adding a np pellet reactor or a vertex reactor.
I am going to wait on adding phosphate resin until my skimmer returns. I am going to change out my sump and fuge to a deeper model allowing more water. REmoving the old sump combo is gonna stink. I have tons to do, to get my tank back to TOTM status but in time I am confident I will do it.
