Cade USA - Blog by GregCade USA - Blog by Greghttps://www.cadeusa.com/blogs/author/gregMon, 02 Mar 2026 23:51:45 -0800http://zoho.com/sites/<![CDATA[Texas Strong - Entry 46]]>https://www.cadeusa.com/blogs/post/texas-strong-entry-46

Tyler A. - Entry #46

Hey there, I’ve been in the hobby for almost 6 years, but I recently upgraded from a 30 biocube to a 90 gallon custom reef tank in August of last year. My story starts of like most, but unfortunately I was also battling my first experience with Marine Velvet. I know, like most beginners I weight the pros and cons of a full Quarantine or pest management, and chose the easier route. I fought the first outbreak with great success, installed a UB sterilizer, and all my fish looked great. My 2nd outbreak started just one week before the freeze. I went 5 days with no power. I located a old generator day 2, rebuilt the carburetor ( it had been stored since Hurricane Ike with no use), but was unable to get it running. I was able to run my heater and a small power head off the AC convert or on my truck, but this just wouldn’t generate enough power to successfully heat the tank. By day 2 my house was in the low 50’s and the tank got broke into the 60’s. By day 4 the tank reached 65 degrees, with my house getting all the way to 41 degrees.

The marine velvet exploded on the 2nd day. Taking out one clown fish, and a leopard wrasse. On day 3 I lost my yellow tang, kohle tang, and neon dottyback. By day 4 I had lost all of my fish including another clown, and my angel fish.

On a great note all of my coral survived in is now doing just fine! If I were to be selected I would use this tank to safely Quarantine all new fish, going into my main tank. Currently I’m waiting 2 months to add back any fish. Once I’m finished using it as a quarantine tank I have always wanted to have a anemone clown tank!

Thank you for your consideration!

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]]>Tue, 09 Mar 2021 23:39:25 -0700<![CDATA[Texas Strong - Entry 45]]>https://www.cadeusa.com/blogs/post/texas-strong-entry-45

Blythe D. - Entry #45

My name is Blythe Dyson and I was effected by the snow storm here in Austin Texas. I had a 65 gallon aquarium with a ghost overflow, bean style plumbing and 20 gallon long sump. During the first day I was without power for 14 hours. During this time I was able to rig up a power invert to connect to my pickup truck however since it was only an inverter and not a generator I couldn’t have it on the entire time. I had to rotate 30 minutes on and 2 hours off so it didn’t mess up my battery and effect my truck. I wrapped my tank in cling wrap and blankets to try and conserve enough heat as possible however it still couldn’t get up past 63 degrees since my house was around 50. Everything started to go downhill about 9 hours in. My heater had failed from the constant on and off as did my protein skimmer. I then started boiling water and dumping it in to help heat the tank since I didn’t have a heater and that worked for a bit until I had to go to bed and just couldn’t keep up. The next morning the power was back on with constant rolling black outs and I still couldn’t heat my tank properly due to loosing my heater and not having a back up. I tried to keep up with boiling water again but there was just no way I had to just let nature take its course. I pretty much lost all of my corals (acro frags of Walt disney, red rage, pink caddy, pearl berry, rainbow Millie and many more as well as lps corals like my 2 lobo corals, frogspawn, orange mouth plates, gonis etc), my yellow tang, coral beauty angel, and my rainbow bubble tip anemone. I also lost my heater, reef octopus protein skimmer and my return pump. This has been the hardest loss by far! I probably lost somewhere around $3000 if not more and there’s just no realistic way for me to start back up right now. I would love to be chosen for this amazing giveaway. I am truly humbled by the reefing community and everything they have been trying to do for us Texas folks! I will include pictures of what my tank looked like before the crash and the aftermath. I am still in the process of tearing everything down and cleaning everything out. Thank you guys so much for this opportunity!!

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]]>Tue, 09 Mar 2021 23:36:53 -0700<![CDATA[Texas Strong - Entry 44]]>https://www.cadeusa.com/blogs/post/texas-strong-entry-44

Duke N. - Entry #44

My power, like many, was shut off Tuesday 2/16 and within a 24 hour span it only came on for less than 3 hours total. Of course my generator decided to stop working, but I was able to get two bubblers going. Pulled out my propane burner and started a rotation of warm water bottles in hopes of saving my fishes/coral. My wife, toddler, infant, elderly mom, and myself had to camp out in the living that night in front of our fireplace. The next day our house dropped to 41°F and I had to make a decision to move everyone out of the house. We finally got back into my house Thursday to find two broken pipes. But this was not even the worst part about the week. My dad has been in the ICU trying to recover from a quadruple bypass. That Friday I had to make a decision to put him on hospice and bring him home with us. He was so happy to see my mom and his grand kids one last time, but we lost him that Saturday. Within 24 hours, my mom loss her battle with stage 4 lung cancer.

Overall, my 75 gallon quarantine tank in the garage was a complete loss. Inside the house, 4 clown loaches that were at least 18 years old died and too many corals to count including a Uranium and OG Bounce and a few high end torches. But the biggest disappointment was my daughter’s 25 gallon clown tank. Which little girl doesn’t like her Nemo? The tank sits in front of her bedroom and she’s been asking about grandma and her fishes. I can’t bring back grandma, but I promised her we’ll rebuild her tank once things have settled down a little. So this would be her tank if we won. Thank you for putting on such a generous giveway and we appreciate everything you are doing for the fish community.

-Duke

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]]>Tue, 09 Mar 2021 23:34:23 -0700<![CDATA[Texas Strong - Entry 43]]>https://www.cadeusa.com/blogs/post/texas-strong-entry-43

Lorri S. - Entry #43

My daughter and I had 13 tanks. Eleven fresh and 2 saltwater. We lost all the fresh except for 3 figure 8 puffers, 2 gold fish, and a cat. The really sad loss was the saltwater. We had built up a 125 and a 50 over the past few years. I had just lost a 32 cube when it busted open at a corner and combined what I could salvage into the other two tanks. We had a lot of corals in the 50, breed clowns with eggs, clam, scallop, numerous acans, pajamas, a mandarin that i painstakingly trained to eat frozen foods and so many more all lost. The 125 had what we learned to be a very expensive yellow tang, a new black anhle, lots of chromis, beautiful wrasses, and a school of pajamas. We lost all in both tanks except for a blenny in each and oddly one pajama fish. We tried blankets, heaters off my truck battery, everything we could but the house got below 30 when it was -2 outside without power. Ercot and Garland power and light were amd are pointing fingers but that doesn't replace the years of family we lost.

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]]>Tue, 09 Mar 2021 23:32:18 -0700<![CDATA[Texas Strong - Entry 42]]>https://www.cadeusa.com/blogs/post/texas-strong-entry-42

David S. - Entry #42

I’ve been in the Army for 20 years, the last 7 I’ve traveled from NY to DC to CA to WA to Texas and taken my 15 gallon reef with me, sleeping in my truck to keep it warm or cool and ensure I got to my next home as quick as possible with minor loses each time if any. During the storm I wrapped it with blankets and used boiled water in bags to try and keep temp up, not losing anything.

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]]>Tue, 09 Mar 2021 23:29:50 -0700<![CDATA[Texas Strong - Entry 41]]>https://www.cadeusa.com/blogs/post/texas-strong-entry-41

Derak R. - Entry #41

After we lost power I pit blankets over the windows, and tried to insulate the tank with jackets. I attempted to move tge water sirface by hand fir oxygen exchange but I'm a police officer so I only had a few hours a day when i wasn't at work and i was trying to chop firewood and keep the family warm with the rest of my time. I wasn't able to do as much as I wanted to try and save my tank. I lost 2 mocha clowns, 1 yellow watchman goby, 1 neon dottyback, and a royal grama. I also lost my emerald crab but mu decorator crab some how made it. I had 15 coral in the tank 7 of which I put in the tank 2 days prior to to the power going out. I had got them from a live sale and did not expect to lose power. I lost all the coral except for my gsp lol. I lost a holographic hammer, fire lamellosa, rav4 chalice, 3 duncans, a small zoa colony, finger leather, red monti, green monti, sky blue mushrooms, cursed candy cane, crypto candy cane, and firework cloves. The only survivers are my rock flower anemone "fighter", decorator crab , gsp, and my clean up crew. With all the problems that the freeze has caused I will probably not be able to start my tank again in the near future. All the parameters are all over the place and I'm going to have to try to get whats left to my lfs. Thank you for supporting the community even if I don't win I know someone deserving will.

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]]>Tue, 09 Mar 2021 23:26:07 -0700<![CDATA[Texas Strong - Entry 40]]>https://www.cadeusa.com/blogs/post/texas-strong-entry-40

Steve S. - Entry #40

Like so many others in Texas we were impacted by the winter storm and endured freezing temperatures without power. I had installed an Icecap battery backup which did buy me some time but that too soon ran out, My recently set up reef tank was at about 55 degrees with newly stocked corals and a pair of clown fish. I felt helpless! The clown fish were not doing well and I knew I had to do something. We had a fire going as our only source of heat. I was able to get the fish into a 2..5 gallon bucket and put near the fire to raise the temperature. The whole family took turns blowing bubbles int0 the bucket through a tube, we did this for over a day to try and save them. We all stayed huddled in front of that fireplace for days, along with our Shih Tzu and Green Cheek Conure. I am happy to say the clown fish survived and so did most of the corals (so did all the other pets!). Thoughts go out to others that were not as lucky!

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]]>Tue, 09 Mar 2021 23:24:18 -0700<![CDATA[Texas Strong - Entry 39]]>https://www.cadeusa.com/blogs/post/texas-strong-entry-39

Julio G. - Entry #39

I always had a dream to have a reef tank but that never works out for me because I never had the money to buy the tank I wanted I have one reef aquarium it is 20 gallons but with that aquarium I lost a lot of money and a lot of fish and corals because of the tank and bad filters I have a regular filter that you can hang on the back but that filter is not good for the reef aquarium my dream is to have a good aquarium with good filters thank you.

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]]>Tue, 09 Mar 2021 23:22:17 -0700<![CDATA[Texas Strong - Entry 38]]>https://www.cadeusa.com/blogs/post/texas-strong-entry-38

Julio G. - Entry #38

I just started with this hobby 4 months ago and I lost all my corals, the temperature get so low and no power killed all, I lost 6 xenias pump pump and 3 Kenya trees and one coral sun, I’m need to start saving money again to buy new corals and restart my aquarium.

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]]>Tue, 09 Mar 2021 23:20:35 -0700<![CDATA[Texas Strong - Entry 37]]>https://www.cadeusa.com/blogs/post/texas-strong-entry-37

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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