Tank crashes, what has been the root cause?

coralbeauties · Dec 19, 2020

Thought I would start a thread to talk about our most dreaded fear, a tank crash. A good friend of mine experienced a mass rtn event this past week. He has lost many colonies and frags all within a time frame of just a few days. He believes it was caused by his phosphates dropping to zero for several days. The corals that were most affected were under high light. His event was so bad his water was actually cloudy with tissue. He had a large colony of solar flare and feels that one might have started a chain reaction as it rtn’d quickly. Several water changes are the only thing that was able to be done to stop the death.
So share your experience with a tank crash and why you think it happened so that we all might learn from each other’s pain. Do you feel that one coral can start a chain reaction like my buddy experienced?
Jeff

Mark75g · Dec 19, 2020

I had a tank crash last October and I think it was because of fumes from plumber soldering a copper pipe that was leaking right above the tank. My fault because I did not shut tank down and cover it. I feel the fumes got sucked in and wiped out most sps. Now a year later have coral that is now thriving. It was a weird crash because all sps turned white but did not lose my bubble tips anemones or any fish.

blasterman · Dec 19, 2020

Low or bottomed out phosphate can cause issues with SPS (it can really bother caps). I dont buy into it causing mass RTN. Think about it.....the water changes would have made the problem worse by hyper diluting phosphate even more.

Virtually all my RTN issues can be traced to sudden climbs in nutrient levels. Ive also had the rare priveledge of seeing wild paly colonies go into combat mode and wipe out tanks. If you think a dead turbo snail wreaks fast this is worse.

Reefer Reboot · Dec 19, 2020

Pest control spraying around the tank despite being told not to.

Backreefing · Dec 20, 2020

1 There is bacteria infections seams to affect acropora only
2 zero nutrients can do it
3 a major water parameter can be very wrong. Example bad specific gravity tester . causeing very high or low salt level . Or a auto doser going wrong and over doseing .
4 neglect someone losses interest.
5 invasive animals, pests , ect
6 a tormenting owner. I know a guy who put a octopus in his reef tank and he watched it distroy everything.

ScottB · Dec 20, 2020

An undetected flood that sends the ATO into overdrive, dropping salinity and killing everything. Happened twice at my LFS and I still cannot convince him to install a controller.

Casket_Case · Dec 20, 2020

Reefer Reboot said:
Pest control spraying around the tank despite being told not to.

Ohhhh I’d fight someone

coralbeauties · Dec 20, 2020

I would guess the most common crashes would be from power loss. I went into the basement the other day to silence! Blown gfi and the tank was down to 72 degs. Only lost two small frags but I could only imagine the horror of days of no power,
Jeff

Zoa_Fanatic · Dec 20, 2020

coralbeauties said:
I would guess the most common crashes would be from power loss. I went into the basement the other day to silence! Blown gfi and the tank was down to 72 degs. Only lost two small frags but I could only imagine the horror of days of no power,
Jeff

Mines survived several days without power before. But it’s close to my bay window so I just open the window and cover the Tank at night.

Reefer Reboot · Dec 20, 2020

Frigus Reef said:
Ohhhh I’d fight someone

LOL

. Yeah, that was my first reaction for a few milliseconds but this is the guy that has been servicing our businesses for years and he was very apologetic. Once I showed him the cost of everything he offered us two years of free service. Besides, getting arrested and sent to jail wouldn't help me at all.

Mistakes happen.

rc1626 · Dec 20, 2020

coralbeauties said:
I would guess the most common crashes would be from power loss. I went into the basement the other day to silence! Blown gfi and the tank was down to 72 degs. Only lost two small frags but I could only imagine the horror of days of no power,
Jeff

This for me but with a caveat. Power out but when restored return pump did not restart.
Away on vacation and had a power loss. Don't believe it was very long. When power came back return pump failed to start. Heaters in sump = all corals in display dead as water temps went into the 60's. Basement tank in February in NY. I now split my heaters between sump and display when I'm away for more than a couple of days.

Pump was a Danner Mag12.

Casket_Case · Dec 20, 2020

Reefer Reboot said:
LOL. Yeah, that was my first reaction for a few milliseconds but this is the guy that has been servicing our businesses for years and he was very apologetic. Once I showed him the cost of everything he offered us two years of free service. Besides, getting arrested and sent to jail wouldn't help me at all. Mistakes happen.

Yeah, I don’t trust anyone around my aquarium. It’s in my room I keep the door locked when we have company over and I’m at work. I was expecting little cousins and others to be reckless around ‘Nemo’ but they’ve honestly been very respectful and if anything scared to mess with it. Which I like B)

Cory · Dec 20, 2020

Imo its failed in tank equipment that doses copper and electricity to the tank. Also rusting magnets or hinges dosing the tank with bad metals.

Next in line is pests especially dinos! I have a uv now for this purpose mainly.

LegendaryCG · Dec 20, 2020

Your son dumping about a years worth of food into the tank

Lovefish77 · Dec 20, 2020

Most of my tank semi crashes were made by me. The more you intervene especially when you are trying improve water chemistry, bad things happen.

coralbeauties · Dec 20, 2020

LegendaryCG said:
Your son dumping about a years worth of food into the tank

Do you still have him? Your son that is? LOL
Jeff

coralbeauties · Dec 20, 2020

Lovefish77 said:
Most of my tank semi crashes were made by me. The more you intervene especially when you are trying improve water chemistry, bad things happen.

I do agree with that statement. Guilty of trying to many things at once also then not know what the good, bad , or ugly was.
Jeff

LegendaryCG · Dec 20, 2020

coralbeauties said:
Do you still have him? Your son that is? LOL
Jeff

Yea but now I don’t buy pellet food. It’s all frozen now.. a lot less risky in my case.

vetteguy53081 · Dec 20, 2020

Some causes:
Hitchhikers
Dinos
Chasing numbers
Dirty hands in tank
Foreign substances
Power outages
Doser failures (alk spikes, etc)
Tap water
High temperature
Faulty or failed heater
Introducing affected fish or coral
Overdosing
Stray voltage

Sarah24! · Dec 20, 2020

blasterman said:
Low or bottomed out phosphate can cause issues with SPS (it can really bother caps). I dont buy into it causing mass RTN. Think about it.....the water changes would have made the problem worse by hyper diluting phosphate even more.

Virtually all my RTN issues can be traced to sudden climbs in nutrient levels. Ive also had the rare priveledge of seeing wild paly colonies go into combat mode and wipe out tanks. If you think a dead turbo snail wreaks fast this is worse.

Hello,

I didn’t know turbo snails could crash a tank of one had a proper cuc. If they have several crabs, etc wouldn’t they just eat the slimy little buggers?.