Crashed tank - Top off ran for 2 days

[Scott Stapels]

Very sad weekend. I crashed my tank. Something I have note done in 15 years of reefing before. In the last year I switched from having a maintenance company to taking care of everything myself again. Was very careful, had double and triple safety checks on everything. Then I had trouble with My Kessil 380. Fan stopped working so it was overheating and turning it self off. The good news is that it was under warranty and they agreed to send replacement. The bad news is that while focusing on the issue with the light, I changed habits, and unknowingly took my safety levels down.

I share this as a reminder to everyone to keep your vigilance, especially when you change someone on your routine.

In order to better access my refugium I stopped filling my new mixing barrels (trash can) so I could move it. Somehow forgot to turn the heater off though and it burned through bottom creating a holeI used this mixing barrel to top off my take as well. So I moved the output of the 200 GPD RODI system from the barrel to the filter. Here it did not have the auto shut off.

Set timer and refilled the water that evaporated. Turned off the valve (or so I thought) and left the tank. Next day had work and son's activities.

Unfortunately I turned off the wrong valve. My RODI goes to mixing barrel and to ATO (currently disabled) So instead of turning the water to the filter off, I o filled my ATO tank.

The following day I noticed the tank did not look right. Went into the basement filter room and saw what happened. Salt was almost not registering when testes. Fish I have had for more than a decade and most of the corals (some look like there is a chance they will make it - but maybe not)

saddest day in my reefing career

 

[BestMomEver]

Im so sorry. I can only imagine how devastating that is. I hope you rebuild it. If you do, start a build thread and ask any question you have. Also, I don’t think we’ve met.... welcome to the reef!

 

[Retro Reefer]

This is heartbreaking.. sorry for your losses Thank you for sharing with the community, maybe others will read this and be extra cautious to avoid the same issue.

 

[FugeTown]

Sorry about your loss man, I’ve had 2 crashes happen both when I returned from vacation it’s definitely the worst reefing experience to have to go through. I almost switched to (nobody panic) FRESH WATER tank but thank God I jusmped back into the reef scenes cause my tank is healthy and thriving again. I wish you the best of luck man and again sorry for that horrible loss.

 

[Squidward]

Wow this is a horrible story. Sorry for your losses. Care to share a pic of the tank in its glory?

 

[Scott Stapels]

Appreciate everyones comments. I had professional maintenance for most of the time and took over the maintenance of my tank at the beginning of the year as I was unhappy with how it was kept up so it was just getting to the point that I would take pictures to be proud of and had not done any photography yet. I will try to take pictures and create a build thread (rebuild). 120 gallon display tank with 200 gallons in a basement filtration system

 

[Silent]

I understand how you feel. I'm just coming back from a 3 year hiatus due to a mishap while on vacation. You will recover. It happens to many of us.

 

[Kyuss414]

So sorry to hear. Goes to show that complacency for even a moment can have disastrous results, and happens to everyone at some point IMO, some just get lucky the implications aren't as bad as others.

I manually dose my tank and I'm always worried about dosing the wrong thing as I have my two part in similar containers, albeit marked. I always tell myself to slow down and think thru what I'm doing (ie dosing calcium, not for alkalinity, etc) and then double and triple check which I'm grabbing and measuring out to dose. I've still caught myself about to screw up a few times after getting distracted by someone else in the house or on the phone.

Been there, done that on the melting a hole thru a Brute can before too.