Fish tragedy in the Holmes-Farley tank

[Rybren]

Sorry Randy. On the brighter side, this may have just opened the door to allow that tank upgrade that you've been just dying to do. (you know that you want an upgrade, every reefer does no matter what size tank they have)

 

[Rjramos]

Sorry to hear Randy! With all due respect reef maestro, I have never understood why so much extra water volume on a 120gal display to the basement. I'm sure that return pump is working extra hard to work against the head pressure. Many of us, including myself (also a 120 gal), run everything right underneath the tank in the cabinet and maintain beautiful tanks with great parameters. I think I might have read, that you don't do water changes with your set up?

 

[reefwiser]

One of the reason that I started my local club in 1985. Having someone you know that can know what to do when your out of town is important.

 

[redfishbluefish]

Randy, sorry for your losses. I say pull yourself up by your bootstraps and get back into the game!

 

[gcrance]

No body ever wants to have a major tank failure or even a little one, but i always took these as signs that things had been band aided together for to long and it was time for an overhaul to clean everything up and re implement all that i had learned from that system into a new system. Maybe even to go in a different direction. I think with your science guy no how and years in the hobby you should do a fan inspired system. Let the r2r community provide the build out via a thread and put it into action. Just my two cents. Bet you could get those ATM guys to do a special on you. Although the tank would prob fail in 6 months but tv time none the less

 

[Mike in CT]

I think if Randy and the guys from Tanked were in the same room together, the world might implode.

 

[Reefing Madness]

Thats Murphys Law!! When your away, its bound to happen.
Get NEW FISH, can't be breaking down any system!!!

 

[Nano sapiens]

Sorry to hear about this, but most of us who have been in the hoby have a similar story (mine was a sea cucumber that visited a powerhead while I was on vacation...near total loss).

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Sorry to hear this Randy! Last week my return pump shut off as well but I was able to catch it before anything suffered to bad. The water had gotten pretty chilly. The pump was on but it wasn't moving water. Add my new Vectra pump over the weekend.

 

[scardall]

Also sorry about your adventure. Does someone make a pump flow sensor you can incorporate into your Apex System?

 

[beaslbob]

sorry to hear














(but really kind glad even experienced, advanced, well respected, reefing Gods sometimes have problems.)

 

[Paul B]

I just built a pump flow/shut off switch/sensor for my water cooled LEd fixture. I tested it and it works great.

 

[skrivan]

wow....sorry to hear about that. I had a very similar thing happen this past summer. I traced the problem down to the "doser" which also controls the ATO pump. When the water level dropped in sump, no ATO happened. Return pump went dry. I too, had some very emotional losses. It took me about 6 weeks and many water changes to get back to normal. Ammonia skyrocketed. Thankfully my purple tang survived. Lost a powder brown though, and quite a few corrals. I'm sure system you will come back stronger......condolences.....joe

 

[GainesvilleReef]

Sorry Randy. I suffered a velvet outbreak about a year and half ago. Took every fish I had. Restarted the tank a year ago. Took the fallow time to rebuild everything. Could not be happier now.

 

[Reduck]

That's a tough one. Sorry for the fish loss. I'm betting you'll be right back at it figuring out a way for this not to happen again.
That's one of the joys of this hobby. Keeps you on your toes constantly!

 

[oscarinw]

This only proves that things like this happen to even the very best.

 

[Newb73]

It seems to me if you have a few good wave makers the better solution might be to have the wife set the thermostat to 76 and just wait it out till one gets home.

What ato are you using? Like you, my system would only keep working about 4 days without the ato before the return started catching air.

I some times will add an extra 5 gallons of Rodi to the sump if no one's going to be home a few days.

 

[Bruce Burnett]

Really sorry to hear, my setup is simple no heater or chiller needed, no gfi either. My son left for 8 days on vacation and he got home to a smelly house, everything dead. He figured the gfi failed just hours after he left. My only concern is a power failure over 5 hours which reminds me I need a time delay for my skimmer.
As it shows it can happen to anyone and usually does if we are in the hobby long enough.

 

[Cory]

That's unfortunate im sorry to hear that. On the bright side, it wasnt the whole tank.

I once killed off my whole tank assuming a small peice of uncured cement would raise alkalinity over time.

Id be inclined to have a substrate free/detritus free tank after that

Fwiw, with an Apex you could turn on and off your pumps via cell phone when your away.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thanks for the comments folks.

The tank seems to be stagbilized and everything aside from the two fish and the macroalgae in one refugium are fine. I decided to remove that refugium anyway since I don't think it was useful and may have been the major source of H2S since it was not plumbed in line with everything else.