Has your tanked ever crashed?

[Matthew Morrison]

All you reefers with years of experience in this hobby I have a question for you!

Have you ever had mass fish/coral/livestock die right before your eyes and felt helpless to stop it. You watch your hard work, time, energy, and money die one by one.

Has this ever happened?
How long was the tank running at the time?
What was your best guess as to the cause?
What did you change moving forward?

Please share share your experience!

 

[Rakie]

My very first tank crashed when I was in middle school. I'm fond of remembering I saved lunch money to start this hobby... Anywho, had a 10 gallon for a few years, a mishmash of everything. This was PC Lighting and Rio pumps way back when. So back then people still used "Pounds of rock/sand per gallon", and following the tried and true formula gave me like 20lbs of rock and sand in my little tank.

Fast forward a few years, and I get a sand sifting goby. He causes a huge bacteria bloom overnight, woke up to toxic death soup. Whole tank dead, fish included.

That was my first two years in the hobby when I was like 14.

 

[Denisk]

Happened to me in April.

Running for a year fully stocked with sps.

I ended up moving into a house with my wife and I guess the transfer was too stressful. The sps just start stning and I couldn’t seem to get it to stop.

I got rid of all the remaining sps that weren’t affected and waited for my tank to settle out. Now things are back in order and back to sps I come haha.

 

[Scorpius]

Nope.

 

[Matthew Morrison]

Happened to me in April.

Running for a year fully stocked with sps.

I ended up moving into a house with my wife and I guess the transfer was too stressful. The sps just start stning and I couldn’t seem to get it to stop.

I got rid of all the remaining sps that weren’t affected and waited for my tank to settle out. Now things are back in order and back to sps I come haha.

What does STNing mean

 

[Denisk]

What does STNing mean

Slow Tissue necrosis, so my corals started just randomly losing tissue. Couldn’t figure out what the cause was other than me disturbing all the rocks when I did the move.

 

[reefes pieces]

My first encounter with red planaria. Tank was up for over a year. Didn't know what it was and didn't treat it until the population exploded. treated with flatworm exit and followed the instructions, however, I had way too many flatworms in my tank and saw everything die right in front of me within an hour. I learned the hard way. Treat early, treat fast, keep extra sw ready, and at the very least thoroughly dip your corals.

 

[DavidL]

Well, I did not have a HUGE crash, but a few days ago I replaced some equipment on my tank to help deal with some cyanobacteria, and the following night I had a small tank crash. I lost 3 fish out of the 8 fish in the tank, as well as my Ricordea coral. My remaining 5 fish are okay, but my xenia coral is barely holding on. The cause was most likely either a mini-cycle happened overnight or a chemical was on one of the pieces of equipment that I introduced. Moving forward, I will make sure to make changes slowly and thoroughly rinse any new equipment I add, as well as keep extra saltwater.

 

[Hammer100]

I had some windows and doors replaced and I’m not sure if it was fumes or what but within a couple days I had Dino’s, cyano and some other slime that covered everything in the tank. Lost most sps but no fish

 

[fish farmer]

Three day heatwave. I hadn't installed an A/C in my new apartment....I live in Vermont, some years I don't need A/C. I went on vacation for a week, the temps down at the beach were in upper 90's. I came back to a completely wiped out tank, all LPS were toast, skeletons with brown goo. I even think the algae had died off. Palys were ghost white. I recycled what I could....I still got the dang palys and some striped mushrooms 16 years later.

The really sad part is I was bringing back an A/C unit from my folk's house.

The tank was an upgrade from a 2 year old 38 gallon, I built a 55 setup, moved it properly and was running for two months before this happened. It took a long time for things to get back to normal....like maybe 10 years. I still have most of the same LR from that system and feel my tank is growing a lot like my first tank from 2000.

 

[AndrewB]

Ugghhh... thanks for bringing that up.

Yes, I had one crash overnight. Went to bed thinking everything was great. Looked good when the lights went out. I did a lot wrong dealing with dosing, not testing, not fully understanding why I was dosing what i was... etc.

Since then, I have stopped chasing numbers. I test and test again. I rely more on water changes instead of magical potions.

The tank was about 8 months old. Lost all corals, snails, anemones... but my fish survived.

It was heartbreaking. I started rebuilding that day. Cleaned sand, rocks, emptied water. All new scape. I'm a little over 2 months into this one again with fingers crossed.

 

[Matthew Morrison]

Nope.[/QUOTE
Never made a mistake? Perfect from day one?

 

[Matthew Morrison]

Nope.

Never made a mistake? Perfect from day one?

 

[Matthew Morrison]

My first encounter with red planaria. Tank was up for over a year. Didn't know what it was and didn't treat it until the population exploded. treated with flatworm exit and followed the instructions, however, I had way too many flatworms in my tank and saw everything die right in front of me within an hour. I learned the hard way. Treat early, treat fast, keep extra sw ready, and at the very least thoroughly dip your corals.

Where did you get your corals from?

 

[Matthew Morrison]

Well, I did not have a HUGE crash, but a few days ago I replaced some equipment on my tank to help deal with some cyanobacteria, and the following night I had a small tank crash. I lost 3 fish out of the 8 fish in the tank, as well as my Ricordea coral. My remaining 5 fish are okay, but my xenia coral is barely holding on. The cause was most likely either a mini-cycle happened overnight or a chemical was on one of the pieces of equipment that I introduced. Moving forward, I will make sure to make changes slowly and thoroughly rinse any new equipment I add, as well as keep extra saltwater.

What equipment did you replace?

 

[Matthew Morrison]

Ugghhh... thanks for bringing that up.

Yes, I had one crash overnight. Went to bed thinking everything was great. Looked good when the lights went out. I did a lot wrong dealing with dosing, not testing, not fully understanding why I was dosing what i was... etc.

Since then, I have stopped chasing numbers. I test and test again. I rely more on water changes instead of magical potions.

The tank was about 8 months old. Lost all corals, snails, anemones... but my fish survived.

It was heartbreaking. I started rebuilding that day. Cleaned sand, rocks, emptied water. All new scape. I'm a little over 2 months into this one again with fingers crossed.

Sounds like where I’m at. Not the dosing part but the crashing part where corals are not surviving and the ones that hold on don’t grow at all then one day they are nothing but skeletons. I believe the cause is never doing a water change the entire 7 months it’s been up and adding household purfied well water with likely about 150 tds as my ato. Maybe or maybe not. But all my parameters are and have been in check so the next step is brand new rodi setup and saltwater making and water change equipment and my plan is to do 20-50% water change this weekend and then 10% a week for a month then 20-30% a month every month from here on out

 

[LDH]

Yes. I moved to a new house. Did not realize the water was treated differently in the municipality just 10 minutes from my old house and had been slowly chloramine poisoning my tank to death. I am still dealing with it and was very sad when I realized the colonies I had been growing for years were a lost cause but I read Adam from @Battlecorals writeup about crashes being an opportunity to start a new and am trying to get excited about new corals. My tank was packed so I couldn't add any new ones for a long time but now there's room!

The worst part is that I spent tons of money on new pumps, probes, lights thinking it was faulty equipment or a stray current or not enough flow and turns out all I needed was a 9 dollar bottle of PRIME water conditioner to take the chloramines out. I now have a BRS 7 stage water filter so I don't have to go through this again but was painful for sure.

 

[markfmvl]

I lost most of a 90 this last July. It was tough. lost all but 3 fish. Two are still living in a separate tank. the only one left in the tank is a neon dottyback. It was caused by a large engineer blenny dying during a particularly busy time and it went unnoticed until other fish started disappearing. We did a water change and a cleanup, but the hair algae took over any way. did a second water change and a clean up just recently. dottyback is doing ok but for some reason I can't put snails in yet they just detatch from the glass. I am running carbon now in the chance that dying spunges put toxins in the tank. It is still puzzling.

 

[Katrina71]

NoPox, closed system. Lost most fish. Almost all coral survived.

 

[GoPitt88]

3 years ago, I converted my 55 gallon tank from freshwater to saltwater. I let it cycle properly, and thought I was doing everything correctly, BUT, once I started adding fish, I got impatient. My friend warned me that nothing good happens fast in a saltwater tank, but the meaning of that really didn’t sink in until I had a crash. I overstocked and way too quickly. The last fish I added was going to be my centerpiece.....a Kole tang. As soon as I added him to the tank, he acted strangely. Real nervous and hid a lot. In a couple days, I noticed white spots on him. Within 2 weeks, all fish were dead......I had lost over $500 in fish!! I NOW know the meaning of “Nothing good happens fast in a saltwater tank”. I went fallow for 9 weeks (I think), then slowly stocked the tank. I now have a mated pair of snowflake clowns, a coral beauty, Midas blenny, diamond goby, 6line wrasse, and 2 chromis. Haven’t lost a fish since my crash (knock on wood) [emoji4] I even have a clam now

Weird thing is.....the crash in some aspects was the best thing to happen to me.....it really taught me to respect his hobby and step-up my husbandry. I clean my filters and do a water change every weekend religiously.