hey andy,
i do understand the frustration. i remember we talked about the rtn's both of us were running into but mine did stop after losing several colonies. i never did find out the main culprit. it was just a calm before the storm....oh was it ever the tempest of a storm.
i had a devastating crash this past november. the classic story of kalk nuking the tank. i lost all but one sps ...a cyphastrea. lost most of the other corals. and only a handful of fish survived. i would say 85-90% lost of livestock. i have had the ups and downs but this took the wind out of me. i thought about giving it all up. but day by day as i was going through the motion of water changes trying to save as many survivors as i could, things got a little better each day.
i still can't bring myself to post the pics. of the carnage. even though there's an emptiness every time i think of what had happened, i would just walk over to look at the tank and appreciate what had survived. three of the first salt water purchases i made are still residing in my box of ocean....a pistol shrimp, a purple tang, and the damned indestructible button polyps that i had tried to eradicate numerous times.
hang it there....i know it's tough but once you got saltwater running through your veins, you will always long for your own personal piece of the sea. every time you see the one that's rtn'ing, look at others that are still in there and appreciate them.
gl and lmk if there's anything i can do to help.
-tom
