Cry for me. I lost ALL my fish!

Some one said it's not "IF" you will have a tank disaster but "WHEN". My 150 reef tank was going real well. It hit the 5 year point and was very stable. I was smiling every time I looked at it. Tons of great coral, rock with good stuff on it, and great fish.

What happened? I was on vacation and we had a lady coming in once a day to feed the fish. Sometime since her last visit the chiller malfunctioned and kicked the circuit breaker. Everything was on one breaker. So no chilling, no filtering, no powerheads, no nothing. The water temperature went up, and the oxygen went down. When she came the next evening about 1/2 the fish were dead. She called my emergency fish guy who came out and stayed till midnight doing what he could, but by the next day the rest of them had expired, and the coral looked pretty bad. Luckily they took them out as they died so it did not pollute the tank.

Here is what I lost:
Mated pair of clown fish - had them from day one - 5 years - those where the ones that were producing my babies!
Yellow tang - had it for 4 years
Powder Blue tang - large beautiful speciman - had it one year
Puffer - had it over 3 years
Mandarin - relatively new
Six line wrasse - had it 3 years
One huge clam
One huge serpant star
A few small brittle stars
Decorator urchine
Tons of snails and crabs (I was surprised they didn't make it)
Sea cucumbers, peperment shrimp, etc etc

Within a few days some of the coral that I thought I was going to lose is showing signs of coming back. I think the net coral loss will be 15 to 20%. I credit my fish guy with saving the coral. My two carpet anenomies made it fine.

So I lost about $2,000 of stuff. Have to replace the chiller at $800. So it's an emotional and financial shock.

I am having a electrician come next week to split the circuit so 1/2 the equipment will be on one and 1/2 on the other. I'll make sure the chiller and filter are on separate lines. At least that way if something goes wrong at least somethings will be working. That's going to be $400.

If I had only spent that $400 a few months ago it would have saved me the current disaster. Ahhhh .... hindsight is so clear!!!

What did I learn? "you never know when disater will strike and you can't plan 100% for everything that could happen" ... but each time it does happen I learn a little more.

Those fish had personalities and my wife and I cried when we got home. I'm finding that my friends and family have a hard time understanding ... they say "Hey ... they were JUST FISH". They just don't understand. I know you guys will.