Hello, all. It has been a long long time since I've visited these pages....
When I took over my dad's tank in 2004, the fish store he used in New Jersey told me that "the only thing that happens quickly, is disaster.". How true that is. I've been the aquarist of this tank ever since, and I've heeded that advice for many years. And now, I've seen it come to fruition.
I recently moved from Pac Heights to Silver Terrace, and in that relocation came my 120 reef.
I had it planned to a "T". I started at 10am and by 5:45pm I had a beer in hand waiting for the cavalry to arrive to help me move. They all arrived right on time (some early!) and we were packed out in 1 hour 20 and unloaded, excluding drive time, in forty-five minutes. I was feeling great!
I got the rock scaped, got corals in, then got the fish in around 3:30am. I dropped my titanium heater in and went to bed.
In the time everything came out of the tank and was moved to the new home, the temps dropped to about 62 degrees. I awoke to the thermostat reading 74 degrees so I threw 200 watts of heater at it. A couple hours later, it still read 74 degrees. I threw 500 more watts of heat at it. At 5:30pm, it still read 74 and was so cloudy, I couldn't see the overflow. I pulled my meat thermometer out and it read 96 degrees.
I panicked. I did about 15 gallons of quick cold water changes every 20 minutes and kept my fingers crossed. In the end, I went to far and the temps dropped back down to 72. Everything died. All my fish and 95+% of my corals.
I am now three weeks later and have had a strong clean up crew in the tank working for the last two weeks and I'm ready to get some fish!! I am thinking an Engineer Goby, a Jawbone Blenny of some sort, a handful of Damsels and potentially a couple of Blue/Green Chromis to start.
But where to buy them locally?!? I want to buy as much that is tank raised as I can.
Where have y'all been shopping, and what has your experience been? It has been 8+ years since I've had to purchase any livestock, which makes this all the more heartbreaking.....
When I took over my dad's tank in 2004, the fish store he used in New Jersey told me that "the only thing that happens quickly, is disaster.". How true that is. I've been the aquarist of this tank ever since, and I've heeded that advice for many years. And now, I've seen it come to fruition.
I recently moved from Pac Heights to Silver Terrace, and in that relocation came my 120 reef.
I had it planned to a "T". I started at 10am and by 5:45pm I had a beer in hand waiting for the cavalry to arrive to help me move. They all arrived right on time (some early!) and we were packed out in 1 hour 20 and unloaded, excluding drive time, in forty-five minutes. I was feeling great!
I got the rock scaped, got corals in, then got the fish in around 3:30am. I dropped my titanium heater in and went to bed.
In the time everything came out of the tank and was moved to the new home, the temps dropped to about 62 degrees. I awoke to the thermostat reading 74 degrees so I threw 200 watts of heater at it. A couple hours later, it still read 74 degrees. I threw 500 more watts of heat at it. At 5:30pm, it still read 74 and was so cloudy, I couldn't see the overflow. I pulled my meat thermometer out and it read 96 degrees.
I panicked. I did about 15 gallons of quick cold water changes every 20 minutes and kept my fingers crossed. In the end, I went to far and the temps dropped back down to 72. Everything died. All my fish and 95+% of my corals.
I am now three weeks later and have had a strong clean up crew in the tank working for the last two weeks and I'm ready to get some fish!! I am thinking an Engineer Goby, a Jawbone Blenny of some sort, a handful of Damsels and potentially a couple of Blue/Green Chromis to start.
But where to buy them locally?!? I want to buy as much that is tank raised as I can.
Where have y'all been shopping, and what has your experience been? It has been 8+ years since I've had to purchase any livestock, which makes this all the more heartbreaking.....