Reef Aquarium Fact #56 During a tank disaster don't react, respond!

revhtree · Oct 27, 2011

We are going to continue discussing the reef aquarium facts submitted by our members. Do you agree or disagree? What are your thoughts?

Fact #56

In those moments of tank disaster, it is best to take a step back and think your process completely through instead of just trying to fix the first problem you see. "respond, don't react"

Truth or False? What else might we need to learn on this subject? Please also share any pictures that may pertain to the subject.

cdness · Oct 27, 2011

Many tank disasters are noticed too late. Rushing things can cause more issues than slowly correcting depending on the disaster. In an overheat situation there could be a few different causes such as failed heater, failed temp probe, temp probe out of the water, etc. While an overheat situation you may look right at the heater, but with many running controllers these days it is a little more than that.

We need to think of all possible failure points when designing the tank systems and determine what is the worst case scenario if a failure happened at that point and how you will react to the failure if or when it happens. Prior planning is the best way to be prepared for the disasters as you've already thought them through.

Raggamuffin · Oct 27, 2011

I would have to say MOSTLY true.

A few months ago I came home to a problem that needed both immediate action as well as a slow thought out procedure. I work nights and get off at 2:30AM when I got home I hear a nice waterfall going on in the bedroom. The front seam of my 28G AIO have blown out and all but maybe 3 gallons of water was nicely soaked into my carpet. First thing I did was run down stairs and grab all my buckets. I set about getting every drop I could out of the tank and getting my fish into a bucket along with all the corals. I assumed I would lose the vast majority of the corals but had to try anyway.

The slower section of this was where to keep everything for a few days to a week while I repaired the tank. Lucky for me a few weeks before I stumbled on a 40 breeder at a garage sale and had to clean it still. so over the next few hours I cleaned the tank, transfered my rock and sand, and moved equipment that could be moved. I always have enough mixed salt water on hand to do a 50 percent change so I dumped in 15G and got it to temp. Then moved the fish and coral in, again because of being a pack rat I had a fixture I picked up at a fish nerd garage sale that didn't work except for the 175w MH. it really was a ghetto reef tank for a week. End of it all I lost a grand total of 1 coral and 1 frag. everything else made it simply because I had enough of other people "junk" to create a fully functional life support system.

spscrazy · Oct 27, 2011

I think it's mostly true but actually doing that is another thing! lol

nixer · Oct 27, 2011

ive seen more threads about tanks lost due to power outages than any other issue.
although that heater thread was a good one.

if it can fail it will!
the only thing i can say is prepare before hand.
get a battery backup. a small generator is also nice if your there when it happens.
backup heaters with controllers. its also a good idea to backup controllers.
ice in a ziplock works wonders safely lowering temps if a heater sticks on.
keep some spare parts around i.e. supply hose, impellers, heaters, etc
always keep some saltwater water.