give me your reefing horror stories

[Zoaeasy]

Getting into the hobby in the first place.

Haha true

 

[Wiz]

Deciding to clean the sand bed on a 16 Nuvo that was running fantastically well and required almost no maintenance. Big Nem with clown and hundreds of Zoas. Returned later to a stinking tank full of dead corals dying Nem and dead clown. Either always vacuum your sand bed or never!

Just curious... how deep was sand

 

[Lonny]

Wow, thanks for sharing that. I sand bed is about 2"deep.I didn't know it could be a death trap. I will definitely keep up with cleaning it.

I had not vacuumed it for more than a year and I have read this builds up major amounts of Amonia , sulfur and nitrate , nitrite. The whole tank crashed overnight.

 

[Duke4Life]

My eel escaped into my overflow a few days after getting, well in the process he makes himself onto the floor and a few feet down a vent. My arm was as far as it could get in the vent, luckily it bit me and I was able to grab. Got him and threw directly in tank covered in dust, dog hair and who knows what else. Next day he ate and alls been good since. Another quarter inch and he was gone bye bye. I got very lucky.

 

[human]

I noticed salt creep on the back right corner of my 75G, didn't really think too much of it bc it was below a HOB overflow so I assumed it was just from water splashing down and my sump sat on the floor on that side. Well I assumed wrong, I left for a 10 day vacation, when I got back home, the instant I opened the door I smelled that familiar odor of dead rotting snails. The seal on the bottom right had split, draining my tank completely. I lost everything except what was in my refugium and a longnose hawkfish that I presumed was dead bc it disappeared a few weeks after I put it in my DT. I found it in the drain pipe.

 

[kschweer]

Hurricane sandy. I was evacuated and not allowed back home for 8-9 days. Left this

Came home to this

Just about left the hobby after but I'm glad I didn't.

 

[Zoaeasy]

Just curious... how deep was sand

About an inch

 

[Wiz]

One inch and you think that was the cause? Did you have any sandsifters? An inch is very little to have trapped poisonous gas.

 

[Wiz]

Hurricane sandy. I was evacuated and not allowed back home for 8-9 days. Left this

Came home to this

Just about left the hobby after but I'm glad I didn't.

Wow. Sry man

 

[rayn]

I don't have one...all rainbows and ponies for me!



Guess my biggest horror story was from the beginning when I didn't know better to QT. Lost a whole tank of fish but one.

 

[Zoaeasy]

One inch and you think that was the cause? Did you have any sandsifters? An inch is very little to have trapped poisonous gas.

None and I did nothing else to cause the crash.