Oh man...

[DragonForce]

Today I came home from work to find my pumps, lights and skimmer off around 3 this afternoon. My lights and things are hooked up to the light switch which is the only plug I can really use in my room. We have cleaning ladies that come every friday and they finish around 11 or so. So I walk over, look in my tank, and find one of my clams looks like it's dieing. There was a hermit crab and 2 snails eating it or something. I am so bummed out about this and needed to vent a little bit.

This could have caused a spike in my system and I would have lost all my corals, fish, inverts, etc. I can't even believe these SOB's did this. Probably one of my favorite things(and most expensive at 50 bucks) about my tank and it's gone just like that.

Comments are welcome.

 

[greenmaji]

Not cool..
bummer man

 

[DragonForce]

The clam was a rescue from my moms tank about a month ago. Over the last few days my nitrates shot up to ~20ppm and I did a pwc and they came down a tad to maybe ~10ppm and I didn't feed for a few days to help things a little. I was thinking maybe they shot up becuase the clam was dieing but maybe not. The system shutting down could have just been the nail in the coffin for the poor fellow but who knows. :?

 

[greenmaji]

how are your peramiters now?
just currious..

 

[DragonForce]

PH 8.1
Nitrates 10-15ppm
nitrites 0
ammonia 0


Aquarium Pharmaceuticals test kit.


Think Nitrates are exceptable for now? I am going to pick up some more SW tomorrow.

 

[greenmaji]

I would be conserned with any NO3 with LPS in the tank.. some of your softies dont look too resiliant to NO3 as well.. just be carefull and try to make the correction quick.. you might be looking at a hard road ahead otherwise. :?

 

[dianeww]

This is so sad! But I'd bet that 4 hours without power wasn't really the culprit.

Also...a suggestion. I have a couple of wall switches that are not to be turned off, and they are each covered by a piece of tape. No one has ever flipped then! HTH.

 

[Hara]

There is no way that 4 hours without light or pumps killed the clam. As a Hurricane Rita sufferer, I can attest to that. Not to mention they are without lights and water circulation whenever they are shipped. I would be looking at other reasons.

 

[TeenReefer]

Bummer. But i have to agree 4 hours without lighting/circulation didnt do this.

 

[Phyl]

Home Depot sells switch protectors that cover a switch so that they can't be turned off without being a contortionist. I'd get one of those for the switch, but would agree that's not the culprit. Sounds like it was on the way out to begin with.

 

[StripesTheEel]

Dont forget that in natural reefs clams are exposed to no light for much more than 4 hours, from dusk till dawn. Is there anything else that may have contributed to this?

 

[AMANIQU77]

You gotta put like masking tape there and a bold sign that says Don't touch This or Else I'll Fire You or something.

I also hope you have a punching bag there to take out all the angst towards an inanimate object. If that happened to me, I'd want to end up punching someone, especially if you have put a lot of money in it.

With that said, rage and violence is not encouraged by our friends, moderators, and our website, so please use a certain amount of humor into the "angst" part.