Please share your experiences.
I have a few, but these two are pretty epic. In 2004, a friend of my roommate (who slept on my couch for free for 3 months) decided to poor bleach in my 180 gallon FOWLR. I lost 200 lbs of live rock and live sand, crosshatch trigger pair, 13 anthias, goldflake angel, zebra eel, harlequin tusk, and a few other random fish. In total, I lost over $4000 in livestock. Everything was white! I filed a police report and according to the police officer who investigated, he told me that "fish aren't considered animals" so I couldn't file for animal cruelty nor could I prove that he poured the bleach in the tank. He denied everything then.
Next, I got the 180 up again 2 years later as a beautiful and nearly matured reef, filled with large colonies. In January 2007 we had a huge snowstorm and I was staying over at my girlfriend's home (now wife) 20 miles away. We got 3' of snow in less than 2 days and I was snowed in and the power to my house was off. When I came home, I expected the power to be back on as it typically does within a few hours, but this wasn't the case. The power was out for over 24 hours and the water temperature was 63 degrees. The house smelled like death and rotten fish. It took 2 weeks to air it out and move back in. I lost 200 lbs of rock again, 200 lbs of sand again, an 18" clam (thanks again Luis!), 48 frags and very large colonies, 18 fish. The only fish that survived was a redtail trigger and a zebra moray eel. They immediately went to the fish store and were re-homed. I took a 6 hear hiatus from the hobby after this one.
Since then, the fish stores have crashed two of my tanks during vacations, making it a total of 4 complete rebuilds in the past decade. Happy Reefing!
I have a few, but these two are pretty epic. In 2004, a friend of my roommate (who slept on my couch for free for 3 months) decided to poor bleach in my 180 gallon FOWLR. I lost 200 lbs of live rock and live sand, crosshatch trigger pair, 13 anthias, goldflake angel, zebra eel, harlequin tusk, and a few other random fish. In total, I lost over $4000 in livestock. Everything was white! I filed a police report and according to the police officer who investigated, he told me that "fish aren't considered animals" so I couldn't file for animal cruelty nor could I prove that he poured the bleach in the tank. He denied everything then.
Next, I got the 180 up again 2 years later as a beautiful and nearly matured reef, filled with large colonies. In January 2007 we had a huge snowstorm and I was staying over at my girlfriend's home (now wife) 20 miles away. We got 3' of snow in less than 2 days and I was snowed in and the power to my house was off. When I came home, I expected the power to be back on as it typically does within a few hours, but this wasn't the case. The power was out for over 24 hours and the water temperature was 63 degrees. The house smelled like death and rotten fish. It took 2 weeks to air it out and move back in. I lost 200 lbs of rock again, 200 lbs of sand again, an 18" clam (thanks again Luis!), 48 frags and very large colonies, 18 fish. The only fish that survived was a redtail trigger and a zebra moray eel. They immediately went to the fish store and were re-homed. I took a 6 hear hiatus from the hobby after this one.
Since then, the fish stores have crashed two of my tanks during vacations, making it a total of 4 complete rebuilds in the past decade. Happy Reefing!