Couple of Tank Disasters from my Past.

[Wally.B]

I was digging through all my photo's to find past TANK setups, to put together a historical album of all my setups.

I found some lost pics of a couple of tank disasters, that I experienced.

Thought these might be interesting to share. I'm sure many of you have had some kind of unwanted events of your own.

DISASTER ONE (Coming home to find my tank Mega Cloudy due to CALC/ALK overload: Both almost full A/B Gallon Jugs dosed completely empty over a few hours)
POWER SURGE, tripped both Timers into ON position permanently!!

I recovered, no loss of livestock except all equipment need cleaning due to massive precipitition.
http://i1377.photobucket.com/albums/ah74/wbrejnia/TooMuchABdose_zps1fe94310.jpg~original

DISASTER TWO is what happened to me when I changed Carbon in my sump, while doing general maintenance on my tank equipment.
Went to bed, not knowing the batch of Carbon I just bought was Recalled due to copper contamination.

(Day 0) TANK BEFORE the Contaminated Copper was added.
http://i1377.photobucket.com/albums/ah74/wbrejnia/CopperInCarbon-0_zps14446ec9.jpg~original

(Next Day), The Morning I found things were going wrong. (Found screwdriver in sump, though it was source of contaminant, so added more Carbon to clean water up).
http://i1377.photobucket.com/albums/ah74/wbrejnia/CopperInCarbon-1_zps6564d469.jpg~original

( Few Days later) Major cleanup on my hands (Lost Many of these corals). Finally found out Carbon was recalled.(CLAM Dead)
http://i1377.photobucket.com/albums/ah74/wbrejnia/CopperInCarbon-2_zps9c6e1d5d.jpg~original

(Many Days Later) : Post Tank Teardown and Re-build. Recovering with Survivor Left overs)
http://i1377.photobucket.com/albums/ah74/wbrejnia/CopperInCarbon-3_zpsc2498b0d.jpg~original

[m.adamschwartz]

Wow as only being in the hobby for 3 years I've yet to experience anything to this level yet, but as with just about anything else sooner or later something is bound to happen, right!? Beautiful tank pre"crash" by the way!

[Cole.97]

Wow I'm so sorry. Your tank was awesome before the crash and I'm excited to see how the new tank turns out! Thanks for sharing.

[droth335]

Thanks for sharing. I can relate to disaster #1 above as we had a similar incident in September except it was a malfunctioning ATO sensor that cause it to add ~20 gallons of kalk into our 280 (330 total gallon) system and we had worse results. We lost 2 fish (blue tank we'd had for ~6 years and yellow tang). We also lost part or all of about 6 acros and 1 blasto). Interestingly, no montiporas seemed to be affected at all.

[Wally.B]

For those curious. The Crash above was about 3 years ago.

Not all corals survived the long run. Some you will recognize. Good old Blue Tang is still around. "We call him Boss".

Here is the tank today. So have hope, there is recovery after a Crash, it just takes time, and I'm still recovering, to get my Umbrella Leather back to the size it originally was, same for finger leather. The Frogspawn was hardy (center in the original Picture), and recovered so well and grew. You see it broken up in many pieces and is the main coral in my tank now.
http://i1377.photobucket.com/albums/ah74/wbrejnia/KitchenTankTodayLRG_zpsaa6e8064.jpg~original

Wally

[Wally.B]

There was a 2nd tank involved in the Crash above. (I don't have any before and after pics handy).

It ran on the same SUMP. It was a total meltdown, since it was a SPS startup tank., the next morning due to Copper, all SPS corals were dead and totally bleached. (It had only a few SPS corals, and a couple of soft corals).

I gave up and shutdown that tank for the 3 years, and just started it up 6 months ago. Running on a separate sump to avoid a DOUBLE crash like last time. (just a Rubbermaid bin for now)

This time trying a SPS only tank (new territory for me). Much more risky, but why not, SPS is so Cool!!. This new SPS FRAG tank (below) is hoping to grow up some day.

http://i1377.photobucket.com/albums/ah74/wbrejnia/BasementTankToday_zps1d39a486.jpg~original

[Wally.B]

I posted a YouTube Video of both POST CRASH tanks above, recently. Here they are:

KITCHEN MIX TANK (90 Gal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpDvHkCCpW8

BASMENT SPS Frag Office Tank (65 Gal)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuugZSxJs3U

Wally

[Wally.B]

Found another thing that happened to my tank, many years ago.

Not a disaster since no harm done. But looked harmful when it happened the first time to me.

This is my buffer tank. A 2nd tank I used with just water and MacroAlgae growing in it.

Here is MacroAlgae Tank (either before or after release).
http://i1377.photobucket.com/albums/ah74/wbrejnia/MacroAlgae_zps9201cbb8.jpg~original

Here is my display tank when MacroAlgae tank released.
http://i1377.photobucket.com/albums/ah74/wbrejnia/CloudyRelease_zps6ba67d94.jpg~original

Freeked me out, since this happened overnight.

No harm done to lifestock. Ran Carbon and tank cleared up.

Looks kind of the same as the A/B overdose, but it isn't.

Here is an article that explains why this happens.

http://www.reefcleaners.org/macroalgae-care