Jon Lazar

Thanks everyone for the condolences. Live and learn!

Just a public service announcement to check your tank and sump for electrical devices that might fall into it! I used to use a 6" fan to cool my frag tank through evaporation. I thought I was being careful by attaching it securely to a 2x4, making sure the gooseneck was tight, and minimizing slack in the power cable so there'd be no way it could end up in the tank. Well, last week the plastic clamp broke in half at some point during the night, allowing the fan to fall partly into the tank. The fan was plugged into an Apex Energy Bar and didn't trip any circuit breakers, so the current just kept flowing. This resulted in the copper in the wires and fan dissolving from electrolysis, effectively dosing the tank with copper. When I saw the frag tank in the morning, the water was completely clouded over and had that dead coral stench. I immediately used all the mixed saltwater I had on hand to do water changes. I drained and refilled the tank (100% water change), then did another ~50% water change. I also added a couple of Poly Filters in the tank to absorb any last traces of copper. The losses were heartbreaking. All the small acro frags were dead within a day. The birdsnest and larger acros hung on a few more days, but within a week almost all of them were dead too. The worst part was that most of the acro frags were newly acquired specimens, waiting to go into the display tank. So now I don't have any of those corals at all. At least my zoas, acans, and LPS corals came through ok. Learn from my misfortune! - Take a look at your own setup and see if something similar might happen to you. Light fixtures, frayed powerhead cords, things like that. Maybe even battery-power autofeeders? - The electrolysis and copper poisoning happened pretty fast. The fan fell in the water sometime after 1500, and I saw the wreckage the next morning at 0730. - Keep saltwater on hand for emergencies. If I didn't have enough to do a complete water change, I could've filled a bucket with clean saltwater and dumped all my frag tank corals into the bucket. Better a jumbled pile of frags than letting them sit in a toxic bath of copper. I'd even mix up new saltwater with dechlorinated tapwater, rather than leave the corals in copper. While the sps died despite the water changes, the other corals pulled through ok. - Keep Poly Filters in inventory and ready to use. I knew exactly where mine were so I didn't have to search everywhere for them. - Consider keeping your frag tank on separate plumbing and water than your display tank. My approach is for the frag tank to be an ark so I'd have a replacement frag if a display tank coral RTNed. But if my frag tank had been plumbed to the display, I would've lost all those colonies too. - Not sure yet whether a grounding probe would've tripped a house circuit breaker, stopping the electrolysis.

You're right; we're way behind on updates! The tank is making good progress, with the usual ups and downs over time. I'll work on getting some pics for a proper update.

IIRC fenbendazole kills xenia and some other softies like gorgonians, clove polyps, and green star polyps. Zoanthids and frogspawn are safe. Not sure about leather corals. I've had great success with using bandage gauze to remove xenia. Take a 1" x 2" piece of gauze and fold it in half between your index finger and thumb. Then pinch the xenia and tear it off the rock. The gauze allows you to grip the xenia and remove nearly all of it. Scrape any remaining scraps off with a toothbrush. I got the idea when a dentist did this to my tongue (gripping it, not the tearing it out!) while doing his routine check for mouth cancer. Regardless of whether you use fenbendazole, I would try manual removal first to knock it back to manageable levels.

Over time all your wet rock will turn dark with coralline and other algae. But the piece of rock that sits above the waterline will stay bleached white. You might find that to look unnatural. I would find a piece of live rock that looks weathered and use that instead. Or, they make live rock that has a more natural look, marketed as "Real Reef Rock" and "Life Rock". There may be pictures online on what a mature tank looks like with above-water rock.

I'd try tightening it some, but I would also have an extra bulkhead on hand if you don't already. I've had more than one ABS bulkhead or nut crack. And then your next post will be, Help, it's 10pm and I need a bulkhead! When you took it apart before, did you happen to check the flange for plastic flashing left behind from the manufacturing process?

I run a beananimal return into my sump. How do you arrange the siphon drain and overflow plumbing so that the beananimal process restarts properly if you restart the return pump?