Shawn B. - Entry #15
Our story begins on Monday, February 15, 2021, we woke up to a lovely snowy day. My kids and wife got to stay home for the day due to the icy roads and federal holiday. We went out to enjoy the snow and play but little did we know that night our power would go out and a three-day ordeal of stress and anxiety would consume our lives. We had spoken with the family after finding out we might be losing power in rolling blackouts. From our understanding, the issue wouldn't be that long or that bad, but that turned out to be not so true. We went to bed that night having power and water, everything was fine.
Tuesday, I awoke the next morning at 4:30 am to our toddler crying and coldness in the air. Power was off and house temperature had plummeted to 53 degrees. My wife went to go get our daughter and I went to grab what blankets we had to warm us up. I went to check on the tank and the temperature had already dropped to 62 degrees. Battery backup was still running but was getting low on the remaining power. To give you a little background on my system I run my main tank in the house which is plumbed through the wall to the garage and houses my sump and a frag system. Temps in the garage was even lower as it is uninsulated. Once my wife woke back up Our neighbor reached out to her to ask for assistance in getting her generator working. Her husband had just had surgery and he was unable to exert himself. I went over to assist and took a small 2-gallon gas can I had as they didn't have one. The generator was brand new and had never been setup. I put oil, gas in the system and fired it up. The neighbor let me run an extension cord from the generator over to my house as my generator tank liner had denigrated and was clogging the filter. Once I had the new generator running, I was able to plug in both of my heaters and one large powerhead. I didn't want to draw too much wattage from the extension cord and cause a fire or damage to the generator. I cut the feed from the house to the garage and moved all my corals from the frag tank to the main tank. Power was out for the whole day. I turned our gas fireplace on in the house but didn't make a difference. House sat at 53-55 degrees all day. Even with two heaters a 300 watts and 200 watts I was unable to bring the tank above 70 degrees. At around 10:00 pm our power came back on and the neighbor shut off the generator. We warmed back up but by 1:00 am it went off again. My neighbor must have been asleep and never turned the generator back on. Luckily my ups had charged back up and I had a battery power aerator running but no heaters. Due to my tank being 80 percent SPS I didn't have high hopes for survival as RTN had already begun and I had lost all but one fish and my starfish at this point.
Wednesday, I woke up early to try and get more gas for the generator and find more water as overnight our water was shut off but later came back on. I braved the icy roads and flashing lights. I was able to find one Meat market that was open and bought supplies to make soup. I also bought eggs, water, and gas at the nearby gas station. Once I got back to the house, I went back to the neighbor and gave them an extra box of eggs I bought and took the gas over. I wouldn't let the lady give me any money as I was just grateful to have a generator. When I arrived, I found out a pipe had busted above their bedroom and water had flooded the house, but they didn't know how to turn it off. I went to the garage and tried the house cut off, but you could still hear water coming in. I went to the street and was able to shut off the main. Once we had that sorted, I went back to the generator and filled it back up. I went back to check my tank and by this time the water was starting to get milky. I had no way to filter the water as I couldn't power my sump and running it would just make the tank colder as it was in the garage. The next best thing was to use my media reactor as a makeshift canister filter. I removed the reactor from the sump and brought it to the main tank. I filled it with new carbon, phosphate, and poly floss. I powered it on and began to filter the tank. I was hoping if I could get the water clean I could at least save some of the livestock. The tank was still running in the 70's I boiled some RODI water I had about 5 gallons available and added it to the tank to attempt to bring the temperature up. I was able to get the tank to 75 degrees and the heaters were then able to get the tank to 78. While I was boiling the water, we heard a loud pop come from the garage. We had a pipe burst. I tried to cut the water to the house, but the valve was frozen I eventually had to cut off the main at the street. I went into the attic and cleaned the water before my ceiling collapsed over my vehicle. Now without water, I was unable to make any more water to boil. Power eventually came back on around 2:00 am. The issue now was the die-off was too great for the filter to overcome without a skimmer. At this point, I went to bed as the exhaustion and stress were starting to get to me.
Thursday, I awoke, and the power was off again. I went to the Home Depot to try and find the fitting needed to repair. I fought through a crowded store and eventually was able to find the needed part in a discarded basket. The part was missing the wrapper, but I was able to locate it online and use the code to purchase. I waited in line for over an hour while inline I found another gas can so I could fill-up the generator and have extra gas. Once done I drove to the get gas where they had it the day before, but the power was out at that location now. I drove around for almost an hour before finding gas. While inline you can tell people began to change and get more desperate. I witnessed an argument break out in front of me but nothing more happened. I was able to get the fuel and head back to the house. I spoke with the neighbor and got the generator fueled up and back online. I was unable to make more water and had about 2.5 gallons left to boil. Tank water was starting to get foul. I began to break down and remove all items that had died or in the process of dying. By the time all was removed, I had about two five-gallon buckets of SPS and LPS. That day I honestly compilated dropping out of the hobby as I have been doing it for over 15 years. Once done I started working on repairing the broken pipe. I was able to get the old 90-degree angle cut out and replace it with a SharkBite fitting. I had my wife watch as I re pressurized the line. Finally some good luck and was able to get the water back on. The pressure was still low, but I was able to make some RODI water. Around 7:00 PM the power came back online. I then opened the mainline to the sump back up and powered everything on. The skimmer was finally able to operate again and man it was pulling out a lot. I set up a 5-gallon bucket to catch the skim mate and let it run. I topped off the tank with RODI and let it run overnight.
Friday, I awoke and still had power. I checked the tank and topped it back off. The tank had already begun to clear up some. I removed more dead coral and only left living coral, some Zoa, leathers, and Duncans. By this time, I had lost about 90 percent of my tank. I still had a few hermits running around but nothing else. I cleaned the reactor and added new carbon, phosphate remover, and floss. I continued to monitor the tank and worked on getting other things done around the house. Over the weekend I lost all the leathers. The zoas and Duncans are still alive but very stressed. Only time will tell if they can recover.
A little about me: I have been in the hobby for over 15 years and did freshwater before that. I have never had a top-of-the-line tank and I typically buy a little at a time. My current setup is a Standard Aqueon 90 gallon RR., 34-gallon sump, skimmer with fuge, BRS reactor, and 30-gallon frag tank. For lighting, I am running four hydra 26's. I use a 12-gallon tub for the ATO container. If given this opportunity I wouldn't know how to act as I have never had anything that nice and didn't see it coming into the future anytime soon. I would be forever grateful if received and I know my daughter would love to see our tank back alive again as she loved to play with the fish.
Live Stock Lost
Fish:
Blue Hippo Tang
Yellow Coris Wrasse
Blue Chromis
PJ Cardinal (6 Years old)
Banggai Cardinalfish
Pin Cushion Urchin
Red Serpent Starfish (13+ years old)
Coral:
SPS
Walt Disney
Terra Del Fuego
Bill Murry
500 Dollar Efflo
Purple Monster
Red Robin
RR the Vihn
Orange Grafted Monti
Orange Monti
Apple Berry Monti
Pink Bird-nest
Green Bird-nest
Orange Digi
Bubble Gum Digi
Orange Setosa
German Blue Digi
Pink tip Acro
Green Acro
Purple Monti
Pink Branching Cyphastrea
JF Rainbow Monti
Mystic Monti
JF jackolantern lepta
Watermelon lepta
Pink Lepta
Orange lepta
Green lepta
Yellow lepta
Birds of paradise Bird-nest
Green-teal tip stag
WWC yellow tips
Green-blue tip Acro
Purple Vidalia
Z's dream Monti
Bonsai
Hellfire lepto
Orange lepto
Green lepto
Lightning Lepto
Neon Spongodes Montipora
Green apple cyphastrea
Bizzaro cyphastrea
Jf fender bender cyphastrea
Alien pox cyphastrea
Hawkins Echinata
JF Sour Twist
Red Planet
Mint Pavona
Psammacora
LPS:
Space Invader
Tyree Agent orange echinata
Unknown Favia (13 years old)
War Favia
Splatter Hammer
Neon Green Hammer
Purple Hammer
Blue Hammer
Green Torch
Orange plate coral
Green plate coral
Unknown Favia
Green/blue Maze coral
Red Maze coral
Pink/blue favia
Orange Hammer
Toxic Favia
Soft:
Two different types of Green Leather
Kenya Tree
Willow Toadstool
Standard toadstool
Gonzo Mushrooms
Cali Kid Tequila sunrise mushroom
Nuke Green Paly
UC Monster Paly
JF Gobstoppers zoa
JF Rainbow infusion zoa
WWC scrambled eggs zoa
Blue Tubs zoa
Sunny D zoa
Utter Chaos Zoa
Neon Green Mushroom
Purple Monster Zoa
Eagle Eye Zoa
Lakers Zoa
Probably some other stuff I'm not thinking about. It is hard to remember the names of everything I had in the tank. I know if you allow me to receive this tank and start over I can build something more beautiful than before. All my corals have been grown from small frags or pinky-sized cuttings. Thank you for this opportunity.
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