Why do most tanks crash?

[Bouncingsoul39]

From what I saw working in LFS the common causes are: over feeding, over stocking, not monitoring water parameters, user error with equipment, accidents involving some sort of chemical getting into the water (kids dumping detergent etc.). A lot of time when people say “oh, my tank crashed “ I just don’t believe them. What is more likely is that they just totally neglected the tank and everything died. If you want to call gross neglect a “crash” I suppose that works too.

i should have added: defective equipment at no fault of the hobbyist. Although not very common, there are incidents of heater or pump breaking and killing or “ crashing” the tank. luckily, i’ve not had either happen and haven’t had any type of crash in my 15 years of reefkeeping (knock on wood). That’s not to say i’m special or doing anything unique. i just follow what others have done before me and read lots of books and stuff. and try to apply it conscientiously.

 

[Spieg]

Reusing sand is never a good idea. Lots of toxic gases get trapped in sand. When I upgraded my tank the sand from the old tank stunk so bad. I would think it’s the sand that did it.

WHAT WHAT WHAT?!?!

Hate to tell you I've been reusing the same sand/rock for literally decades without any problems.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

IMO, power failures is the single biggest cause of mass casualties.

 

[schuby]

I propose that it is people doing everything they read online, without any critical thought.

 

[Cell]

Multiple parameter swings concurrently or in quick succession.

 

[SPSReeferMI]

I really like this thread - lot’s of good information!

Here’s to hoping that Neptune Systems will be building on the existing capabilities of their alerting system. I already use the Apex for at least 8 alerts. I’m happy with that, but I really want more!

 

[Belgian Anthias]

Vodka dosing?

It may kill your tank! At least part of it!

Dosing organic carbon, carbohydrates, vodka, vinegar, often dosed based on the nitrate level, may cause a lot of damage. As the nitrate level is not representative for the availability of most nutrients ( most tanks have a skimmer) overdosing is not avoided. High heterotrophic growth rates may cause a lot of damage, stealing the nutrients from other and essential organisms.
Dosing organic carbon will shift the installed carrying capacity from autotrophic to heterotrophic, it will remove the installed niitrification capacity which means less or no nitrate is produced due to the fast ammonia consumption by the heterotrophs. During normal remineralisation > 50 % of the nutrients become available for slower growing organisms , autotrophs, the producers of oxygen and consumers of CO2 produced by the heterotrophs. Most organic carbon present in the biowaste is used up for producing the needed energy to retrieve the carbon and the production of CO2. Due to the natural limited availabilty of organic carbon for growth, the balance between producers and consumers can be maintained.

If overdosed not all organic carbon will be used up and may build up, nutrients will be used up very fast when they become available making the live off autotrophs very difficult, of algae, fythoplankton, dino's including symbiodinium, which may lead to bleaching corals, which at that moment is a minor concern.

To reduce the same amount of ammonia heterotrophs need to build 40x more protein compared to autotrophs and they are able to do it at a very high rate!

Supplementing organic carbon may kill most photo-autotrophs by which the balance between users and producers is lost. This is a manageable problem! It may become more difficult, even critical if for some reason dosing is interrupted or dosing is build off suddenly. Decreasing the dose with 50% or stop dosing may cause a high ammonia availability and nitrifiers will not be available for transforming the ammonia into nitrate. It may take weeks to reïnstall the needed autotrophic carrying capacity.
Dosing organic carbon, one may create a new tank syndrome in a mature tank!

 

[Just John]

Vodka dosing?

It may kill your tank! At least part of it!

Dosing organic carbon, carbohydrates, vodka, vinegar, often dosed based on the nitrate level, may cause a lot of damage. As the nitrate level is not representative for the availability of most nutrients ( most tanks have a skimmer) overdosing is not avoided. High heterotrophic growth rates may cause a lot of damage, stealing the nutrients from other and essential organisms.
Dosing organic carbon will shift the installed carrying capacity from autotrophic to heterotrophic, it will remove the installed niitrification capacity which means less or no nitrate is produced due to the fast ammonia consumption by the heterotrophs. During normal remineralisation > 50 % of the nutrients become available for slower growing organisms , autotrophs, the producers of oxygen and consumers of CO2 produced by the heterotrophs. Most organic carbon present in the biowaste is used up for producing the needed energy to retrieve the carbon and the production of CO2. Due to the natural limited availabilty of organic carbon for growth, the balance between producers and consumers can be maintained.

If overdosed not all organic carbon will be used up and may build up, nutrients will be used up very fast when they become available making the live off autotrophs very difficult, of algae, fythoplankton, dino's including symbiodinium, which may lead to bleaching corals, which at that moment is a minor concern.

To reduce the same amount of ammonia heterotrophs need to build 40x more protein compared to autotrophs and they are able to do it at a very high rate!

Supplementing organic carbon may kill most photo-autotrophs by which the balance between users and producers is lost. This is a manageable problem! It may become more difficult, even critical if for some reason dosing is interrupted or dosing is build off suddenly. Decreasing the dose with 50% or stop dosing may cause a high ammonia availability and nitrifiers will not be available for transforming the ammonia into nitrate. It may take weeks to reïnstall the needed autotrophic carrying capacity.
Dosing organic carbon, one may create a new tank syndrome in a mature tank!

Thanks for all the detail!

 

[blasterman]

Here's a tank crash for you: buddy of mine had a small reef shop. During the winter a snow plow hit a telephone pole outside his building. Power surge caused heaters in his tank to literally explode. When he arrived the next morning to survey the damage two big 120s full of big acropora colonies were skeletons. The didn't freeze. The were either electrocuted or poisoned by the contents of the heaters.

Insurance doesn't cover coral.

 

[Reef and Dive]

IMHO most tanks don’t crash but some do.

Often a tank crashes and it is not clearly explainable.

But, unfortunately, many crashes are actually avoidable:

- Every tiny piece of equipment can malfunction or brake: is the tank prepared for that? I try to figure exactly what would happen if any of my gear fails. Redundance helps a lot with that: for heaters it is a must, with external temperature control;

- WC were essencial in the past, but nowadays we understand the system much better and can make it work long term without WC, but in this case we have to keep in mind cumulative small errors (eg ionic inbalance, depleted traces, excess of traces and many more). ICP would help with that;

- Most of the times we overreact and make cumulative errors, many times we just do not react quick enough when we were supposed to. It is pretty hard to have a perception when we are on one side or the other;

- And many times the tank can be overtaken by invisible forces when we relax and have a false feeling that we are in complete control: I like to think the tank is always trying to beat me, specially when it looks perfect.

 

[Just John]

Here's a tank crash for you: buddy of mine had a small reef shop. During the winter a snow plow hit a telephone pole outside his building. Power surge caused heaters in his tank to literally explode. When he arrived the next morning to survey the damage two big 120s full of big acropora colonies were skeletons. The didn't freeze. The were either electrocuted or poisoned by the contents of the heaters.

Insurance doesn't cover coral.

What a disaster!

 

[Just John]

IMHO most tanks don’t crash but some do.

Often a tank crashes and it is not clearly explainable.

But, unfortunately, many crashes are actually avoidable:

- Every tiny piece of equipment can malfunction or brake: is the tank prepared for that? I try to figure exactly what would happen if any of my gear fails. Redundance helps a lot with that: for heaters it is a must, with external temperature control;

- WC were essencial in the past, but nowadays we understand the system much better and can make it work long term without WC, but in this case we have to keep in mind cumulative small errors (eg ionic inbalance, depleted traces, excess of traces and many more). ICP would help with that;

- Most of the times we overreact and make cumulative errors, many times we just do not react quick enough when we were supposed to. It is pretty hard to have a perception when we are on one side or the other;

- And many times the tank can be overtaken by invisible forces when we relax and have a false feeling that we are in complete control: I like to think the tank is always trying to beat me, specially when it looks perfect.

Thanks for the detailed reply!

 

[Just John]

Here's a tank crash for you: buddy of mine had a small reef shop. During the winter a snow plow hit a telephone pole outside his building. Power surge caused heaters in his tank to literally explode. When he arrived the next morning to survey the damage two big 120s full of big acropora colonies were skeletons. The didn't freeze. The were either electrocuted or poisoned by the contents of the heaters.

Insurance doesn't cover coral.

Blasterman, after all this time you need an avatar!

 

[outhouse]

Is there something in particular that usually causes it to happen?

neglect for me, over the decades. I was alwayd able to recover without major losses

 

[outhouse]

Reusing the sand could cause the ammonia spike

Its generally not that, his tank cycled again causing such. I have done this many many times aver 25 years and never had an issue provided you let the tank cycle. 3 days was my fastest cycle. and I never had Am as a problem ever since I started my first FO tank in the 90's

 

[e3pillereefer]

I handle the used sand the same way I handling new dry sand - I clean it in freshwater first

These are the tidbits I need. Thanks!