Michael P. - Entry #37
I have been in the saltwater hobby since i got my first paycheck at 17 years old (39 years old now). I have never experienced anything to this magnitude and ever imagined the powers to be could just turn the power off. About 2 years ago i decided to turn my love for the hobby into a side business and started propagating and selling corals locally. My little farm has grown to around 500 gallons of frags tanks and has been a great joy to be able to give back to fellow reefers. I was well prepared and have a generator and around 1600 watts of emergency heaters but it simply wasn’t enough. We were without electricity for over 48 hours and the temperature in the house got down to 36 degrees and the tank temperature to 52. I had 2 propane tanks on the bbq grill constantly boiling rodi water to set in the tanks and it helped but the propane only lasted so long. The worse part of the whole situation is when the selectively turned the electric off, they also killed the cell towers. There was no way to reach out for help. My wife and i slept in the truck in our driveway to ensure we keep the generator full of gas to do all we could. I have business insurance through Perkins AquaticLife, but they will not cover a penny do to power outage. I lost all sps, lps, and most mushrooms as well as zoas. I estimate The total loss around $15,000 in coral along. Most of my mother colonies have been with me for well over 12 years. It’s devastating and I’m not sure what to do at this point. I have never been one to ask for handouts and still don’t like to do it. I appreciate everything y’all do for the hobby. Thank you
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