Tank crash - rebuild advice.

[juzz.raath]

Hi guys,

Thought I'd post on my tank crash. Hopefully someone can learn off it and is passed forward etc etc..

I'm still unsure what happened but it was suspected temperature change and unfortunately didn't catch it in time. I wasnt home either to witness the decline as I was working away. Maybe something died and the levels shot up.. Still unsure.

My wife called and said the tank sand was really brown almost a black colour a day after I left (and also removed the phosphate reactor due to it being cracked). But in my defence they were very low when I left 0.04.

I was having minor issues with phosphates a few weeks ago so I bought a small phosphate reactor with some korallen biophos 2. The phosphates drastically declined but had over 500 calcium and rising alkalinity..

Anyway she rang me the next morning to say she couldn't see the back wall of the tank. Brown!! And stunk to high heaven..

I couldn't leave work unfortunately so she had to deal with the terrible smell in the house.

So next day I came back to see the horrific site of my 6 month old tank. I was more concerned about the fish so I drained the majority of the water and saved them all but one.. Hearty little buggers.. 2 clowns,foxface rabbit fish, and 2 blennys all alive.. I also managed to save some of my zoas, stargrass, cats eye and some daisy.. All sps and majority of other lps didn't make it. Snails and crabs most dead except 2. Lost my dottyback. [emoji19] [emoji19]

Put these guys in a bucket rushed down to the pet store and grabbed a 25 gal nano..

And yes before the major question is asked I was religious with water changes.. Every Sunday 10gal.

Temperature fluctuations were a little bit temperamental with the weather we have been experiencing so I'm unsure if this was the cause..ranged from 24-27deg c.

What I found as well being my first reef tank there was so much learning involved in this first six months, as well as constantly changing things without noting them down, eg new reactor with carbon, new phosphate reactor, new skimmer, new lights, led with t5 combination, then changing back to led only because of algae issues then going back to t5 because I realised the LEDs were causing the algae. Too much to list..

So basically what I'm asking is while I've got this nano with all my survivors set up I'll be rebuilding my 75 gal from fresh..

The new temp nano.

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160614/adb031caee8a54bb809d3b7737081ecf.jpg

The old tank siphoned out

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160614/2516035992548d9bf6eee3d129ecc41c.jpg

So Im taking it all in the shed and rebuilding it as well while I have the chance, eg make a new cabinet. New sump. Cable organisation. Buff scratches, Proper baffles to control skimmer height, get a refugium in there too etc etc...

Things I've learnt:

Get a chiller/heater that keeps constant temp. (is there such a thing or do chillers just chill water??)
Perform small changes and note everything down.

Any other tips on my rebuild and restart? As Im going to take my time on this build and look at every possible thing that helps make the hobby more efficient and less complex than I first made it out to be.

Thanks for listening.

Justin

[Cujo]

FWIW my main tip (one that I struggle with myself) is to take your time and let the system mature and stabilize before fully stocking fish and SPS. Get the small changes you mentioned in place and operational as you slowly add bioload to the system.

[Horace]

Do you know for certain what the cause was? If it was temp, was it because the heater failed ON and overheated the tank? This is quite common, and is why I will never run a tank without an independent temp controller (I use my Apex for this). Hell my heater doesn't even have its own thermostat for that reason...they are cheap and dangerous.

If you do not know the cause you should def try to find out what happened and do your very best to prevent that from happening again. Fwiw I have never seen a tank turn brown like that. Whatever happened was catastrophic failure of something or some water parameter got way out of whack. It almost looks like the GFO made its way into the tank...but you said you took the reactor offline before this happened right?

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[BrettDS]

It's difficult to say what went wrong, but a temp fluctuation of 24C to 27C almost certainly was not the cause... It's a bit of a bigger swing than would be ideal, but those temps should be safe and even if it changed reasonably quickly it shouldn't have caused a crash. My tank routinely gets up to 27C without problems.

Chillers are expensive (to purchase and to operate) and probably not necessary in your case. Like a pp suggested, you might be better served spending the money on a controller instead that can help monitor the tank and if the temp gets out of range can alert you before it becomes a serious problem.

[Reef908]

Just spit balling here but did your wife use any new or different cleaners near the tank between the time you left and when she noticed the issue? Innocent mistake but some of those household chemicals can rapidly destroy a tank. The fact it turned brown so quick is a bit of head scratcher and should be investigated a bit more I would think.

[juzz.raath]

Do you know for certain what the cause was? If it was temp, was it because the heater failed ON and overheated the tank? This is quite common, and is why I will never run a tank without an independent temp controller (I use my Apex for this). Hell my heater doesn't even have its own thermostat for that reason...they are cheap and dangerous.

If you do not know the cause you should def try to find out what happened and do your very best to prevent that from happening again. Fwiw I have never seen a tank turn brown like that. Whatever happened was catastrophic failure of something or some water parameter got way out of whack. It almost looks like the GFO made its way into the tank...but you said you took the reactor offline before this happened right?

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Yes phosphate reactor was taken off line a day before this happened.

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[juzz.raath]

Just spit balling here but did your wife use any new or different cleaners near the tank between the time you left and when she noticed the issue? Innocent mistake but some of those household chemicals can rapidly destroy a tank. The fact it turned brown so quick is a bit of head scratcher and should be investigated a bit more I would think.
I'll have to ask her.. I'm guessing if she did she wouldn't admit it anyways now that I think about it [emoji1].

I did some research on brown water and most are Dino blooms but I'm scratching my head too as how it went south so fast!

I'll plug the heater in today and see what it does as I never checked it after it all happened.

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[juzz.raath]

I'll fill the tank up this morning, plug the heater in and test the temp tommorow, see what I come up with.

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[juzz.raath]

Temp gauge showing me 29' Celsius even though it's set at 25

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[juzz.raath]

Heater set at 25 that is..

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[BrettDS]

29C is definitely a bit more worrisome. Probably not enough to cause instant death, but 29c sustained for a little while could start to kill some things and cause a chain reaction.

Does it seem like the heater is just stuck on and continually heating?

[JWClark]

Heater would be my guess. Another reason to have a controller--you can go back and look at the data to see if, in fact, it was the heater.

[juzz.raath]

Yeah the heater is definitely malfunctioned it's at 31c now. So pretty much in 24 hours it went from 21c - 31c.. Time for an apex!! I have no idea how the fish survived..

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[BrettDS]

When you replace the heater you may want to consider going with two smaller heaters instead of a single large one. It's slightly more expensive, but you'll still get some heat if one heater fails plus the tank won't heat up as quickly if one gets stuck on.

[juzz.raath]

Great advice Thankyou.. Time for the rebuild

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