Issues with keeping livestock in a temporary holding tank

[Alexander1312]

I am not a subscriber (or fan), but I have watched him in beginning when I started out.

I think there are always a lot of learnings from big negative events, curious what you think led to the heavy livestock losses he encountered?

The fact that he did not use a skimmer and/or carbon when keeping livestock in a temporary bin seems plausible, but not sure if this a valid reason for what happended?

 

[PjFish]

Sucks! I’ve watched his channel in the past
Hard to say or even guess since he didn’t acknowledge what he had running on the temp setup nor any water test results? Pics would have been nice. Lack of oxygen, ammonia spike, salt mixing issue, contamination who knows..Hope he kept a water sample for an Icp test

 

[Kensington Reefer]

Death is guaranteed
Sad

 

[Alexander1312]

From Chris’ journal, it looks to me that the holding bin practice in general is a very risky endeavor.

I wonder if the holding bin itself needs to be cycled first if used for more than a few days.

Also, using a skimmer, UV, and carbon all together might help keeping short term issues at bay.

Strong alkalinity flucations as Chris mentioned seemed to have stressed corals - I think the Meckley PH method ignores alkalinity fluctations. Yet, low nutrients and high alkalinity should stress acros, but not sure if this is a likely scenario in a holding tank.

Lastly, I wonder if adding sand (then cycle), improves the odds - potentially even investing money in live sand - cheaper than losing live stock later.

 

[Turkeysammich]

I’m gonna say it was a domino effect. Too much live stock in an unstable environment. One thing died and it set off a chain reaction. No skimmer didn’t help his situation. Once it started it almost impossible to stop.