Jestersix

I think I'm over it...

Hello, fellow reefers! I just suffered my second disaster this year and I'm just thoroughly discouraged...

My tank was started by my father in 1989 and has been in my care since 2004. I kept it in my studio apartment in NYC and flew it by hand to San Francisco when I moved here in 2008...

I moved apartments this past February, and had my first disaster. I broke down the tank and by the time everything was ready to go back into the tank, the buckets of water had dropped to ~63F. Not a big deal. I dropped a heater into the tank and finally got to bed around 3am. The next morning, the thermometer still read 64F, so I threw more heat at it. All day long, the temp reading never reached above 64F so I kept throwing more heat at it. By about 6pm, I had close to 2,000W of heat in the water and the tank was so cloudy you couldn't see through it. I finally grabbed my meat thermometer and the tank read 98F!! It was at this point I realized the sensor that reads the temp wasn't in the water. Total facepalm. 100% user error... Long story short, everything died, all the fish and most of the coral.

Flash forward to November, everything rebounded hand the tank looked great. A bit of hair algae growing in a hard to reach spot, but nothing alarming. I flew to NYC for 12 days over Thanksgiving and by my calculations within 2 hours of leaving the house, we had a power outage that tripped my GFCI and when the power came back on, guess what didn't come back on? For 12 days...

All my fish are gone. All my corals are gone. Even the large finger leathers have turned to skeleton. The hair algae that was minor is now running wild....

What should I do? Rebuild? Sell it? Donate it to a children's hospital?

It is a 120 Glasscages tank, with their stand/canopy (42" tall) and a 60 gallon sump tank with a Bubble Magus skimmer. Apex system running the show...

#lesigh
 
Yeah. That’s rough. Sorry you had a streak of bad luck. I say restart. And I agree with above, get to know some of the SF guys on here so they can help out when you’re away.
 
Sorry to hear about the tank. As much as it always hurts to start back over, I say do it and now you can account for those errors and put things in place if failure was to happen again.
I'm also in SF and can help along if needed.
 
Get back on the horse before your equipment dries :) we’ll help!

Why do you think the Apex didn’t help over the Tgiving power outage?
 
I appreciate the advice and the offers of assistance, but I've decided that I'm tapping out.

I went to Nashville over the holidays and tank ran as it should, but all the clean up/prep work I put in before I left had zero effect. The hair algae grew out of control and nothing is showing any sign of regrowth. My mother and my brother support the decision to let go of this family heirloom and I am just super sad over the whole situation... When I first took on this tank a guy at my dad's fish store told me "the only thing that happens quickly in a reef tank is disaster".....so true...

Removing the emotions; how much should I ask for the set up?

I'm thinking about selling my Apex setup separately... I've got a bunch of bucks wrapped up in it...
 
walk away...
but, if you stay in the game, splurge the $30 membership
it will be your best investment and shows commitment
this is the most expensive hobby out there, next to scuba diving
it ain't cheap and death is guaranteed
if done right...it grows and is a beautiful thing
choice is yours

best fishes
happy reefing
 
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