Tank Murder's ;_; so sad :(

[asonitez]

As some of you might know I've been battling with my first Salt Water tank setup for the last 2 weeks or so. I have also been battling my filtration options as well. Well yesterday something did it for me. I returned home to find that my recently purchased sandsifting goby had been building a home near a piece of my live rock. He burrowed out a hole under the rock which was his home. Unfortunately this had the bad effect of collapsing a piece of live rock which killed my yellow sea cucumber (Dirk Diggler) which caused toxic waste to enter the water and my little clown fish named HappyEnding his girlfriend is named ChopStik who was playing with the sea cucumber died of toxic waste and then my emerald crab Mr. Crabs went and tried to eat my sea cucumber and died of poisoning and then one of my hermit crabs tried to eat HappyEnding and died of poision as well. I found them all in a small pile dead. Either my critters were part of a religious tank cult or they just died the way I know they did.

Well. this prompted me to drain half the tank install my sump remove the media from the canister filter except the polishing cloth and carbon and foam and over all install a sump. over All including the 5 gallon I think Canister filter and the 10 gallon sump

55
10
5
___
70 Gal

I currently have about 69 gallons of water goign through my system. The sump's return if good strong and power ful the return from the canister is nice clean etc. The sump overflow is pulling crap from the top of the water while the canister is pulling crap from mid/bottom of the water and is circulated by 2 powerheads pointing directly at the live rock making some good current but also forcing water to filter through the live rock and into the back area behind the live rock to get sucked up by my canister filter. Heres A visual. I'm sad. But at least it was a few inverts and not my Chromis or larger more colorful Clown.

 

[asonitez]

picture of my new flow.

 

[jazzsam]

I am really sorry about what happened. I have been learning my own share of mistakes in this hobby and there are a lot to be learned!

BUT, I love your diagram!

 

[asonitez]

lol thanks btw the brown stuff is live rock. not poop lol.

 

[Phyl]

You sure do know how to make a very sad event into a very funny post. Sorry for your compound losses, but glad that you're able to turn that into a positive by revamping the system now, rather than having to wait for later to get here!

 

[JohnS_323]

I'm really sorry about the loss and I'll have to go back and re-read the whole post but right now I'm laughing at the fact that you named a sea cucumber Dirk Diggler . . . . damn that is just too funny.

I'm sure you're not in a laughing mood but the names you pick are so creative. They're really great..

 

[Brian]

Dirk Diggler, Happy Ending... hilarious! (except for the death part...not so much)

 

[malulu]

- this is a sad post in a funny way...
- nice diagram!

- i think we should all register our fishes each with an offical name - assigned by asonitez.
- did you make sure your rocks now touch the bottom? not on top of the sand, to prevent future disaster?

 

[JRWOHLER]

A true Greek tragic comedy. Gotta love those names.

 

[blange3]

Will you write my eulogy? ;D

 

[mladencovic]

Try to think of it this way - the price of the lesson you have learned could have been far, far higher, both emotionally and in terms of money, if this would have happened several years from now with the tank full of well established and grown, highly priced beautiful corals and fish.

 

[AnDom1]

Oh poor Dirk. It hurts just thinking about it. :'(

If its any consolation, I think we've all learned from one tragedy or another.

Just a suggestion re the setup. You might want to place the canister return Vertically to get some flow across the lower part of the tank. You've more than enought at the top.

Dom

 

[Hawkeye]

That diagram looks almost like a skinner box - except the "electricity" is coming from the top instead of the bottom...and the "LR" looks like some bugs/cloud of bees...

Brings back memories when I studied animal behavior using a skinner box.

Anyways - I'm not as certain that the cuke was toxic...there are a lot of filter-feeding cukes which are toxic - not sure if yours was or not. It's quite possible it wasn't toxic, and that immediately after dying -it fouled up your tank parameters. The older fish were perhaps better able to tolerate the change.

Did you check the params? I guess you didn't need to since the naked eye could see something was off.

I'm sorry for your loss. That tiny false perc was a cutie too.

Keep in mind the LR and LS and equipment will displace some of the volume in the tank -so you do not have a true total of ~70 gallons...it will be less.

 

[JTN]

And I thought only Mel Brooks was capable of creating such a humorous outlook on a tragedy.
Dude, you got the gift..... run with it.

Ummm.... Comedy, not reef keeping!

Sorry to hear of the losses. One of the downfalls of the hobby as most of us learn sooner or later. And most of us the hard way.

Good Luck,

Jim

 

[monsterfishkeeper]

I love your post, sorry about your loss but when your in this hobby you soon learn that things dont always(usually never)go the way you planned and problems will always come up. Good luck ;D

 

[asonitez]

Thanks for all of your condolences. I agree when I wrote the post I was just putting the names we gave them from the Big Book' O Saltwater Fishies. When we get an new fishie we usually circle him in the book and give him a name. Reading the post now I can see why it was funny (smile.) I'm glad you liked the names. I'm sure those fishies are at a great reef in the sky eating and making babies. Except for Dirk Diggler. He went to hell (Chinatown) where he was promptly cut up stewed and served. I hold no animosity towars him, he tasted like chikin.

bad news but I just learned my sump sprung a leak.