Lets Define "Tank Crash"...

[Dom]

"Tank Crash". It is a phrase that people in the hobby use regularly. To me, it seems to be two words used in substitution for "something is wrong with my tank".

So what exactly is a "tank crash"? How do we define it in the hobby?

 

[Cell]

I would define it as multiple things dying or clearly declining leading to death in relatively quick succession.

 

[JonoB]

I always assumed it meant some catastrophic happened (electrical failure, chemical stuff, ammonia, whatever) and literally everything in the tank dies.

 

[StatelineReefer]

I would define a tank crash as one or more parameters going wildly and quickly out of balance and resistant to course correction by normal means.

 

[WVNed]

Tank crash is an event that causes most everything in a tank to die.
Enough stuff dies that it overwhelms the biofilter and starts killing everything else.

 

[Dom]

I'll keep track... So we have:

A catastrophic and rapid die-off due to undetermined reasons...

 

[Malifry97]

2. A leak in the tank.

3. VELVET

 

[themcnertney]

Not sure I really like the term 'tank crash'. Sounds like the tank fell off the stand and crashed on the floor breaking everything.

I think I like the term 'tank disaster'. My definition of this is losing all or most of the live stock, essentially having to start over. This is currently happening to me after relocating my tank to the basement. This could also mean tank failure to do cracking or breaking. Electrical issues that lead to die off. Disease. Water imbalance.

 

[WVNed]

No, the reason may be quite obvious like a heater explosion while you are at work.
You get home and are having a tank crash. The most susceptible stuff dies first and starts making ammonia. The ammonia starts killing everything else.

 

[DivingTheWorld]

A tank crash always has a reason, it's just that sometimes we never really know for sure what that reason was. There are a couple polls on the site for those who feel confident they know the reason. I separate "tank crash" into two categories, Coral Crash and Entire Tank Crash. I have had the former.

I define a crash as an uncontrollable die off of life whether just corals or everything in the tank. It can be sudden (as in I woke up and the tank was dead), or it can take place over a month (like it did in my case).

Corals will IMO not always immediately die. In my case I came home from vacation and something had definitely gone wrong and killed many of my corals. It could have been Alk out of wack, nutrients out of wack, temp issue, who knows. Over the course of a month most of my acros died off until my tank finally stabilized and I was able to build it back up. At no time did it affect fish, snails or shrimp, only acros. Even my other corals, chalices, zoas, birdsnest were all fine.

 

[Quietman]

"Crash" isn't really definable as it comes from the perception that the reefer has lost control of his system and livestock is dying. It's really a more emotional term than a clinical definition.

I would think that the term only applies (and I've really only seen it used this way) for multiple deaths or bleaching. "Crashing" implies that deaths are soon to follow. Both are almost always a cry for help...the reefer equivalent of "Fire!".

 

[WVNed]

A tank crash is where something has caused the water to become poisonous to everything in the tank.

It isn't a disease or a leaking tank.

Most people have never seen it happen so they are making the term apply to other things.

If it happens you will know.
The water will cloud and smell really bad and most everything will be dead.

What lives will depend on how fast you can figure out what caused it and do a 100% water change.

 

[WVNed]

"Crash" isn't really definable as it comes from the perception that the reefer has lost control of his system and livestock is dying. It's really a more emotional term than a clinical definition.

I would think that the term only applies (and I've really only seen it used this way) for multiple deaths or bleaching. "Crashing" implies that deaths are soon to follow. Both are almost always a cry for help...the reefer equivalent of "Fire!".

No it is like watching an airplane crash. It is easily definable.

Most everything dies.

 

[brandon429]

Owing to the psychology of reefing thread, don’t forget the kind of crash that takes down and wastes more corals and rock than any type of crash: the willing takedown due to invasion. The choice crash

A give up, even when fish and corals are alive. Most numerous one. The reefer is claiming environmental crash unable to fix. Having not figured out how to prevent or undo what just happened, often they’ll just toss out bad stuff start again. We are all guilty to varying degrees.

it is astounding to quantify the pounds of coral and rock wasted, thrown out, due to gha alone. dinos, twenty thousand tanks.

we circulate information that does not work very well for algae control (such as, invade your entire system on purpose month one, idly do nothing, call it the uglies it’s good) and the cumulative effect is I’m giving up on month 9. We see thousands of these threads over time

anyone who has ever recommended to another reefer to idly do nothing during an uglies phase (cycles are for filter bacteria, not plants or cyano) you are sentenced to completing ten work rescue threads in the nuisance algae forum. Total fixes followed through or your reefing license shall be suspended, you have until April 1st to log the community service showing you can undo this condition at will.

if you think the solution for the distressed is to wait longer, then your sentence work threads will show you convincing them to do so long enough to earn clean fix pics.


we cause the environmental crash for other people by forwarding horrible advice we couldn’t undo even if the requirement was only one work thread, food for thought.

Put the advice to allow full tank invasions/uglies phase into writing as articles, books about cycling - crush an entire generation of reef life until enough people rise up to force stop the practice.

change how you start a reef and you’ll change how it ends.


Cycle authors are killing aquariums that’s ironic.

 

[Greybeard]

I've had two events in my life that I'd consider a 'tank crash'

1st was decades ago, fresh water, fish only. Came home one day to a dead tank. All the fishes were dead. Air hose came off the pump... this was an UGF run on air stones, and it was perhaps a bit overstocked.. anyway, I suspect O2 saturation crashed, maybe something from under the UGF plate filtered up into the water, I never really knew for certain.

2nd was 3 years ago. Spent the morning messing around my gun room. Cleaning, oiling, etc. Walking past my reef tank, I noted that there was a frag that had fallen off it's rock. I reached in, with my filthy, chemical soaked hands, and righted it. We left shortly after for Christmas with family, came back a day later to a dead tank. Not a snail, coral, fish.. Total wipeout.

The later event caused me to generate Greybeard's Rule #2 on Reefkeeping:

Keep your filthy mitts outa the dag blasted tank!

 

[WVNed]

I have had 2
A heater exploded and burned in the sump.
A puppy chewed a wire going into the sump and energized the tank.
The first thing you notice is cloudy water. Then the smell.
Then you have hours of work to save what you can.

 

[Quietman]

I had a freshwater 'crash' once. High tech planted tank...CO2 regulator failed and suffocated the tank. Lost 3 of 5 shrimp, my wife's designer betta and 3 otos.

Other time, lost all my goldfish when my wife bought a new one for me when we were dating. Never had any symptoms of anything and still don't know what it happened - but lost all of my goldfish - some I had for 5 years (haven't had goldfish since actually).

Both of those were "crashes" to me and I still refer to them that way. Whether partial loss or full, equipment failure or disease. That's what I meant about perception. To me, it's when you're just not in control and things are dying.

 

[Dom]

Not sure I really like the term 'tank crash'. Sounds like the tank fell off the stand and crashed on the floor breaking everything.

I think I like the term 'tank disaster'. My definition of this is losing all or most of the live stock, essentially having to start over. This is currently happening to me after relocating my tank to the basement. This could also mean tank failure to do cracking or breaking. Electrical issues that lead to die off. Disease. Water imbalance.

The idea of this thread is to define “tank crash” and how the phrase is used. Based on your description, “tank crash” could mean almost anything. It’s what I’m trying to get away from.

A leak is a leak, not a tank crash. Disease is disease. And while they may be catastrophic to the tank health...

Ok. I see your point.

So perhaps the term “tank crash” needs to be expanded upon. For example; “a tank crash secondary to an ammonia spike”.

 

[Cell]

I think there is also a distinction between a tank crashing, as in its currently happening, vs a tank crashed. If it crashing, things are dying, but there may be potential for intervention to prevent a complete crash.

 

[sde1500]

I wouldn't say the cause needs to be unknown, but yes something internal going haywire, causing a rapid and widespread die off of all life in the tank.

Owing to the psychology of reefing thread, don’t forget the kind of crash that takes down and wastes more corals and rock than any type of crash: the willing takedown due to invasion. The choice crash

A give up, even when fish and corals are alive. Most numerous one. The reefer is claiming environmental crash unable to fix. Having not figured out how to prevent or undo what just happened, often they’ll just toss out bad stuff start again. We are all guilty to varying degrees.

it is astounding to quantify the pounds of coral and rock wasted, thrown out, due to gha alone. dinos, twenty thousand tanks.

we circulate information that does not work very well for algae control (such as, invade your entire system on purpose month one, idly do nothing, call it the uglies it’s good) and the cumulative effect is I’m giving up on month 9. We see thousands of these threads over time

anyone who has ever recommended to another reefer to idly do nothing during an uglies phase (cycles are for filter bacteria, not plants or cyano) you are sentenced to completing ten work rescue threads in the nuisance algae forum. Total fixes followed through or your reefing license shall be suspended, you have until April 1st to log the community service showing you can undo this condition at will.

if you think the solution for the distressed is to wait longer, then your sentence work threads will show you convincing them to do so long enough to earn clean fix pics.


we cause the environmental crash for other people by forwarding horrible advice we couldn’t undo even if the requirement was only one work thread, food for thought.

Put the advice to allow full tank invasions/uglies phase into writing as articles, books about cycling - crush an entire generation of reef life until enough people rise up to force stop the practice.

change how you start a reef and you’ll change how it ends.


Cycle authors are killing aquariums that’s ironic.

Yes, we get it, you advocate certain methods you admirably stand behind that seem to work, even if they are too aggressive for some people's taste. Why do you feel the need to inject that into so many unrelated threads?