Fish tragedy in the Holmes-Farley tank

[Newb73]

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

Apex has once coming out any time now. I will ne putting one on each of my returns

 

[Newb73]

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.

You can set an apex with a upc to notify you that power has gone out


That reminds me, I need to pick up a upc for the modem.

 

[Bruce Burnett]

No apex controller, my system is simple. I could use a UPS. I think Randy is right his refugium was cause of fish death. Getting email notifications are great if someone that knows what to do has access to your home when you are gone. In most cases, like everyone says failure happens when you are farthest away. You get an email of the failure and by the time it takes to get home disaster has already hit. Might be better off not knowing until you return home instead of ruining a vacation. I just moved and my fish were in a brute trash can for 4 days no air or pumps. Usually a mass die off of bacteria and plankton causing loss of oxygen in water as what would happen in a refugium or pellet reactor with loss of water flow.

 

[Nano Doc]

We all know the feeling, don't we?
On my birthday I got a camera monitor that can be accessed over a smartphone anytime any day. I have aimed it at the DT to see if lights are on and water is moving. I am planning to add 2 more, one aimed at the sump, and the other one at the refugium, maybe a better resolution one. You know, Christmas is just around the corner..
The more complicated the system, the more cameras you need to keep track of, soon it will look like NSA jr. LOL

 

[fab]

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.

Randy, how was it plumbed? Did you run it in parallel with your display tank; i.e., using a feeder pump to fill the refugium from the sump and a gravity drain from the refugium back the sump?

Why do you believe the plumbing configuration contributed to your problem? I am very interested to know your thoughts on this as mine is plumbed this way, also.

Bad experiences do offer the opportunity to learn and improve our methods. You are a great teacher to us reefers already. I hope we can learn from you on this one, too, even though it is at your expense.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Randy, how was it plumbed? Did you run it in parallel with your display tank; i.e., using a feeder pump to fill the refugium from the sump and a gravity drain from the refugium back the sump?

Why do you believe the plumbing configuration contributed to your problem? I am very interested to know your thoughts on this as mine is plumbed this way, also.

Bad experiences do offer the opportunity to learn and improve our methods. You are a great teacher to us reefers already. I hope we can learn from you on this one, too, even though it is at your expense.

Yes, that's how it was plumbed, and the circulation to the refugium stopped when the sump level dropped below the intake of the pump sending water to it.

That refugium was about 2/3 full of rock, with water normally entering at the bottom and leaving at the top. It also had quite substantial sediment collected in it.

So without any flow, I think it became anaerobic and produced H2S. Then when the flow restarted, I think that H2S went into the main system and display tank.

I am actually in the process of taking the whole system down, but in the future I think I won't use rock filled refugia because I think they trap too much detritus, and while my husbandry techniques keep nutrients just fine, I think a problem like happened here could happen again, and I'm not sure the refugia added all that much once I deal with nitrate by carbon dosing or growing macroalgae. (or both).

 

[scardall]

Sorry to hear about your catastrophe Randy. I think you mentioned you have an area in you filtration that has some rock and that collects detritus. Also it might of been a source for hydrogen sulfide (stinky)FWIW Idea: Keep a Eheim hobby pump(always on) in that area to keep water flowing, as a backup plus . I use peppermint shrimp to eliminate the Aiptasia.

 

[Dr_Steve]

Similar thing happened to me. I now use a two pump system. 2 identical pumps side by side, each with a check valve and both feeding into a Y connector(upside down). If one pump fails, the other takes over. The level in the sump rises slightly( due to decreased overall flow)which kicks off a float switch in the sump so I know one pump has failed. So far so good.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Similar thing happened to me. I now use a two pump system. 2 identical pumps side by side, each with a check valve and both feeding into a Y connector(upside down). If one pump fails, the other takes over. The level in the sump rises slightly( due to decreased overall flow)which kicks off a float switch in the sump so I know one pump has failed. So far so good.

That's a good idea.

 

[Dr_Steve]

 

[Rybren]

I am actually in the process of taking the whole system down, but in the future I think I won't use rock filled refugia because I think they trap too much detritus, and while my husbandry techniques keep nutrients just fine, I think a problem like happened here could happen again, and I'm not sure the refugia added all that much once I deal with nitrate by carbon dosing or growing macroalgae. (or both).

I like this line. Glad to see that you're at least thinking about another tank

 

[fab]

Return pump redundancy is central to my system design, also. I strongly recommend you incorporporate this failsafe into your setup whether it is a new setup or your existing one.

I use three identical dc pumps plumbed independently in parallel to return water to the display tank; i.e., no manifold on the discharge side... and no check valves.

That allows some downsizing of each pump's flow rate requirement, thus smaller pumps. And the pump's do not have to be matched at all.

I try to to operate each pump near its best operating point (BOP) to assure maximum pump life and lowest electical operating cost. If a pump fails I only lose its portion of the total return flow rate until the pump is fixed.

If a pump becomes noisy I can adjust its impeller speed to try tuning out the noise in the cases where it would be due to cavitation or possibly a frequency dependent mechanical vibration. Recognize, though, that tuning out vibration may only be a bandaid, not a cure for an underlying problem. On the other hand if the noise is actually cavitation induced then the pump is probably operating to the right of its best efficiency point anyway, so tuning that out would benefit the pump's longevity.