Well, it's been some time since I updated this, but I thought it was fair for people to know -- mainly because I used to hate seeing threads of old members' builds just drop off the radar.
I wish I had better news to say, but......this tank experienced a massive heat-related crash in August when my central AC was out for almost a full week. I tried keeping it cool w/ frozen RODI bags, but the cumulative heat + reduced light caused a systemwide crash that LITERALLY happened in the space of 24 hours. It was heartbreaking to watch. One evening, looked at the tank before bed, thinking, "OK, corals look stressed, but tank is still OK," and the next morning waking up to a cloudy tank of decaying coral tissue and dead fish. I presume that a few corals nuked themselves, causing a drop in O2, killing fish, causing more pollutants in the water, killing....basically everything else.
I WAS able to save a few corals that next morning by hauling them out of the main display and putting them in the bedroom tank (the bedroom was cooler than the rest of the house). Some of my easier SPS corals made it out, along with some of the zoas. Naturally, all my acros didn't make it. Much of the plating Montis were encrusted and couldn't be removed, but I was able to get a few frags of the plates off. LPS like my nuclear frogspawn and golden torch didn't live through it either. As for fish......only 2 fish survived the micro-ELE. Ironically they were fish you'd consider "delicate," but....hey, I'm not complaining. My blue-spot jawfish and my African Leopard wrasse both lived. As did, VERY surprisingly, my blue Linkia sea star. But all the other fish, some of which I've had for years (including my beautiful and GIANT Mystery wrasse and my fat'n'happy Potter's angel), all passed away that day.
You can imagine how I felt. I actually had the tank up for sale for a couple months, with just those fish in it, since I didn't have the heart to re-stock. I took care of my bedroom tank but left the big display alone. Didn't care how much caulerpa grew in there, didn't dose the system, nada. Just fed the fish and went on my way, not looking at that corner of the house. It's as though a family member died, and we didn't know what to do with their room. We didn't want to deal with it, but it stubbornly refused to just go away on its own.
Fast forward to a few weeks ago. I've finally made the decision that (1) nobody is going to pay me even half of what the system is worth, and (2) even if I don't bring it back to its full glory, at the very least I can clean it up and add a little color and movement in the tank so it's enjoyable to look at again. I spent a full day doing a marathon algae pruning session, did a couple large water changes, and got the skimmer cleaned up. Fortunately just as I was making this decision, a local reefer here was getting rid of a few fish, including a Desjardini sailfin that he'd had for 3 years. Excellent. Free fish to start in on the caulerpa control, and I don't even have to QT him. I also hit up a local shop for a few cheap frags (dragonsoul favia for $15?? Yes PLEASE!) and added 2 fish to the QT system -- a McCosker's for the big tank, and a small blue-eye Kole for the small tank. Both of these are actually due to come out of QT this weekend.
So, get set for some pictures in the coming weeks. It won't look like it did, but hopefully, it won't look bad either.