Vacation Horror Stories

MrDJeep123 · Jun 15, 2015

Share a moment when you went on vacation only to return to a disaster!

In my case, it occurred JUST as the wife and I walked through the door of our hotel room after check-in. I received a call from our daughter telling me there was alarms going off under the tank. Three things possibly occurred, 1) The overfill switch was activated which meant the sump was being filled with ATO water or backsiphon, 2) The UPS box was activated because of power outage, or 3) the ATO pump had been activated for too long. Trying to explain exactly what to do over the phone was a challenge. Our daughter is 11, her and the siblings were being watched by the grandparents. Anyways, she was familiar enough with how I did things under the tank to know what to do. After a little extra coaching to her, the issue was fixed. It turned out that apparently there was a power outage. It caused the UPS to come on which activated the overfill switch alarm on the sump. It was full of water that did not get put back into the tank because the return pump was off. Fortunately, there wasn't anything else to occur and all was well. No wet floors in that instance!

4FordFamily · Jun 15, 2015

Oh man... Went on vacation, I had a trio of potters angels. Really hard to do, got along great. They were the only inhabitants in the 54 corner.

I came home and they were all dead. Maintenance turned off the switch near the tank that everything was plugged in to..

Years ago I had a red mandarin goby that ate flakes and anything you can name. HUGE fish, gorgeous male.

I left for a week and came back and my neighbor was so upset because the fish died, the heater took a dump and started electrocuting the water also if I recall. I lost tons of rare zoa frags and other corals too.

Gopi · Jun 15, 2015

I don't want to go out of town this weekend anymore...

4FordFamily · Jun 15, 2015

Gopi said:
I don't want to go out of town this weekend anymore...

Me either.

I always push back to vacations if I tell the wife why she will hate this hobby even more

maroun.c · Jun 15, 2015

Been traveling 2-3 weeks a month in average for the last 10 years and luckily no horror stories so far.
Of course there has been the return pump that died when I was in a different time zone and my father woke me up at 2 AM to ask what he should do.
Took around 2 hours for him to find out which pump it was and to coach him how to take it out and open it to take out the impeller and reseat it and restart...
other than this believe I got lucky with a very basic tank setup and no controllers so far.

Trex · Jun 15, 2015

No vacation horror stories --- in fact just got back from 7 days in South Carolina --- had the tank sitter stop by twice to feed the fish and check the ATO reservoirs (( perfect time of year, neither one had to have water added )). Same sitter watched the tanks when we were in Europe for 2 weeks. No issues.

However, about 6 years ago I had to have emergency back surgery, so didn't have time to set anything up. My father didn't understand that water evaporation will only be noticed in the sump, and not the main tank. Main pump ran dry. Salinity spiked along with temps (( had a couple unseasonable warm days while I was still in the hospital, with the main pump off, the temp probe didn't know the tank's temp )). Ended up losing a pair of Potter's that had just started to show spawning behavior. Along with them, I lost a blue S. haddoni anemone. Not a nice thing to come home to after 7 days in the hospital.

alin2 · Jun 15, 2015

How about this for a disaster story.

Returned after a 12 day family vacation to a dark tank. Our fish sitter was a very nice and conscientious older aunt, but who didn't know anything about the tank and hated to "bother us on vacation" despite my many exhortations to call re: tank at anytime.

It turns out, one of my bulkheads in a closed loop started to have a very small but clear leak. It drained slowly but constantly filling up the bottom of my stand all the while activating my ATO in my remote sump constantly but not enough to alarm. Eventually enough saltwater escaped to fry all my ballasts located under the tank. My dutiful fish sitter continued, of course, to feed the dark tank thinking that she was coming in before the lights turned on. So, after >1 week of a slow leak, continued food additions to the display tank, a dark tank for days, marked hypo salinity from my ATO working perfectly, and saltwater leaking, running into the basement, warping the display tank stand, and ruining my finished basement, we returned to find the all my corals dead, all the inverts dead, half of my fish gone, and an eye bleeding amount of damage. Try rebuilding after that!

But, after years of researching and planning, the re-boot is coming this fall with multiple design changes and redundancies designed into the system. My wife is a saint.

MrDJeep123 · Jun 16, 2015

Gopi said:
I don't want to go out of town this weekend anymore...

I'll come watch your tank for you.

Mike in CT · Jun 16, 2015

Ok, I am have a surgery coming up and could be in hospital up to a week, you guys are not helping with my anxiety! Lol Praying my nem stays put, putting my dry food in pill boxes by the day and filling up multiple top off containers that can be easily changed out.

MrSquid · Jun 16, 2015

These stories make me want to give up reefing to collect stamps.

Gopi · Jun 16, 2015

MrDJeep123 said:
I'll come watch your tank for you.

But then what about your tanks?

Reef Geek · Jun 16, 2015

My husband and I went away for the weekend. We in the process of upgrading from a 55 to a 90 gallon reef. The new tank was a week into cycling so not ready but while we were gone the filters on the 55 failed. The automatic lights however did not so as fish died and floated they were heated up by the lights. As soon as we walked in the house the smell was horrible and the fish unrecognizable. The clean up crew and some softies survived and went into the now safer uncycled tank.

Mike in CT · Jun 19, 2015

This just happened today.. I am in the hospital for a few nights for a scheduled surgery. Of course my wife call franticly this morning from home telling me everything on my 75g was off! This thing has run years without a problem, of course Murphy's law was bound to strike! It turns out one of my kids plugged something into the same circuit, and it threw my gfci outlet strip my pumps are plugged into. ( this is why when I go on vacation, I always plug my main pump directly, so it does not shut off and not come back on). Anyway we got it figured out and everything is back running. And the nurse just brought me some morphine so I am feeling better to.. Lol

Gopi · Jun 19, 2015

I'm on a train heading away until Monday. Had my critter sitter over last night for another training. Between 3 dogs, seahorses and the reef I hope all goes well.

mr.reeferman · Jun 19, 2015

currently going on ... im in china for two months and bamn my ac unit goes out in my shop i live in north alabama and my fish sitter almost had a panic attack my tank reached 98 degrees because its in my shop this went on for three days untill finally my dad bought me an ac unit and put it in for me lost my crab but thats it hmm i got really lucky glad i only have hardy fish but now its going through a cycle due to iguess die off from heat but i think all will be fine we will see in a month when i get back

dbl · Jun 19, 2015

No horror story, but we had a 5 day getaway a few weeks ago. In preparation, I purchased a webcam so I could keep an eye on things. Turns out you can take the aquarist away from the aquarium, but you can't take the aquarium away from the aquarist. Wife was none too happy I kept taking a "quick peek" between tourist traps. I think I'm being left home with the fish next time. Since I actually hate to travel, my plan is working out quite nicely!!!

Wakerider52 · Jun 19, 2015

So I'm getting ready to go on vacation for 10 days, I got my Neptune apex dialed, auto feeder dialed, only have 3 fish, (bonded clowns and a hippo tang and a bunch of hammers, frogspawn, torch, Zoa, Duncan, shrimp, mushrooms) and just finished my ATO system. It auto fills the reserve when the tank gets auto filled, and Using a spare iPod for a camera. I'm a bit on edge. But I'm hoping everything goes well while I'm gone. I don't want to be a horror story. I want to be a success story

jt17 · Jun 19, 2015

I'm on vacation right now. Probably shouldn't be reading this thread

Last vacation I returned to find my 16 eye colony of CB flaming Bugatti that had been in place for 2 yrs somehow dislodged and laying on the sandbed. Thank god it was right side up. My father in law feeds the tank when were gone but he's not a reefer so I don't expect him to notice such things.

4FordFamily · Jun 19, 2015

alin2 said:
How about this for a disaster story.

Returned after a 12 day family vacation to a dark tank. Our fish sitter was a very nice and conscientious older aunt, but who didn't know anything about the tank and hated to "bother us on vacation" despite my many exhortations to call re: tank at anytime.

It turns out, one of my bulkheads in a closed loop started to have a very small but clear leak. It drained slowly but constantly filling up the bottom of my stand all the while activating my ATO in my remote sump constantly but not enough to alarm. Eventually enough saltwater escaped to fry all my ballasts located under the tank. My dutiful fish sitter continued, of course, to feed the dark tank thinking that she was coming in before the lights turned on. So, after >1 week of a slow leak, continued food additions to the display tank, a dark tank for days, marked hypo salinity from my ATO working perfectly, and saltwater leaking, running into the basement, warping the display tank stand, and ruining my finished basement, we returned to find the all my corals dead, all the inverts dead, half of my fish gone, and an eye bleeding amount of damage. Try rebuilding after that!

But, after years of researching and planning, the re-boot is coming this fall with multiple design changes and redundancies designed into the system. My wife is a saint.

Same thing happen to me and my finished basement in a house that was only one year old prior. The leak was due to a canister filter mistake but the same otherwise