Eric Borneman's 400 gal reef is no more?

[Nautilus1]

If the sump was outside, someone could have hooked up a siphon, leave, then return in 45 minutes to remove the hose (evidence). The autofiller would continue to pump FW the whole time.. What a world, now we need security systems for a fish tank.

 

[Nautilus1]

If the sump was outside, someone could have hooked up a siphon, leave, then return in 45 minutes to remove the hose (evidence). The autofiller would continue to pump FW the whole time.. What a world, now we need security systems for a fish tank......

 

[FragMaster]

He did have an auto top off system in place and his sump was not outside but in a seperate room. His skimmer is the only thing that lead outside to drain as per his reply here:

I promised myself I wouldn't come bck and read this thread, but I love all of you and am sobbing as I type this. Thank you all so very very much.

Depite everything I have done, it seems that something was set into motion that was unstoppable. The only corals to survive were all my Psammacora, a Fungia, and a Pavona chip, Several others are alive but continuing to die, no matter what I try. All the fish lived, except maybe a wrasse - I think. The water is still too cloudy to see through after three days of skimming, carbon and 600 gallons of water changes. Those that are still alive and hanging on are bleached white and many of those are loosing what tissue is left. Basically, I have rocks. The coraline died, the sponges died as did all the other life on them. Most a sitting in a pile on my living room floor to stop further fouling. Everything. I have never, despite monstrous accidental faults of my own, power outages, A'C failures and even a top off malfunction have I seen anything like this. To bring the salinity up alone required 350 gallons of salt. My skimmer drains to the outside, so there would have been a pool of some 400 gallons of water if the skimmer was overflowing and the skimmer was at a perfect skimming level that evening when I got home. No water in the sump room from sump overflow. Auto-top working perfectly then and now. I hate to think somone would do this, but as far as I can tell, that is the only conceivable thing I can think of. I have cried daily, and I am crying now. Some of the species I had can never be replaced. I filled several curbside trash cans with coral skeletons.


Thank you all so much for you beautiful words. I have thousands of fragments in culture, sadly limited in types, could never afford to restock the tank to what is was, and it will be 5- 10 years before - and if - it ever resembles what it did a few days ago. Thank you for your well wishes and offers. Sadly, to see the massive corals in my tanks replaced by chips and fragments is too much to consider right now. I will care for my culture system and my bedroom tanks and let this tank stabilize for several months and see what else lives or dies.

I do realize, however, that my love of this hobby and corals still exists, and I will be here for you, though with a very sad heart to help how I can, if not only to help anyone else from ever experiencing anything of this magnitude. So while I may have been premature saying I am leaving the hobby, I won't. But, posting without my inspiration behind glass sitting beside me will be a heartwrenching task.

My dear wife, Brandee, said "when we restock, we restock together so I can know everything there is to know about everything that goes in the tank." I promised.

I dont mean to sound harsh as this is a TERRIBLE TRAGETY ! Just for the acropora palmata alone it would make this a huge deal !!( for new reefers reading this its an endangered species)
BUT....although he states the auto top off unti was working perfectly
That is the ONLY source for the salenity drop of that magnitude if no one in his own home tampered with it.
His skimmer could have beenthe culprit but as he said there would be a rather LARGE mud pit out side in the yard since it leads out side to drain.

I think ego, comuninty status,and just plain heart break will keep us from knowing what realy happend if it was pilot error.

It is good to see he will not be abandoning the hobby though!
Man that must have felt like losing a child
WHEW!! I couldnt even imagine!
I lost an entire tank full of frags and mother colonies of zoanthids once but nothing even comparable to this!

 

[Anonymous]

During his talk at the WMC I swear he said he had no technology like an autofiller on the tank.

 

[Anonymous]

What's funny is that he said he only had a 50gpd RO/DI unit, so it couldn't have been an auto-top off malfunction (think he mentioned something like 300+ gallons of freshwater needed for that kind of swing). Then he started talking about doing massive water changes (few hundred gallons per day), did he really have that much in storage? Did he buy it from a store?

Either way, he said he called the police after some evidence he found to suggest someone siphoned water out.

Hope he gets back in, sounds like he's got it down as far as keeping corals alive.

 

[jdeets]

Yes, the RO/DI was 35 gpd, I think, so with a siphon only, it would have taken days to drop the salinity that much, assuming it was a really slow siphon.

He said in the other thread there were salt stains in the street where a French drain empties into the gutter. Someone apparently put the water through that and added fresh water simultaneously. Pretty sick.

 

[FragMaster]

No one saw it either right?
I REALY feal bad for the guy honsestly I do.But there is obviously a huge piece of information missing here.
Why would he tell every one at the WMC he had no automated technology
on it and then turn around and post that he did on a public forum?
Why would some one want to take the time to drain his tank and fill it 3/4 the way with fresh water? It just dosent add up.

I just cant see some one getting that mad at him via a convention talk or a web forum spat.

It is REALY easy to make a fatal mistake with fraglie sps systems.
If you our I posted such seriously conflicting remarks like that we would
imediatly be seen as making up an excuse to cover our own mistake or somting.
I dont personaly know the guy so I cant eve begin to judge his character so please dont take this response that way.

Where is the other thread your talking about where he said there were salt stains in the street? I would like to read that one as well.

 

[Anonymous]

My auto-topoff did a similar thing to me a while back but the flooded basement was a dead giveaway. If the sump was outside it could have taken a few days for the ground to saturate.

 

[tazdevil]

FragMaster posted:

I just cant see some one getting that mad at him via a convention talk or a web forum spat.

I dunno, I've seen some pretty nasty one's once in a while that involved some very serious threats (and subsequent banning).

 

[FragMaster]

Guy: The sump was inside contained in a sump room not outside. The only thing that lead to the outside of the house was the skimmer waste
( or so he says in the post I quoted any way?)

 

[Anonymous]

Just for the acropora palmata alone it would make this a huge deal !!( for new reefers reading this its an endangered species)

It is not an Endangered Species.

 

[FragMaster]

Thats what these two site say:
http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/relea ... 5-022.html
ANd
http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/species/inv ... lkhorn.htm

 

[Anonymous]

Read much? Those sites say it is being ESA considered. In fact, there are workshops on the matter very soon. Sorry. There is considerable opposition to this happening, so don't jump the gun there trigger.

 

[Anonymous]

Chris,
Why would there be opposition to A. palmata/cervicornis being listed under the ESA? :?

 

[Kalkbreath]

Because it would give the envirowackos the legal means to stop human activities near or around the species. (like boating and swimming)
Imagine the Florida Keys with a no water contact law designed to protect the Corals.
It happened with the snail darter, Spotted Owl and others.
IM all for tighter environmental rules, its just that its a rear case when the laws actually work to protect the target.
Spotted owls like new growth forests, yet its old growth that are being protected to safe guard the owl........actually hurts the owls because they dont nest in old growth forests they like new growth areas like those associated with logging industry.
Spotted owls like the logging industry.
The stag corals in the Keys actually benefited from the human activities on the islands for the first 3/4 of the 1900s.
there were few coral reefs in 1900 when development began . Seemed the more Mr Flagler plowed up the land in the Keys to build the railroad and hotels....the more the corals thrived.
Something else entered the water about 1977 though!
Corals started dying.
Seems human contact, boating and soil run off didn't effect the health of the corals in a negative way for seventy-five years, There were few rules about touching corals or soil erosion back then , yet the corals thrived and seemed to benefit from human activities?
Yet the envirowackos seem to over look this history lesson and concentrate on restricting human contact as a way to save the corals from their current demise.
History has proven that its not boating or touching thats at the root of dying Caribbean reefs.
Adopting feel good measures like the spotted owl protection laws is mindless fruitless adventure we ought not take with the Caribbean corals.
Yet if this coral is inducted into the hall of shame (ESA) both the tourists and the coral will loose.
The root of the dying Caribbean is terrestrial sewage coming into the Gulf from the Mississippi.
But what are the chances of the government banning activities up and down the Heartland which effect the corals in the Keys.......?

 

[FragMaster]

ESA considered

Potatos/ Pot"A"tos.
Either way you look at it, it's well on its way there.

 

[Anonymous]

Chris,
Why would there be opposition to A. palmata/cervicornis being listed under the ESA? :?

It's difficult to protect something when you don't know what you are protecting it from, how you're going to accomplish said protection, or whether your protection will do anything positive. It is not known why Caribbean Acroporids experienced such a massive wipeout and are still failing. It can be argued that in this situation, if you put this coral on the ESA list, you essentially condemn it to extinction: ESA protection means an incredible difficulty in the study of these organisms by anyone. The argument here is to identify the actual causes of death (which we know for every other ESA species) before you begin to think about how you can implement effective regulations and protocal.

Tell me how ESA protection is going to give Caribbean Acroporids any more protection than they already have given our current knowledge of why they are dying (which is essentially none)? Will ESA stop white band disease? Will ESA stop hurricanes? Will ESA stop blackwater events and red tide?

 

[Anonymous]

ESA considered

Potatos/ Pot"A"tos.
Either way you look at it, it's well on its way there.

You've shown yourself to be pretty good at posting misinformation in the on-topic forums here. It's irritating and its a bad thing, so you should probably stop.

 

[FragMaster]

ESA considered

Potatos/ Pot"A"tos.
Either way you look at it, it's well on its way there.

You've shown yourself to be pretty good at posting misinformation in the on-topic forums here. It's irritating and its a bad thing, so you should probably stop.

You have shown yourself to be quite the antagonist.
I say they are well on thier way to endagerment and you state I am posting missinformtion.
WOW ya got me detective,as well as the CBD (Center for Biological Diversity; who incedently are the ones who petitioned the ESA on march 4th 2004 to list them as threatened or endagnered.) and the ESA who
determined they had enough proof to warrant the investigation and possible listing.
GOOD JOB!!!!

You need to get over your self.

 

[ChrisRD]

Please keep the conversation civil guys. There's some good information being presented here that I'm sure many of us are interested in reading - let's keep it going.