Steve Weast's Tank is no more...

lduncan · 03-25-2007, 05:39 AM

For those who haven't seen or heard yet. Steve had an unfortunate turn of events with his tank which has resulted in the death of most of his corals.

It's a shame to see one of the most impressive tanks in the world disappear literally overnight.

Layton

partobe · 03-25-2007, 05:42 AM

wow I'm sorry to hear that.

theplatypus · 03-25-2007, 07:04 AM

noooooooooooooooooooo!

Loverotties · 03-25-2007, 07:32 AM

Wow !What caused it?

theplatypus · 03-25-2007, 07:36 AM

For those that haven't had the pleasure.

http://www.oregonreef.com/index.html

ScruffyRubicon · 03-25-2007, 07:59 AM

Hate to hear that. His tank was truely beautiful.

BadOleRoss · 03-25-2007, 08:03 AM

Here is the post that that explains it from RC!

Well....I had a little incident Thursday morning......

Thursday morning, I did a water change and decided to clean the powerheads on my skimmer since I haven't cleaned those in over a year. I got everything up and going, when I got a call that forced me to leave earlier than I had planned.

I returned home around 10pm......meaning that I was gone some 14 hrs. Well, apparently, clean skimmer pumps are much more efficient than dirty ones......so, the skimmer proceeded to overflow and empty my entire 200 gal sump down the drain. I had to do something....and since I had no water made up and it would take two days to generate 200 gals....I was forced to use tap water. Our water up here is actually not too bad out of the tap.

I also had some dechlorinator on hand that I've had...but never needed....for years. I filled the sump, mixed in dechlorinator, salt.....mixed well.....and powered up. Everything was back on line....went to bed.

I woke up Friday to the tank of death....every single sps coral is gone. All ricordea....gone. Fish and lps are fine....anemones...not happy; but alive. I removed all the dead stuff.....some seven buckets of sps heads ....some two feet in diameter.....very sad.

I feel that the fault was mine....I probably would have been fine with just taking the two days to create more water.....after all, my closed loop was working fine and I could have always added aeration. The second mistake was probably adding too much of a very old dechlorinator....which, I feel, was the primary cause of death. It was just a case of reacting too quickly and not thinking.

I always try to find the bright side in the face of adversity....in this case:

1) I'm going to save a ton on reactor media.
2) My cold tank is doing great....I can always look at that instead
3) no more AEFW's
4) no more red bugs
5) I guess I can reaquascape now
6) I'm now a buyer for sps heads
7) I have a vacation coming up and I won't have to worry a lick about the tank.

And to think that I was contemplating updating my site with new pics......well, at least that saves some time taking new pics.....starting over sucks.....

tims · 03-25-2007, 08:12 AM

Wow........

ScruffyRubicon · 03-25-2007, 08:12 AM

That is a lesson I learn recently myself. If I clean the skimmer and can't be home for the next several hours, I shut it off. I drained mine into the carpet. No loss of life with mine (tank doesn't even compare to Steve's anyway) but it sure stink having just to clean up the mess.

At least he can look on the bright side, I'd have probably shut mine down.

ChrisPrusha · 03-25-2007, 08:25 AM

Very sad.

I have no doubt that his tank will be back to its previous glory some day soon, though.

BadOleRoss · 03-25-2007, 08:25 AM

The latest that I was able to gather....

1) All sps are gone with the exception of one stylo
2) All softies gone....toadstool, xenia, mushrooms, and ricordea
3) All LPS seem to be doing OK
4) All fish OK
5) Anemones are so-so....time will tell here.

BadOleRoss · 03-25-2007, 08:28 AM

He said on his post that he had 7+ buckets of dead corals sitting in his backyard. He may or may not post pics of the aftermath after he returns from vacation.

crvz · 03-25-2007, 09:04 AM

Man, that's terrible. I found his website before I had found RC, TRT, the local club forum, anything. I'd had my tank about 4 years, and amazingly hadnt really seeked out anything online. When I came across his website, that's mostly what inspired me to get smarter in the hobby. What a terrible story, but it shows that there's no one invincible...

zxcv123 · 03-25-2007, 09:19 AM

I always dreamed of having that tank......... so beautiful.
Iam just devistated by hearing this.................

Steve - if you read this- I wish you the best of luck in rebuilding the system and were all here to support you.

zxcv123 · 03-25-2007, 09:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ChrisPrusha

I have no doubt that his tank will be back to its previous glory some day soon, though.