Just found your channel, but I can certainly understand. I left for a week and gave specific instructions to my wife on what and how much to feed, etc. Came back to 0.30 Phosphates lol. I had a pretty large Dino/Cyano breakout on my Red Sea Reefer XL 300 G2. I also bought Dinox, but I didn't use it. I cleaned all the rocks with a toothbrush and did 10 to 15 gallon water changes weekly, which is normal. I also have a Red Sea Reefmat 500 which made a huge difference in catching all the Dinos. I had to manually clean the rocks about 3 times over the course of 3 weeks or so. I also dosed about 200ml nightly of Brightwell Microbacter7. When dosing nightly, I would turn off my UV and Skimmer and then add the Microbacter7. I did this about 11pm and at around 10am the next morning, I would turn the UV and Skimmer back on. Did this religiously every night for 3 weeks or so. Dinos/Cyano are about 95% gone and leaving more and more. You cannot hurt your tank dosing Microbacter7. Essentially the bacteria eats away at the excess nutrients/algae at night, in the morning the skimmer pulls a lot of junk out of the water column and you repeat nightly. Microbacter7 was a tremendous help. Honestly, I didn't think it would do anything, but it certainly did. Someone mentioned Vibrant in the comments. There are horror stories about Vibrant, but I've used it very safely before and it absolutely works. It takes a while sometimes, but it works great. People can't follow instructions and Swart it kills their Coral. Well, if you release all the nutrients from the bad algae, that's how Vibrant works, and you don't do water changes and run your skimmer, then you have dead corals. Best of luck and just consider it a setback and learn from it. You had great success and you definitely know what you're doing. Don't let this ruin your confidence, it could have happened to anyone.
Appreciate your honesty and handling this with class and optimism. I had a similar thing happen, and my softies and LPS are coming back. My SPS were toast and I also lost a few fish. Hard road to have someone who isn’t the owner take the tank over for more than a week or so. Best of luck and will be watching your journey!
Sorry for your loss. I had Osteoporosis Dinos in my tank and beat it with running 100% royal blues. It took 4 months or so but steady reduction of Dinos worked for me. Just thought I would share if you travel again and have someone with limited knowledge babysitting the reef tank. Only Blues as a last result when Dino’s START to show and I believe it will get you by. Happy Reefing!
Dude gutted to see this. Got the same issue in my wb 110 about 3-4 months in. Luckily I was there to get a uv and get rid of at least the nasty type of Dino. Thanks for keeping it real and looking forward to how you move forward from here
I've been folllowing your tank for a very long time - you've had tonnes of success before, i have no doubt in my mindyou'll get the tank back on track. Good luck and looking forward to your rebuild! Now there's tonnes of opportunity to do any tweaks!
Dude Sorry to hear about your tank. The longest I was away was 1 month in France for work. I fret enough just going away for 1 week. Well if you ever want to come across the border to Rochester I'd offer you some goodies to restart.
Nice to see you're back. Definitely sadden to hear the tank isn't in such a good shape. I definitely understand the aspect of motivation and energy. What we keep in our home is an artificial reef. As with anything that is artificial and like our pets, it need people that know what it need to maintain it, keep it healthy and growing. Your time away from the tank may be the longest I have heard from anyone without using a professional aquarium service to maintain it. Even with that, nothing is guarantee. Good to hear all except one of your fish is around. I am sure they appreciate you're back :). I look forward to seeing this blossoming back up.
I’m so sorry Amro, it must have been very disheartening to come back to this. I can for sure identify with the lack of energy and motivation - I think it takes a while to process this type of event and formulate a plan of action. And there’s a component of grief that we go through because of our attachment to the living creatures. I look forward to seeing your comeback, when the time is right for you. 🌊
Well said and sums up my own experience and feelings I had several years ago with a total tank loss that I suffered. I was out of town for two weeks and my circuit tripped while I was gone. Came home to a 100% loss of all life in my 90 gallon reef. I’ve been in the hobby for over 30 years and it was so heartbreaking that it took me over a year before starting again. Give yourself some time to process this. Looking forward to seeing the recovery and hopefully a rebuild that exceeds what was lost.
Sorry to hear this, we all love the little world we handle in our house, so I really understand how you feel. I suffer everytime I am away for a while, and in fact there is always something happening, ready for me when back. These little worlds don't like us to be away, that's my learning. Just recently joined your channel, as I liked the contents, so I am looking forward to seeing your new videos, with renewed energy from new small successes, ready to come.
I'm sorry for your loss and Kenny😔 The tank cleaned up really well and all your fish are good. Just remove all those skeletons from your scape and let it run for a while with the fish so it matures slowly and pop in a Coral or 2 at a time. You will get your enthusiasm back faster than you think,and you have a clean slate to create. 🐟🐟
Thanks Niels. I share your bug of travel and I didn’t want my tank to take away from experiencing life and nature. We can probably have both but with a little bit more professional help next time! Also, I think I left the tank at the worst possible time - it was only 3 month old and we all know how hard the first year is
So sorry, what a shame. But as usual gives a chance to reset. Shows how much we need to stay on top of maintenance. There are some signs of life on some of the corals. The fish overall don’t look to bad. Did you do a servicing of the whole tank, filters, water change about a week or so before you left?
Thx for sharing I know that must have been a hard video to make. Hope you get back on the horse when it's time. Will be looking forward to seeing the next chapter
Thanks for sharing the update it sucks, but this can happen to any of us. I had cyinao and diatoms break out awhile back killed all of the torch corals. My in balance of nitrate and phosphates was out of whack. Lukcy corrected this by manual dosing and testing, and added clean up crew. I can't wait to see your reef bounce back and thriving.
Welcome back my friend! Sorry to hear about your tank.😢 I know it can be really hard to replace certain corals and fish, but I look forward to seeing the restoration.
I’ll try to match your enthusiasm when I say this but what a surprise ! As sad as it is , it is a lesson learned thank you for sharing the good and the bad so we can all learn. I agree with going slow this time cause I literally almost crashed my entire tank about a month ago only cause I was going to fast while doing a water change and failed to see some damaged cords
Kenny is dead? Oh my gosh. This tank disaster is the nightmare which each Reefer dreams when they stay away. Anyway, the fishes are living and even the clam survived. This is something 👍
Yeah, missing Kenny :( When i first returned, i was really worried about the fish... most were covered in some kinda of external infection... glad they made a swift recovery.... i could have been a lot worse if I lost all of my fish as well as all of my corals
Ouch.. it sends shivers over my spine seeing that....succes with the recovery proces.. Such a technical setup and still things went bad.. it shows that not everything can be automated, manual intervention and maintanance keeps crucial.. A good lesson for all us other reefers... Did you determined the reason yet? My guess? Could it be the lack off filter socks (i reccomend a fleeceroll filter) ?.. i followed your previous sump video, i saw beginning algea, my guess the problem was building allready at that time.
I think it was a combination of having a few immature system and an inexperienced person managing the tank. Starting up a new sps tank is tricky for the best Reefers! So Im hind sight… I should have waited to start this build once I got back from my trip
True.. i just ordered a new tank myself: Aqua Medic armatus xd500 with maxspect rs300 Light, delivery 9 december.. my first 500l marinetank.. can´t wait to get started....
I'm sorry Amro - I expected you would come back to a bad situation but not this bad. If anything it shows just how good you (we) are at looking after these ecosystems. It confirms to me it's not just about the basics but the care we put in and how we manage it if things start to decline. I'm sure it will be back relatively quickly. I'd get some Aquaforest Lifesource (not that I want to recommend AF) and some pods. I'm sure some bad bacteria or you lost diversity (so I wouldn't use bacteria in a bottle). Of course water changes and some clean up crew ;) Can't wait for the next video and its great (for us) you are back.
Thanks Sunny - yeah for sure… sps tanks are a delicate system that can’t be fully automated. I expected some losses as well… but now I get to start with 1” frags again :)
This is why I automate everything. I have three very hi-res cameras PTZ cameras. One on the display, sump and behind the tank. I have a large hydros collective and every additive I use on dosers (about 20). The only thing I'm missing is an automated tester. You have to plan for absolutely everything. The worst feeling in the world is knowing your tank is crashing and you can't be home for two weeks.
This is why I'm regrettably selling my tank. I'm taking a job that will be having me to travel for about 85% of my career and I just don't want the added stress. I have had my clowns for over 5 years and it gonna be sad but I'd rather have them go to a owner who will hopefully take care of them.
@@TheBioReef The money will be worth and I plan on only doing it for 3-5 years. Day 1 I'm making a Dream Tank savings so when I no longer have to travel I can get the setup of my dreams + coral and fish.
So sorry dude....that sucks. I really enjoy watching your builds so I look forward to seeing more. I'm considering redoing my rockwork and I.m going to take it REALLY slow! I wonder if you had an ammonia and nitrite spike? would explain the deal snails...Best of luck on the reboot!
Sorry to see this happen. I can barely trust anyone longer than a week with my tank unless it is reputable lfs but a trip to Hawaii for 3 months is hard to refuse. I encountered dinos once but it was very mild and ridiculous to get rid of before I found out the nutrient aspect of it. I will stay tuned for the come back.
Sorry to see these events. I've been in the hobby since 1993 and I can say with extreme confidence that my hobby success vastly improved once I started dosing bacteria on a weekly basis. It's been a couple years now since starting dosing and I've never had such extreme growth and health before. Many hobbyists don't believe dosing bacteria is necessary, I for one know it's beneficial for maintaining nutrients and feeding corals, especially SPS corals. JMTCW P.S. I feed heavy. 3-4 broadcast feedings of flake foods and 1 frozen food feeding daily.
Dayum. So sorry man, dinos suck so bad. I lost hundreds of snails to dinos, luckily didn’t have any corals in there at the time (tank was around a year old). Dry rock can really test our patience.
Crazy, the same thing happened to my tank which is the same 180 Waterbox this past month. Nutrients bottomed out and one by one all the acros died. Sorry to see this. You will rebound.
sorry to hear that Trevor! sucks to lose your sps collection. Lucky for me - i had backed most of my favs at my neighbour's tank, so will have a good source of frags when i am ready to restart
@@TheBioReef for sure. Lucky for me I still have most the frags I’m my Red Sea reefer 170. Decided to keep that tank as a frag tank and I’m glad I did. I had to replace a few frags that lost in the crash but I have most.
i think this could be a big chance for you. I bet many poeople in this hobby reach this at one point. You can use your situation now to start a series about how to revive it. Without simply buying everything new! Film every nasty step! I would love to see that happening.
You missed including a slither of good news which is before your tank took a turn for the worse. You fragged a backup of all your SPS, and they are doing well in my system for rebuild opportunity down the road. Let's see your tank cleaned up go for a 2nd round restart.
Thats terrible, horrible to see it. I had a large dino problem with my new tank, I found that adding lots of copepods helped with that problem. I found the BRS series on the tank biome very interesting and something we should treat as importantly as water chemistry IMO.
hahaha. I am not sure if it was my tank sitter's fault per say... he also had to do lots of other things around the house like take care of the cat, water the plants, keep our home safe, etc. he had very little reefing experience, and we did try to test and troubleshoot things together. I think the system was just was too immature to be left without an experience eye for a long period of time. So i only blame myself for this.
Thanks András! Its not a total loss - i had backed up most of my sps collection at my reefing buddy's tank... so should be able to re-stock my tank once i am ready to grow sps again
So Sorry to hear man! But I don’t understand how this can happen?..especially if you where able to communicate with tank sitter? (Who sux and owes you big time btw). Why didn’t he/she get in touch with LFS for emergency help when things weren’t getting better????
hahaha. I am not sure if it was my tank sitter's fault per say... he also had to do lots of other things around the house like take care of the cat, water the plants, keep our home safe, etc. he had very little reefing experience, and we did try to test and troubleshoot things together. I think the system was just was too immature to be left without an experience eye for a long period of time. So i only blame myself for this.
Sorry to see this man.. when ever i set up a tank regardless or coraine algae i just always like to wait about a year before i add any delicate sps.. it really does make a difference as all the ugly stages get dealt with usually within the first year or so
Thanks Tyrone. I am not sure if it was my tank sitter's fault per say... he also had to do lots of other things around the house like take care of the cat, water the plants, keep our home safe, etc. he had very little reefing experience, and we did try to test and troubleshoot things together. I think the system was just was too immature to be left without an experience eye for a long period of time. So i only blame myself for this.
hahaha. I am not sure if it was my tank sitter's fault per say... he also had to do lots of other things around the house like take care of the cat, water the plants, keep our home safe, etc. he had very little reefing experience, and we did try to test and troubleshoot things together. I think the system was just was too immature to be left without an experience eye for a long period of time. So i only blame myself for this.
You have a massive bacterial bloom due to very low nutrients. Bacteria had nothing else to feed on when p04 and N03 ate at 0 so they start feeding on trace elements in the tank. This cause a imbalance in bacteria. And cause a big spike. And end result is were you are at.
I'm very sory about your lost your old thank you was looking amazing what ı blue you will le create New and better one. Can ı have aquestion in the with you us there are some fish witch Has blue head like group fish what are their names thank you very much
Can’t understand why people invest so much into this hobby plus the wellbeing of the animals just to go on vacations for long periods of time. I have been in this hobby sense the 70’s so sad you seem like a nice person but please stay out of the hobby till you’re able to retire then you can invest 100% of the time it takes. Hope the best for you ✌️
thanks for watching. i like to enjoy both my tank as well as natural reefs; you can have both, although my last trip was really unusually long. i've had no issues keeping an sps tank while going away for several weeks at a time.
That really sucks man..... tank just needs a complete reset imo....save bio filter....pull rocks and power wash em all....pull dead colonies....and hire aquarium service tech vs a tank sitter next time you go away like that
