Texas Strong - Entry 45

Greg
09.03.21 11:36 PM Comment(s)

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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