Reasons why tanks crash??

[Rubberfrog]

Yeah from what I know also it's not about whether or not you vacuum.

It's that if you vacuum, keep vacuuming. if you've never then, don't. LOL. i hope that makes sense.

That is my take on it as well. Once you let the sand bed get nasty and full detritus, leave it under there and get some snails.

 

[brandon429]

in my statement above I was meaning to clean the sandbed, the greater practice is to not clean it

 

[Ultra Aquatics]

Just watched the fragbox video, really unfortunate, ended up being a heater that was cracked by a careless employee. I'm glad to see the owner took ownership of the fault in his system design, mistakes happen and its our job to make things as foolproof as possible. I'm sure his new system will be better than before.

 

[PeterB113]

Just watched the fragbox video, really unfortunate, ended up being a heater that was cracked by a careless employee. I'm glad to see the owner took ownership of the fault in his system design, mistakes happen and its our job to make things as foolproof as possible. I'm sure his new system will be better than before.

How do you know it was a heater? Did they make a new video?

 

[Ultra Aquatics]

How do you know it was a heater? Did they make a new video?

They made a video today showing the heater.

 

[PeterB113]

They made a video today showing the heater.

I'm about to watch it now

 

[Jlew766]

5+ years ago, it was the last straw at the time I was away from work and a turbo snail crawled over the over flow into the downflow pipe and clogged it and with the automatic top off it flooded the tank and caused a fire and flushed so much water killed everything in the tank. now that I am back into the hobby I made sure to put a guard around the over flow. just got back in like 5 months ago.

 

[ApoIsland]

equipment malfunction.

I think this is the leading cause from most people I know. At least that is what they claim...

Chillers, heaters, ATO, and dosing equipment all seem to be the main culprits in our group.

Unfortunately I can only list laziness, general ignorance and tank neglect for my melt down many years ago....

 

[Oregon Grown Reef]

Equipment malfunction might be one of the top 3, but the other two are USER ERROR and MISINFORMATION. I made many a huge mistake on my tank by not fact checking what a guy at my LFS had told me. I was new to the hobby about 4 years ago, read somewhere that I needed a pH of 8.3, so I bought a buffer after talking to the employee at the LFS... I think we know where this is going. I put the dry buffer directly into the tank, tested pH, and nothing changed. I did this until it seemed ridiculous the amount I added wasn't raising pH. Well, I was using an API pH kit and I didn't know what dKh was at that point. I went into the LFS the next day after most of my fish died, so they tested the water and found the dKh at 23... Welp, that was the last time I trusted any advice they gave and I found reef2reef. They've had most of their tanks crash multiple times, entire fish systems wiped out by disease because of a lack of any sort of quarantine system. Even observation should be minimal before putting the fish onto the store floor. Thank goodness for reef2reef. I've still made many a mistake (for usually one of those reasons), but I've learned a lot from here.

 

[RedSeaReefer1]

Wow if I lost my whole tank in a day I'd definitely quit the hobby. Way too much money to lose all at once.

Imagine only caring about your lost money and not caring about all the life you probably just killed because of a careless mistake….

 

[workhz]

For me. Over a decade ago. It was a deep sand bed and not really testing a lot plus a depleted rodi unit. I wouldn’t consider that an equipment malfunction. Just not really staying on top of things and maybe a deep sand bed getting really old. Hopefully this time around I can avoid it.

It was more a slow motion wreck.

 

[Gup]

Once my carpet anemone died and while trying to remove him from the tank a cloudy puff of liquid came out of him and in a matter of hours every swimming things died.

Set back like that is a killer.

 

[Gup]

Imagine only caring about your lost money and not caring about all the life you probably just killed because of a careless mistake….

I don't think it would be unnatural for a hobbyist, to lose everything, in an instant, to think about the money and hard work lost 1st. And I'm sure all of us would feel terrible about the lives of our water friends

 

[OREGONIC]

I have never crashed a tank but had one really close call. Had a neo-therm heater explode. Luckily I happened to be in the same room and was able to shut off the return pump within seconds of it happening and had enough saltwater on hand to drain the sump and fill it back up. The whole living room filled with smoke. Not sure why it didnt blow a breaker.

 

[brandon429]

Neotherm should shut down as a company

theres about 200 examples of that online they comped nobody for the loss with new tanks. The risk of using their gear should be a sticky in every board online



trying to prevent a willing takedown impending crash here

Ugh, Help me identify and eliminate!

Tank is about 8 months old. 120 gallon rimless with a sump. I spent all the money like a lot of you and got auto roller mat and a good skimmer for nutrient export. I also have Chaeto growing in the sump under a Kessil purple/red refugium light. I put only about a nickle sized piece of Rods...

www.reef2reef.com

it’s a prime example of what I meant prior page.

 

[DrZoidburg]

Of times I lost anything substantial was 1 out of control pests. Total wipe out. 2 Heater failure killed a few damsels in a tank I had for a long time. Still kinda miss those evil little buggers.

 

[N.Sreefer]

The seal on my aquarium gave flooding the living room with 75 gal dripping through the ceiling. Burned almost all my equipment out and killed almost everything. That's the only crash Ive had so I would def agree that equipment failure is the leading cause.

 

[DrZoidburg]

Granted this doesn't include any of the close calls or accidents haha.

 

[Goaway]

I think this is the leading cause from most people I know. At least that is what they claim...

Chillers, heaters, ATO, and dosing equipment all seem to be the main culprits in our group.

Unfortunately I can only list laziness, general ignorance and tank neglect for my melt down many years ago....

I will take their word for it. Being lazy is a cheap thing to fix (difficult). But can cost you as much as any equipment failure. My only issues were natural disasters (can not control at all) and a heater that didn't turn off (replace these yearly). Equipment is not flawless and issues take place. AND it's because of this we have added all kinds of safety nets to catch it before it gets critical.

We didn't have these phones and aps to get warnings in the middle of the night the heater isn't turning off, water is overflowing. The doser wont stop. So yes, these issues are real. Just another few thousand to protect the lively hood of our aquariums.

 

[Saltandfresh]

Can someone tell me a few ways people have crashed their tanks? I'm trying to do everything possible to avoid it happening in my tank.

I think most tanks crash due to human error. When keeping a salt water tank you must perform maintenance on a set schedule. I’ve never missed a weekly water change unless I’m traveling. Make sure salinity and water temperature are the same when changing out water. Check the temperature twice daily. I have two heaters in my 90 gallon in case one stops working. I also don’t dose. When I did in the past, I could never get it right and the corals suffered. Now I just rely on instant ocean reef crystals to replace the elements. My biggest advice is don’t over think it. A lot of the guys on reef2reef invest in expensive equipment to automate their tanks including dosing. I’ve seen a lot of the same guys later post that their apex or whatever malfunctioned and killed everything.
I’m not recommending this, but besides checking for salinity, nitrates, and nitrites I don’t do any other testing. I’m not a chemist and I don’t trust that I would get the dosing calculations right. I have a mixed reef and everything is thriving. I watch the corals closely everyday and look for signs that they might be stressed. If I see something odd I ask my LFS to run a water test for me. But that’s extremely rare. I’ve been running it this way for two years with no issues. So I would conclude by saying this hobby is meant to enjoy and appreciate the fruits of your labor. Don’t ruin it by overthinking and worrying.