Reboot Phase One consisted of deciding on and ordering the new tank. Once that was done, it was time to tear down the original system. Temporary holding tanks were set up to hold the livestock, and the chaos began. The painful reminder came a few days later that these things never go smoothly.
Rounding up friends to help move out my 400 pound aquarium isn’t always easy. Syncing up a time that the motley crew was all available took some back and forth communication. As the emails went around, I found myself waking up one morning to a bunch of replies saying, “Today would work!”. And so that same morning, I realized I only had a few hours to tear down my established reef aquarium!
Tear down wasn’t too bad and done just in time when my good friends arrived. All the corals and fish looked healthy in my 3 separate holding systems, and I celebrated with a few beverages. Fast forward a few days, and I came home from work to the smell of dead coral. I rushed downstairs and found one of the holding tanks running at 98 degrees.
The glass on the tank was warm to the touch. All of the corals inside were dead. Turns out, the heater for this temporary tank malfunctioned and was stuck ‘on’ with the thermostat set to 77 degrees. Some of the corals looked like they still had tissue, so I moved them to the other tanks. But plenty of them were completely bleached and didn’t recover.
The impact was devastating. Losses included some old but well known ‘purple monster’, ‘pink lemonade’, ‘ice and fire’ and other desirable Acropora. There was a huge sense of loss. I began to regret the whole ‘reboot’. Fortunately, none of my fish were in the ‘cooked’ tank, so there was something to be thankful about.
Meanwhile, the new tank and stand are taking a few weeks to arrive. This is a good thing. It has allowed me to do much needed prep work. I also decided to paint the wall behind the tank with a crazy accent color. The room is a sunroom off the kitchen, and it needed a little more flavor. It also gave me the time assimilate the plumbing pieces and new equipment. Here’s hoping the everything arrives on track, as we have a new baby arriving in a few weeks!
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