I seldom see description of failures.
Perhaps there is a lesson to learn?
I had a complete tank failure and couldn't recover from it. And stopped the hobby .. for 6 months.
Now to My BioCube32 demise.
The biocube was doing well for nearly 4 years.
Inhabitants at the end:
4 clowns (2 red, 2 black), 2 cardinals, neon gobi, Cleaner shrimp, yellow watchmen gobi with his friend the pistol shrimp, who redesigned my sand bottom every few weeks, several emerald crabs, nassarius, duster. some mushrooms and a gigantic toadstool grown from a little finger size to be a 14 inch big plate taking over the tank. Big enough for two clowns to host it.
Water values are good. Battling low kh and low ph with additives. Never seemed to get it right but it had no effect on anything so i stopped adding chemicals.
When i bought the BioCube i had read that the PAR values from the stock lights are low and that made me Steve's LED Upgrade but never installed it. Ran with the stock lights. The stock lights are fine for softies and LPS. Never had a problem except when i put SPS in the tank.
Sequence of downhill events...
I was plagued for months with real hard string algae. Looked like a perfect carpet. High density, hard and easy to harvest, was actually quite decorative. It covered everything not inhabited.
Illness forced me to reduce my bi-weekly 15% water changes to once every 6 -8 weeks for several months. looked like the tank could tolerate it. Values went up a little but still "safe"
I recovered and decided to do a big cleanup.
- 60% water change and using brush scrubbing the rock free of string algae.
- Finally changed the factory LED lights to Steve's Turbo LEDs. Followed instructions and started with low light.
My Toadstool didn't like this change but everything else didn't seem to mind. I started playing with the light intensity and the daily cycle changed too.
- The string algae came back after the water change seemingly overnight with a vengeance.
Thats when everything escalated .....
First the toadstool started to wither. Shrinking From 14" and nearly reaching the top of the DT to about a 3 inch small finger sized asparagus.
Fish started going missing overnight.
The neon, the cardinals and the cleaner shrimp just "vanished" all the same night. Th next night the watchman was gone.
My clowns where hiding behind in the back and even food didn't get them out. The mystery for me is where did the fish go?
My tank values where over the moon.
Decided to do another water large change to lower the values.
Literally the next day. All dead. Fish, all snails, corals. But not the emerald crabsa nd the pistol shrimp.
Whatever was left from the corals looked like old wither salad.
The clowns where on the ground dead.
Still no sign of any other corpses.
So basically the tank had tanked completely.
I know doing so many changes at once and having had neglected the tank for a while probably caused all of this but I'm not quite satisfied with that analysis.
Anything to add??
Wisdoms to share?
(Besides.. I could have told you so) ...would be highly appreciated.
Especially because i could use that knowledge with my next tank project. My son decided to not let me out of this hobby and months later gifted me a used bigger but very old tank and it didn't take much to twist my arm to start again.
Thought about it for 10 min and said yes.
You can follow that adventure on my "old faithful" link. Literally starting from the ground (tank stand).
BTW: I'm very reluctant to use the rock from the old tank, since it was so infested and i never determined what actually killed my fish. Is it a toss out?
Hope this never happens to anybody else.
Perhaps there is a lesson to learn?
I had a complete tank failure and couldn't recover from it. And stopped the hobby .. for 6 months.
Now to My BioCube32 demise.
The biocube was doing well for nearly 4 years.
Inhabitants at the end:
4 clowns (2 red, 2 black), 2 cardinals, neon gobi, Cleaner shrimp, yellow watchmen gobi with his friend the pistol shrimp, who redesigned my sand bottom every few weeks, several emerald crabs, nassarius, duster. some mushrooms and a gigantic toadstool grown from a little finger size to be a 14 inch big plate taking over the tank. Big enough for two clowns to host it.
Water values are good. Battling low kh and low ph with additives. Never seemed to get it right but it had no effect on anything so i stopped adding chemicals.
When i bought the BioCube i had read that the PAR values from the stock lights are low and that made me Steve's LED Upgrade but never installed it. Ran with the stock lights. The stock lights are fine for softies and LPS. Never had a problem except when i put SPS in the tank.
Sequence of downhill events...
I was plagued for months with real hard string algae. Looked like a perfect carpet. High density, hard and easy to harvest, was actually quite decorative. It covered everything not inhabited.
Illness forced me to reduce my bi-weekly 15% water changes to once every 6 -8 weeks for several months. looked like the tank could tolerate it. Values went up a little but still "safe"
I recovered and decided to do a big cleanup.
- 60% water change and using brush scrubbing the rock free of string algae.
- Finally changed the factory LED lights to Steve's Turbo LEDs. Followed instructions and started with low light.
My Toadstool didn't like this change but everything else didn't seem to mind. I started playing with the light intensity and the daily cycle changed too.
- The string algae came back after the water change seemingly overnight with a vengeance.
Thats when everything escalated .....
First the toadstool started to wither. Shrinking From 14" and nearly reaching the top of the DT to about a 3 inch small finger sized asparagus.
Fish started going missing overnight.
The neon, the cardinals and the cleaner shrimp just "vanished" all the same night. Th next night the watchman was gone.
My clowns where hiding behind in the back and even food didn't get them out. The mystery for me is where did the fish go?
My tank values where over the moon.
Decided to do another water large change to lower the values.
Literally the next day. All dead. Fish, all snails, corals. But not the emerald crabsa nd the pistol shrimp.
Whatever was left from the corals looked like old wither salad.
The clowns where on the ground dead.
Still no sign of any other corpses.
So basically the tank had tanked completely.
I know doing so many changes at once and having had neglected the tank for a while probably caused all of this but I'm not quite satisfied with that analysis.
Anything to add??
Wisdoms to share?
(Besides.. I could have told you so) ...would be highly appreciated.
Especially because i could use that knowledge with my next tank project. My son decided to not let me out of this hobby and months later gifted me a used bigger but very old tank and it didn't take much to twist my arm to start again.
Thought about it for 10 min and said yes.
You can follow that adventure on my "old faithful" link. Literally starting from the ground (tank stand).
BTW: I'm very reluctant to use the rock from the old tank, since it was so infested and i never determined what actually killed my fish. Is it a toss out?
Hope this never happens to anybody else.
