What caused your tank crash?

[mute0514]

Faulty chiller + hot Australian summer=
Game over

Someone that feels my pain! In Puerto Rico a chiller is a must! If not install an AC.

 

[reefkeeperCOL]

"BRYOPSIS"

 

[mute0514]

My wife's desperate needs of using chemicals to clean and add smell to the house. Needless to say (thanks to my misinformation also) she was scrubbing the walls around the tank with some kind of detergent. I did not know until 24 hour later when almost everything died off and I could not explain why she told me she was cleaning the house and she might have dripped some into the tank... Tore it down and now I keep nano tanks.

 

[Iballhog]

Not really a crash, but one of my tanks was taken down by Bubble Algae, I was frustrated beyond belief with the bubble and out of disgust and allot of anger, one day I just scrubbed all the rocks. Wow, the bubble algea came back and kicked my butt. However, I don't like losing, so I tossed all the rock in muratic acid, then bleach. I still attend the bubble algae anger management meetings.

 

[Torture]

brittle star jammed my repo while I was on vacation, water pumped in until it overflowed, ended up causing a shortcut, lights out, during summer, heat, you know the deal.
My aunt dropped by to feed the fish and found a pool of fetid water.
Called a reefer friend, managaed to get things more or less up until I got back from my vacation, 2 days later, another britle star did exactly the same.
Los all my fish, but saved 90% of my corals.

 

[bruleyii]

Same here. took over month to get it back under control.. lost my 6-line wrasse and about 90% of my corals

\
It has been a few months and still not under control. May have let it go too long and my rock may have sucked it all up. :\

 

[mmw64]

following

 

[DracoKat]

\
It has been a few months and still not under control. May have let it go too long and my rock may have sucked it all up. :\

I did heavy water changes every other day. It's a lot of work, but I kept at the WC. I also turned my lights off for a few days at a time as well. I added Purigen and Phosguard to the filter intake too

 

[bruleyii]

I did heavy water changes every other day. It's a lot of work, but I kept at the WC. I also turned my lights off for a few days at a time as well. I added Purigen and Phosguard to the filter intake too

I need to run some carbon and bump my cleanup crew up a bit. The remaining corals are starting to bounce back which gives me hope.

 

[Irsug1]

While out of the country on my honeymoon. My drain got clogged and and the ATO sent 5 gallons of kalkwasser solution into the sump at once. Then my tank sitter saw that the tank was about to over flow and siphoned 5 gallons of tank water out.
I came home to high alkalinity and very low salinity. Lost thousands in expensive corals.

 

[Irsug1]

Also need taking care of an algea issue while its small before it gets out of control and takes over the tank!

 

[Evan West]

This was in freshwater 2 years ago but the lesson learned applies. I had a dosing pump run by a light timer dosing seachem excel to my planted tank. Now this stuff can in an overdose strip the water of free oxygen. Well the light timer failed jamming the pump on over night. Everything died including the bacteria.....Lesson here is dont trust light timers to run dosing pumps.

 

[maroun.c]

Luckily didn't have any crashes despite being a frequent traveler and been reefing since 1998.
have seen many crashes with these causes that I can remember
Stuck heater, chiller, ATO, kalkwasser drip.
broken heaters
glass failure
stand failures
power failures
detergents or other chemicals leaching or dropped in the tank.
copper or other heavy metals contamination
pests (aptasia, mojano, AEFW, Monti nudis,...)
Bad salt batches
And wives revenge

 

[120reefkeeper]

Heater stuck on while I was at work..... Tank temp 95. End of story....... Painful memory!

 

[Ljaus]

You don't have AC?

At the time only the bedrooms had ac. Even if a room had ac I would never run a tank with out a chiller. Not worth the risk with the climate of where I live

 

[shoelaceike]

Heater stuck on while I was at work..... Tank temp 95. End of story....... Painful memory!

Seems to be a regular issue with folks.....good thing a controller can prevent that....

 

[120reefkeeper]

Seems to be a regular issue with folks.....good thing a controller can prevent that....

Yes and I now have one. Back in the day no such animal . :/

 

[Zoaeasy]

Decided to vacuum the sand bed on my First tank (18g) after a year. The tank was full of Zoas growing like crazy and a large Anemone with one Percula Clown.
Tank was running beautifully with almost no maintenance. Crashed within 12 hrs with only some Zoas surviving.

 

[saltyfilmfolks]

I don't think that counts lol

Someone crashes into your car, its crashed. You crash your car, its crashed

An overdose from a study gone wrong (have done this twice now)

what was dosed ?

 

[reeksreef]

On vacation, something tripped the gfci. Tank without power for over 48 hours.