New Member, New to Reefing, Long Story About a Gifted Tank

[p3rmafrost]

Hello Everyone, I wanted to take a moment to share a story, and say thank you to all of the great posts and fantastic information I've found here.

I was recently gifted a reef tank from a friend. He was going through a hard time and had to leave his house suddenly. He called me and asked if I was interested in his "fish tank" because he wanted it to go to someone responsible and most of his friends weren't up to the task of caring for it. I initially declined, I already have a large turtle tank and wasn't in the market for a new tank. He told me that there were animals in the tank and that he didn't really have anyone else to turn to, so I agreed to take the tank. He informed me that it would have to be picked up in the next couple of hours, and absolutely had to be out of the house that night.

 

After a few more questions I discovered that it was a Red Sea Reefer 250, complete with fish, inverts and corals.

 

When I arrived at his place I saw that the tank was in bad shape. It had been neglected for quite some time, it was overgrown with algae, I couldn't find any of the creatures living it and I have no idea what he had the parameters at. I've kept fish for a long time, and I have had a saltwater tank in the past, but got out of the hobby. I knew this was going be hard on the fish, challenging to move, and would likely kill most of the inhabitants. I didn't have any chemicals on hand, no salt at home, nothing to treat the fish with, no food, and no quarantine area for them.

 

Here's a shot of the tank when I arrived.

 

I did a little research on  moving a tank and followed the advice the best I could. I called my wife and had her clear a spot for the new tank, went to Home Depot and grabbed a ton of buckets, siphoning hose, and some cleaning supplied. I drained the tank and preserved the water in buckets, kept the corals wet, and eventually found the fish. I kept them separated by species. We broke everything down and managed to Jenga it into my truck.

 

When I got home I cleaned everything as quickly as I could. I felt like I was under a time crunch to get everything set back up because I didn't want any of the creatures to be in stagnant water for long. I worked on taking inventory and setting everything back up. In total I had:

 

Equipment:

1 Red Sea Reefer 250 Tank

1 Octo 150S Classic Skimmer

1 Ecotech Quiet Drive Vortech Power head

1 Reactor with activated charcoal

2 Ecotech Radion XR15 Pro Gen 3 lights

1 Heater

1 Temperature alarm

1 Power Brick

1 Ecotech Reeflink

1 Return pump

Various accessories (nets, magfloat, agale scrapper, etc.)

Livestock: 2 4 strip damsels 1 Yellow tail damsel 1 Coral beauty angel fish 1 Skunk shrimp 1 Chocolate chip sea star 1 Tuxedo urchin 1 RBT anemone 1 Large Kenya tree coral and several small ones 3 Clusters of zoas (no idea what kind) 5 Hermit crabs 1 Turbo snail 1 Sleeper goby 1 Sailfin blenny Some pulsing Xenia chunks.

 

I ran to Petco and grabbed some instant ocean salt and hit the grocery store for distilled water. I managed to get the tank up and running pretty quickly and returned all of the creatures back to their home. All in, the only fish I lost was the yellow tail damsel. 

 

I hired a local reef maintenance company to come over and show me how to care for the tank, and service it. We went over all of the details and my confidence level went up quite a bit. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be.

 

The tank was way over crowded with live rock. My friend told me that he thought most of it was coral of one type or another, so I wanted to get it all back in the tank and see what started to show signs of life. After a few weeks there were quite a few pieces that didn't seem to have anything growing on them and I removed about a 5 gallon bucket worth of rock. I took it to my LFS, he added it to a quarantine tank, and he'll rehome it eventually. Maybe he'll get lucky and get some free frags out of it, but I doubt it.

 

The lights needed service, so they got sent off for repair. I have no idea how long the tank was without light. It was near a sliding glass door in my friends basement, so I guess they were getting sunlight through the glass. They're up and running now and are programmed to the Coral Lab AB+ routine.

Thanks to the great posts here I decided to rescape the tank. I still have more rock in there than I would like, but the stuff that I kept all has something living in or on it. I'm waiting to see what sprouts. Once I know what is legitimately thriving I can remove a few more things.

 

If anyone is interested in seeing pictures, there is a little album here.

 

I'm sure a few of you probably noticed the selection of things living in this tank are not ideal. Please remember, I didn't pick them. I'm working on getting everyone in the best situation I can provide for them, and I'm trying to keep them all safe. I hand feed the starfish to keep him away from the corals, the aquascaping has given the blenny and the goby some great hiding spots so they can stay away from the damsels. The damsels have caves that they like to stay in, the shrimp is hosting the anemone (I hand feed the anemone too and the shrimp gets scraps). The urchin picked up a zoa cluster and he's been wearing it as a hat while he walks around the tank.

 

The Kenya tree is under control for now, and I have a place that will take frags. So far, so good, and thanks to your experience I know what to look for so I can keep ahead of any issues that might pop up.

 

I had the tank going for about 6 months with no issues and decided to go to a frag festival in southern Virginia and picked up some new stuff. For a few months everything was thriving. About two months ago I checked on the tank when I got home from work and noticed that the starfish was dead, most of my corals were bleached, and my soft corals looked terrible. 

I immediately drained 50 percent of the water and changed it with Imagitarum sea water. I tested my parameters and ammonia was a little high (presumably due to dead animals), but I couldn't identify what was killing the tank. 

I went to scrub out the sump and got pretty badly electrocuted. Due to the poor condition of some of the hardware a cable had corroded and was running voltage into the water. 

 

I pulled the pump, replaced it, checked the remaining equipment and got the tank back in order. The corals that survived are doing well. Parameters are in order and the tank is back on track. 

 

What a learning experience it has been. Unfortunately I lost a ton of coral, but lesson learned. Thanks to everyone here I was able to triage and save some of the tank.

 

I'm excited to be part of the group. I look forward to learning from everyone and contributing where I can. Unfortunately I missed this month's meeting, but I'm looking forward to the next one. 

 

 

[howaboutme]

Wow, what a story. Good on you (and your wife) for helping out a friend and actually following through with it. Very inspiring. Not sure where you are in Nova but I have some easy sps frags free when you're ready. 

[ReefdUp]

I hate to repeat... but... Wow.  What an amazing setup, which I'm sure was hard for your friend to give up.  It sounds like you've done everything right and made the most out of a dire situation.  Well done!

 

Welcome to the club!  Our next meeting is Fragfest, so you definitely won't want to miss that one!

[p3rmafrost]

14 hours ago, howaboutme said:

Wow, what a story. Good on you (and your wife) for helping out a friend and actually following through with it. Very inspiring. Not sure where you are in Nova but I have some easy sps frags free when you're ready. 

It's been a wild ride. Thank you for the offer on the frags, I will happily take you up on that. I'm in Loudoun, near Ashburn, so you're not far from me.

 

I am so happy that I found this forum and the reefing subreddit. If I had taken on this project in the 90's I would have spent a lot of time at the library and I don't think I would have been as successful. It really is incredible to have an abundance of topics and resources available on demand, the posts here have been a tremendous help.

 

A little update on the current status of the tank:

One the pump with the bad wire came out the tank turned around in a matter of a few days. As sad as it was to lose the corals I had it may have been a blessing in disguise. Now that the sea star is out the corals are no longer being pestered (or eaten) and are thriving.

 

I currently have:

Kenya Trees (LOTS of them)

 

Various mushrooms that have spread pretty well. I'm terrible at remembering or recording the names. I have a neon green one, a blue and yellow one, a red one, and tons of

purpleish green ones. They are doing extremely well.

 

Zoas, probably 5 or 6 different kinds. The only one I know by name is "Bowser", the others are ones my wife picked because of the patterns. They are spreading and doing well.

 

Candy Cane with 8 or 9 heads. It suffered when the tank got zapped, but it is growing back nicely.

 

Euphylia with 3 heads. I thought it was a goner but it has come back pretty well. It sprouted a new branch and the ones that were damaged either by electricity or the sea star are filling back in.

 

Red chili coral. I spotted it growing in a cave. I thought it had been eaten but thankfully I was wrong. It's about the size of a marshmallow and adds a lot of interest to the tank at night.

 

2 different montis, no idea what kind.

 

2 gonipora, again, no idea what kind. They're both about the size of a pencil eraser, but they are growing and the polyps extend nicely. They are living in a little frag rack for the moment and seem happy.

 

1 bird's nest. This is another one I considered pulling out of the tank. The sea star devoured it and I was positive it wouldn't survive. It had a couple of specs of color on it and I left it in the tank. It has nearly fully recovered and it seems to be doing well.

 

Other Inhabitants:

2 Condy anemone, both are in great shape.

1 Green BTA, doing very well. There was a gigantic RBTA that was lost when the tank got zapped. I was pretty sad about that.

1 Pistol shrimp and 1 watchman goby. Since I introduced the goby to the shrimp I haven't seen either of them. I know their around somewhere because they have done a lot of remodeling to the tank.

 

All in there are 5 small fish, 1 shrimp, 3 nems, cleanup crew, and various small corals.

 

I'd like to add some height to the rocks at some point. The only "tall" coral I have are the kenya trees. I'd also love some plating or chalice coral, maybe a torch at some point.

 

For now my plan is to order some ICP test kits, make sure everything is on track and monitor. I want to make sure it is a safe environment for whatever I add, and I want to make sure I know how to keep it alive. I would feel awful if I picked up something from a member and promptly killed it. I feel like when someone trusts you enough to pass along a frag it's your responsibility to give it a good home. In a perfect scenario I'd like to grow some stuff out and pass it along with the SWAP program and pay it forward. The community helped me out before I even introduced myself, the least I can do is help another member.

 

Thanks again for your reply and encouragement.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[p3rmafrost]

13 hours ago, ReefdUp said:

I hate to repeat... but... Wow.  What an amazing setup, which I'm sure was hard for your friend to give up.  It sounds like you've done everything right and made the most out of a dire situation.  Well done!

 

Welcome to the club!  Our next meeting is Fragfest, so you definitely won't want to miss that one!

I'm trying! It was such a long and convoluted story on how he ended up with the tank. Someone owed him money and ended up trading the tank in lieu of cash. Once his brother found out he had it he got excited and started buying things for it. His brother would stop by his house and "drop off" new things. At one point there were eels (plural), trigger fish, multiple sea stars, and other things in there. When I picked it up he flat out told me he had no idea what I would find in there. Personally, I think he was happy to not have to deal with it anymore and he was more concerned about someone rehabilitating it than getting any money out of it. He asks me for pictures and updates whenever I see him and he seems genuinely happy that the tank is doing well.

 

My goal is to learn, get the maintenance and monitoring down, and grow out the tank. I'm going to keep reading up on topics here and adjust my technique as I go. I'm excited that there are some local people I can lean on for help, everyone here seems welcoming.

 

I'm excited for Fragfest! That should be amazing. I need to figure out how to upgrade my membership to a family one, I'd like to bring my wife along but I saw the post saying it was members only. If you know an easy was to upgrade, or who I should reach out to, please let me know!

[DaJMasta]

That is quite an ordeal and a real trial-by-fire for the start of things, but you've pulled through, congrats!

Seems like the addiction has set in too... good luck

[p3rmafrost]

3 minutes ago, DaJMasta said:

That is quite an ordeal and a real trial-by-fire for the start of things, but you've pulled through, congrats!

Seems like the addiction has set in too... good luck

It has been so hard not to reply to every thread in the for sale section with "Sure, I'll take it!".