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Jepoy's 45 gallon beginner reef tank

Coral reefer said:
I assume all fish to be possible jumpers. Any tank without a lid is somewhat irresponsible imo.
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Anglers don't jump. They're kind of like the white men of the ocean.

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Well, everyone said tank crashes are inevitable.. just didn’t think mine would come so soon. I came home from a two week vacation this evening to find all my fish except for one clownfish dead (and the one clownfish does not look all that good). Half of the corals are gone as well.

What was the culprit? A failed ATO. Which is funny because I’ve had the same ATO from the start and it’s never failed once. Before leaving for vacation I cleaned all the tubes, the skimmer, and the ATO of build ups.. and the ATO still fails. So when I got home my return pump was above the water line and spewing bubbles into the main tank and the salinity was off the charts.

I’m really bummed out. Half of me wants to take a very long brake from the hobby and the other half is telling me to use this as an opportunity to upgrade the tank.

That said, all of me is jet lagging and posting at 3:30am in the morning when he needs to go to work at 6am.

I just needed to vent. Thanks for listening guys.


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jepoy said:
Well, everyone said tank crashes are inevitable.. just didn’t think mine would come so soon. I came home from a two week vacation this evening to find all my fish except for one clownfish dead (and the one clownfish does not look all that good). Half of the corals are gone as well.

What was the culprit? A failed ATO. Which is funny because I’ve had the same ATO from the start and it’s never failed once. Before leaving for vacation I cleaned all the tubes, the skimmer, and the ATO of build ups.. and the ATO still fails. So when I got home my return pump was above the water line and spewing bubbles into the main tank and the salinity was off the charts.

I’m really bummed out. Half of me wants to take a very long brake from the hobby and the other half is telling me to use this as an opportunity to upgrade the tank.

That said, all of me is jet lagging and posting at 3:30am in the morning when he needs to go to work at 6am.

I just needed to vent. Thanks for listening guys.


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Sorry to hear! :(


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Yeah that’s terrible. I would be devastated too.

As I’ve gotten deeper into this hobby I’ve realized what an investment it is, in terms of time, money, space, mental attention, life sacrifices, etc. The more you want to have safeguards and redundancy, the more this hobby will gobble up (qt tank, apex, streaming cameras, redundancies, spare replacement equipment, emergency backup systems). It can be never ending process.




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I've had to do that before. Owner had a tank up with video of the tank the entire time that they were out of the country. Sitter was the next door neighbor and they had to call in for backup. The primary return pump had gone out. Pretty simple return pump replacement.
 
Thank you all for the support. I had a friend check in on my tank halfway into my vacation but he’s not a reefer and I don’t know he would’ve known any better if the ATO had already failed when he came to check. Next time I will ask another hobbyist or hire someone to check in on my tank.

Now comes the part I’ve been dreading the last couple of days.. time to go into the tank and clean up.

Aside from fixing the salinity level and ATO.. I haven’t been able to look at the tank too much let alone work on it. I haven’t seen any of the dead fishes on the front of the tank, I’m guessing they’re all either behind the rockwork or been eaten by the crabs. I am so not looking forward to finding them today.

To make things worse, the tank is overgrown with GHA, bubble algae, and those pesky little filter feeder things.

This is going to suck.

One good news tho, the lone surviving fish, one of my clowns.. is looking much better. Really saddens me that she’s alone now.. almost looks like she’s swimming around looking for her partner. [emoji22]


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Hello Bareefers! I'm back! I hope. Good news is we had our very first baby November 25 last year. Bad news is I've totally neglected my other baby (my tank) since then. I've seen other reefers go on "baby breaks" from the hobby and I've always thought "how hard can it be to maintain your tank while taking care of a baby?" Well boy I definitely know now! I've pretty much left my tank an auto pilot with very little cleaning and one water change in the past 5 months. It got so bad that my glass was covered in algae and I had no idea what was still alive in there until I finally had a chance to do some cleaning this weekend. Unfortunately I lost most of my corals (not that I had many in the first place) and looks like I lost all my shrimps and snails as well. Good news is that all my livestock survived, although i can't seem to find my watchman goby which I'm hoping was hiding while i was cleaning. Oh and by the way, I'm glad to report that even 5 months of neglect won't get rid of red slime!

Anyhow, I still have a long ways before getting my tank back in tip top shape. I'm thinking of getting back into the hobby very very slowly.. maybe do mostly fish and easy corals. We'll see.. I still don't know how much time i can devote to the hobby with the baby. I'm taking pointers from all the daddies out there!

Lastly, I hope everyone is well.. I've missed you guys!
 
Welcome back!
Yes, big life events can really get in the way of hobbies.

All up to you, but quite a few people start a "Rev 2" or "reboot" type new tank thread.
A way to signify a clean start.

Young kids still take a ton of time, so agree to keep it simple.
I think it was not until around 6 or so where I started to get my life back.
Mostly because kids start doing things you want to do, instead of just baby/toddler things.
 
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