I HATE VACATIONS!!

[Mr.Rocc]

Well, that title is decently dramatic but here is why.
So I just came back from vacation and hit a tank crash while I was gone. My ato shut off, my cheato reactor leaked, my skimmer shut off, this caused my phosphates to rise which eliminated a blue milli and my pink lemonade, my strawberry shortcake and blueberry fields are "RTNing". All this happened when I got back on Monday. Last but not least, my fish store is closed until Wednesday so I can't get RO water.....
I expected this to happen since that is how it works in this hobby. Once you leave for vacation you are gambling. The best part was, right before vacation my Apex shut off! I spent the whole day dealing with that!
Unfortunately, I lost 3 out of the 4 corals I bought from @BSA Corals a few months ago, But all and all I didn't get too burnt and my fish are alive.

I am posting this so no one feels that they are the only ones who deals with a tank crash. In March was my 16 years in reefing anniversary. It happens to everyone but your learn more and more how to prevent and fix the issue the more it happens.

Happy Reefing.

 

[TheEngineer]

Oh dang. That's awful Glad your fish pulled through.

That's a lot of equipment to fail all at once.

 

[Neo Jeo]

That's a lot all at once. I hope everything turns out ok. I wonder if you had a power surge.

 

[ZoWhat]

Dang dude.... sorry if this is like "after the horse left the barn"

Next time:

1) HIRE a LFS to come do service on your tank. It runs about $60 a visit....but worth not losing everything

2) buy an Apex.... yeah their like $800+ but its the BEST $800 you'll ever spend. I go from Ohio to Destin FL, and watch my tank 3 times a day from 725 miles away. If troubles brewing I would call my Mom to meet a LFS service guy at my house





.

 

[Mr.Rocc]

Dang dude.... sorry if this is like "after the horse left the barn"

Next time:

1) HIRE a LFS to come do service on your tank. It runs about $60 a visit....but worth not losing everything

2) buy an Apex.... yeah their like $800+ but its the BEST $800 you'll ever spend. I go from Ohio to Destin FL, and watch my tank 3 times a day from 725 miles away. If troubles brewing I would call my Mom to meet a LFS service guy at my house





.

I have an apex. Unfortunately, I spent so much time worrying about that before I left I didn't check the rest.

 

[Mr.Rocc]

All is well now. Im just trying to bring everything back around. Params are back in check!

 

[2Wheelsonly]

It feels like there is an outside force when it comes to crap like this; happened to me 5 out of 5 trips. It's either a vacation or work travel but it's for sure something will go wrong.

Trip one: 2008 (spent 1 week out for work) Kalk doser timer broke, dumped all alk into tank killed 100% corals and 2 fish
Trip two: 2010 (2 weeks out of town) Basement sump broke, worst rain storm (unexpected) in 30 years...basement filled with water and rain water into sump. Lots of losses

New house: 2016, electricity went out while I was in Florida on vacation all fish dead when I returned home. Battery backups for pumps which had been tested so many times never kicked in but started working when I got home.
2016: 2 weeks out of town, AI director malfunctions turned all lights to 100% 24/7 lots of dead corals
2018: In Mexico for work, Apex randomly dies calc reactor regulator stuck on...pH going nuts melting my media clouding up tank. Luckily I got an alert woke up wife at 2:30 AM walked her through. Lost 1 coral (orange passion) and 1 very ticked off wife.

While I am not away, everything is flawless. Nothing makes me angrier...it's like some invisible man is watching over my tank waiting for me to leave. I want to hit him with a brick

 

[KrisReef]

All is well now. Im just trying to bring everything back around. Params are back in check!

I like to vacation on tropical reefs. Coming back always scares the heck out of me, (wondering what the tank is going to look like when I return) and at the same time I always wonder how tropical reefs manage to survive out in the wild without an "Apex" watching over them while I am gone?

 

[Bdrake]

I like to vacation on tropical reefs. Coming back always scares the heck out of me, (wondering what the tank is going to look like when I return) and at the same time I always wonder how tropical reefs manage to survive out in the wild without an "Apex" watching over them while I am gone?

Dilution. How many gallons of water flow through that reef any given day?

 

[2Wheelsonly]

I like to vacation on tropical reefs. Coming back always scares the heck out of me, (wondering what the tank is going to look like when I return) and at the same time I always wonder how tropical reefs manage to survive out in the wild without an "Apex" watching over them while I am gone?

Reefs in the wild are not closed systems, this is the same reason AEFW don't devastate them as they are constantly moving to other corals. 99.99999999999% of the difficulty we have in reef keeping is that we have enclosed systems and we don't get to rely on consistent weather patterns to help keep things perfectly stable. Our Apex helps us to mimic a natural environment.

Our fish and corals are trapped, so are pests and disease...

 

[mattgsa]

Sorry for your losses.

 

[Mr.Rocc]

Sorry for your losses.

Thank you!
It comes with the hobby.

 

[rkpetersen]

It's painful to read about stuff like this; I feel bad for op and everyone else who has experienced an untended tank catastrophe.

For 20 years or so I traveled a lot, mostly on dive trips which could last 2 or 3 weeks. I frankly wouldn't have wanted to have aquaria back home in that situation. Dive vacations can be stressful enough, with travel logistics and problems, and getting to know each new boat, dive operator, other divers, and dive sites. And I always felt a bit apprehensive leaving my well-secured but empty house for that long. Having a reef aquarium thousands of miles away to also be concerned about would have detracted from my enjoyment of the actual ocean and its life. And you weren't able to pull out your phone and check your Apex while anchored in Milne Bay PNG (maybe you can now, haven't been there in 10 years.)

I don't travel as much now, as a preference and for other personal reasons, and so getting back into this hobby was a perfect match. When I do leave home for 2 or 3 days, I have a 'vacation mode' checklist of things to adjust to minimize the chance of maintenance issues and other problems while I'm gone. I also temporarily set up port forwarding for my Apex which I normally don't have as it's a big security risk. One problem with the Apex is that, if it fails for some reasons due to software corruption, a reboot might fix it, but you generally can't reboot it remotely because you can't talk to it. With port forwarding there's at least a chance that it will still respond to a telnet command.

 

[Leadfooted]

Leaving your tank for vacation's like cheating on Carrie Underwood.

 

[reefwiser]

Best way to prevent this is join a local club and find reef friends in your area. I have saved hundreds of clubs members tanks they the years. They call me and I run by and check their tank for them while they are on vacation. Way better than a controller. An I send videos of the tank to their phones to show everything is great. Reef friends are the best insurance you can have.

 

[mmw64]

Dang dude.... sorry if this is like "after the horse left the barn"

Next time:

1) HIRE a LFS to come do service on your tank. It runs about $60 a visit....but worth not losing everything

2) buy an Apex.... yeah their like $800+ but its the BEST $800 you'll ever spend. I go from Ohio to Destin FL, and watch my tank 3 times a day from 725 miles away. If troubles brewing I would call my Mom to meet a LFS service guy at my house





.

Those are sound ideas BUT some of us don't have local fish stores that offer this service. I don't even have a local fish store that will test my water.

 

[Crimson]

Wait, I sometimes fail at reading and may of missed it but why do you visit your lfs for RODI water? A BRS six stage RODI isn't that expensive.

I find it crazy you have an Apex but not a RODI unit.

 

[Cherub]

amazing how all this stuff happens to us when we leave. Hope you pull through

 

[Mr.Rocc]

Wait, I sometimes fail at reading and may of missed it but why do you visit your lfs for RODI water? A BRS six stage RODI isn't that expensive.

I find it crazy you have an Apex but not a RODI unit.

300$ is expensive.... I just don't trust my water. I live in an apartment where they add so much stuff to the water that we don't even drink it. I know a 6 stage will do the job but not until I buy a house. By the way I have a Apex jr I got for 75$. Doesn't break the bank.

 

[Crimson]

300$ is expensive.... I just don't trust my water. I live in an apartment where they add so much stuff to the water that we don't even drink it. I know a 6 stage will do the job but not until I buy a house. By the way I have a Apex jr I got for 75$. Doesn't break the bank.

I get it! I lived in an apartment too but ironically my RODI has outlasted most of my tanks. I leave the hobby on and off but always kept the RODI. You can convert it to an ro unit and use it for drinking water.

While at the apartment I connected it to the bathroom sink cold water line. No permanent mods made. RODI is really worth the investment.