Disastrous tank crash. What happened?

[OrionN]

It is really rare that reefer don't have at least one of these events in the past. It is not if but when your tank will crash. So we all can learn second handed, please post your experiences. I will write about my crashes later today.

[randomfishguy85]

I had a 135 fowlr and i had bought it used and resealed it. All was going well until i came home and found half the water on the floor. I moved all the fish into a 60 gallon and made plans to buy a new tank. The 60 couldnt fit all the rock and wasnt drilled. The lack of filtration led to me waking up and seeing everything dead. I lost a narrow lined puffer, niger trigger, percula clown, 2 yellow tail damsels, emperor angel, bicolor angel and a coris wrasse. I was stubborn and shouldve just sold the fish when the 135 leaked, but i didnt.

[Alexraptor]

My first and only actual "tank crash" happened a few years into my first setup.
I used tap water and also had pretty crappy sand that just caked together and made hydrogen sulfide pockets and no worms/critters to speak of to do their thing to keep the sandbed healthy.
Ultimately I think runaway phosphates and maybe even metals from the tap water pretty much nuked the system. Before it all went pear shaped only the animals that had become accustomed to the water lived, any new invertebrates and corals I tried to add, no matter how careful I was acclimating, died within 24 hours. New hammer coral went instant brown jelly and new monti cap went instant RTN.
The final blow came when I tried to strip out ALL the turf algae from the system, and there was probably nothing left anymore at that point to soak up the phosphates, and everything went bye bye. Old Tank Syndrome at its most extreme I guess.

After that I switched to RO/DI water and It's been mostly smooth sailing ever since.

Then there was of course that time that my aquarium room radiator broke down and heated up the entire room to 50 degrees Celsius, but while a lot of corals bleached and died the entire system thankfully did not crash.

[GimpyFin]

Not sure if this counts, but I had a 20g rimless that the back glass split on from a tiny chip in the corner. Held water for about 1.5 years before it happened. Lucky I was home and it was only a 20g tank. I was able to save the 2 fish in there and clean up the mess without it causing too much grief. I won't touch a tank now that looks even slightly questionable structurally.

[C.Eymann]

1st major tank crash- Was using a store bought digital timer and a aqualift pump to dose kalkwasser. Didn't know the digital timer had a "stay on" feature when the memory battery dies. Lost everything.


2nd major tank crash. Went out of town for 4th of July. HVAC went out while I was gone.
Came home to 90+ Degree house, a bad smell and a dead tank.


3rd major one wasn't really a crash per say, Id call it being defeated by AEFW. Tore down and re-set.

[Jeff4777]

Well haven't had a DT crash but but had a QT crash. Apparently didn't use enough filter floss/media from main tank's sump and too much new salt water to setup the QT. Had an ammonia spike and was able to move the fish to a new QT just in time.

[toothybugs]

First crash, spring 2009: Overstocked my tank, had a 5" DSB in my 75, a ton of rock, and never blew anything out. I was forced to do a rapid move so I just sucked all my sand out in to pails, shook out the rock, and discarded most of the debris that was sitting on top of everything. Setting back up I just dumped in the sand, re-stacked the rock, and went to bed. Maybe 6 or so hours from start to finish. Woke up to most of my fish dead, cloudy water, and no clue what had happened. (I now know better...) Oddly though most of the corals survived that as well as another round of the same treatment 2 months later.

Second crash: a few months ago. I had a 2+ year old 40B running well and I started to put sticks in to it August 2015. I lost a few, part of the learning process, but was doing well under wimpy LEDs for most of the fall. In February, I took off for a week-long training course for work and was in the middle of a transition to an upgrade. Half my coral stock and most of my rock had been moved over when I had to take off. With my sump offline, I ran my ATO off the side of the DT but when I asked how things were going a couple days in, my wife said "oh your refiller was beeping so I just moved it down and it quit but I had to do it a couple times." :facepalm: I came home to browned corals and something in my new 75 that was killing corals left and right. No ammonia, no nutrient spikes, but nothing was living except fish and a few hardy zoas. It's been over 4 months since and while most everything does either okay or well, I still can't keep stony corals. My numbers are all great so I'm waiting it out on the assumption my cured rocks (added to what was in my 40) are still just too new to keep stonies.

[jbvdhp]

My tank crash was about last year. Somehow Mg escaped me and I was assuming I was getting it to the correct level. Nope! When I checked, my Mg levels were about 1000 or less, so that was after a water change. When Mg was brought back up, all back to normal. Don't know how or why Mg slipped my mind, but last year was a busy one.

The key indicator for me was Montis (off all SPS) turning really brown and some white. some type of star polyp dying. These two really made me question my chemistry and sure enough. So they're a good indicator for me. Now I don't skimp on testing anymore. Alk is weekly, Calcium every 2-4 weeks as for Mg too.

[Sk8r]

Just a note as a What to Do: if you see signs of an impending crash, set up your qt and any fish-safe bucket you own. Make new salt water, and conditioned tapwater is ok: don't wait for your ro/di, and use the most potent mixing pump you've got, including a hand-mixer or (new) paint stirrer, to dissolve it as fast as you can. Warm cups of water in the microwave until you've got it warm enough, but precise isn't important for most critters.

Then move everything that's still ok into the best water, and anything that's alive but iffy into the bucket: triage.

What this does: takes the bioload off the dt and lets its bacteria catch up. Remove anything dead, run your skimmer at best efficiency, and cross your fingers. If you can pull it back from the brink, then start returning your hardier specimens to the tank, all by stages, with much testing.

Doesn't always work, depending on the cause, but it's a fighting chance for things.

[OrionN]

Thanks Sk8r for fixed my misspell title.

My first tank crash was in 2000. At the time I have a 100 gal tank. One of the PH I used at the time as a Rio. These were cheap PH from China at the time. They are cheap and powerful but does not have much protection between the magnet and the coil. It have the reputation of not working long term at the time. I have already make the decision of not getting any more of them but make the horrible mistake of decide to use what I have until they fail. Little did I know how disastrous on of these PH failure can be.
Well the magnet chamber cracked, no GFCI and this event pump out copper and noxious substance into my tank. It certainly smell horrible.
A lot of my corals bleached, some died. All my shrimps and a lot of the invertebrates in the sand bed died. Some of my fish died, these were fish that have been with me for years, some moved with me to Texas from Seattle.
Living next to Corpus Christi Bay, I did daily 100 % water change for a week and got my tank stabilized.
The rest of the fish live, the coral recovered but the fauna never did. The corals live but did not do well after that.
Does not matter what I did to remedy the problem, from a lot of water change, reseeded the sand bed. Nothing help.
I finally scrape the tank and re set it up with new sand and new rocks. The tank was fine after that.
I think the reason why the tank never did well after that is due to 2 things, on is the massive death in the sand bed. The animals died deep in there and continue to leak out nutrients. The other problem is the copper got absorbed in to the surface of the sand and rock. Every night when the pH drop, a small dose of copper would leak out. These two factors doomed the tank. No large scale death but the animals just not doing well.

Don't be penny wise and pound foolish with your tank. Don't use bad equipment. Don't save a few dollars and crash your tank. Two weeks ago I ordered frozen food on line. Not dry ice was used and most of the order melted. I got refund for it but consider, for a brief moment, to use these food anyway. However I got over my foolishness quickly after a minute or so. Part of this was due to my tank crashed. Feeding spoiled food to my tank is not a good idea, especially with my anemones.

[brett559]

First and only (mini) crash was a few months ago. I was on vacation, and my assistant (tank is in office) called and said tank was making a funny noise. My Tunze ATO sensor got stuck on, probably salt creep. So a bunch of fresh water got dumped in the tank. A fellow reefer came to the office and did what he could. But I lost my clown pair, my royal gramma, and my beloved regal angel jumped, presumably because of the stress.

I am now much better about keeping salt out of the sensor...

[Nina51]

had a 55g fowlr many years ago. went on vacation for a week with a bunch of girlfriends, left hubby in charge. told him to feed ONLY once a day and just a pinch of food. came home to a mess. cloudy water, fish all breathing heavily, tank was doomed, beyond saving. when i asked hubby how much he fed, he said they acted hungry every time he walked by the tank so...

[OrionN]

My next tank crash was much more disastrous in mid 2000. I was keeping a 450 gal at the time. It was thriving with a lot of my fish, coral, a number of clams including a 10 years 17 inches Gigas that make the move with me from Seattle (a lot of the fish and corals also). Some of my tangs were more than 10 years old.

At the time I used a kalk reactor to top off my tank. This is control by a water level detector in the sump and hooked up to my RO. I also have a large protein skimmer out of the sump and a free standing bucket to collect the waste from the skimmer.

Saturday, evening I did tank maintenance. Clean the tank and fill the kalk reactor, empty and clean the skimmer. Finish just in time for bed.
The next morning the tank was white, everything dead. There were water every where. The sump level were perfect and the skimmer was putting our huge amount of copious foaming soap like stuff, over float the bucket and spill on to the floor.

What happened was there were either minor water loss from the skimmer. I think this was replaced by still mixing slurry of white kalk solution. This likely shock the animals from the increase in pH resulting in many of the animals slime up. This in turn cause more foams and further water loss, resulting into more white kalk solution dumps into the tank. This spiral cause a huge pH spike and salinity decreased.

All the animals dead or dying. I did everything I could, including essentially unlimited amount of water (limited by my back) but cannot prevent a total tank crash. I lost everything. I sold the tank, get out of reefing for 4-5 years.

I still keep my beautiful T. Gigas shell. I raised him from a 2 inches baby. Below is a picture of the shells.

DO NOT TOP OFF USE A WATER LEVEL SWITCH, ESPECIALLY IF YOU USE KALK. IF YOU LOOSE WATER SOME HOW, YOU WILL END UP WITH HYPO-SALINITY (AND pH SPIKE IF USE TOP OFF WITH KALK).

I still use kalk top off, but I use a variable speed dosing pump.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=352634&stc=1&d=1466444869

[OrionN]

had a 55g fowlr many years ago. went on vacation for a week with a bunch of girlfriends, left hubby in charge. told him to feed ONLY once a day and just a pinch of food. came home to a mess. cloudy water, fish all breathing heavily, tank was doomed, beyond saving. when i asked hubby how much he fed, he said they acted hungry every time he walked by the tank so...
I portion out the food to be feed each day to the tank. I even show the tank sitter exactly how I want Nori fold and clip on the clip.

[ca1ore]

Had two tanks crash. First, around 1990, was the victim of a run-away ATO. The way I had my sump configured meant that the salinity could fall precipitously. It did, everything died. Second, in January 2006, was the victim of a house heating failure while I was on vacation. I had enough heating capacity on the tank to keep it 15-20 degrees above ambient, but not 40 (house was at 35 degrees when I got home; tank at 50 degrees). Surprisingly most of the fish survived, as did my magnifica anemone, but all the coral were dead.

Crash #1 is now avoided with multiple, redundant switches and salinity monitoring. Crash #2 is now avoided with significant reservoir of heaters that only trigger if the tank temp falls to below 72 degrees.

[OrionN]

Simon,
I invest in a Cole-Palmer continuous varible speed pump. I have mine for 5+ years and cannot be happier. Set it at what ever rate you want. I also use one for my Ca reactor. The Kalk and Ca reactor are rock stable.

[fishchef]

Been doing this since '91 went to a 125 in early 2000. Never had a crash in all those years. Well, in 2015 my whole house AC quit on a very hot day. If we had a chiller it could of been avoided. Tank was never the same after that. Got out of the Hobby this year. The expense of getting it back to where it was just couldn't be done.

[marinelife]

My salinity jump up because I my calibration fluid for my refractometer went bad. Once I fixed it, I got a bad cyano outbreak and lost most of my corals. Fish did not seem to care.

[Apercula]

The long story short version of mine was a 90 degree plus day, an no air conditioning building, and I was preoccupied elsewhere. When I realized the tank had spiked over 90 water temp it was already too late. Most corals and the sensitive fish died outright. The hardy fish had a velvet outbreak and died over several weeks.

[OrionN]

Any more?

[Bluefish9]

Hurricane Sandy happened to me. Was my first reef... It was really doing great. No power and no heat for two weeks will do it. Kept a generator running for as long as I could (which fried my controller) but gas was hard to come by... Lines for hours at the gas stations, fights breaking out. Had to leave and go to a relatives house a state away that had power. I have small kids so ya gotta do what ya gotta do. A green chromis made it. Tank was a disaster. Sold it all off. In the middle of a 150g fowlr build now.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[saf1]

2001 - California fabricated electricity crisis via Enron. Vacation with minimal coverage via friends and family. Some automation, top off, etc. While out of town on vacation our area sustained many brown outs which placed a strain on our 100 gallon reef tank and African Gray parrot. While friends did stop by to try and reset or add water to handle evaporation everything was accelerated and our AC went out - one thing lead to another and it was lost.

Probably several failure points but in the end I would say there wasn't enough water to handle the time between fill ups from a house sitter. The AC tripping the circuit breaker didn't help any either but final straw was the pump seizing up that triggered it all. They packed up the bird which was nice but when we got home you could smell it the minute the door opened. Total loss.

Ended up draining it, removing everything that resembled a coral or fish, skimmed surface of the deep sand bed, and scrubbed the rocks. Emergency tap water to salt mix, filled it back up to try and save rock/sand, and performed more water changes during the week. Oddly enough a week later there was clear life on the rock and sand with worms. Threw in a pair of tomato clowns, some hermits, and called it a day. Left it that way for a year. Over that time button polyps and zoa's recovered and overtook the tank.

Finally gave in, tore down the tank, moved the sand/rock into a pair of 29 gallon biocubes. Since moved, merged those tanks into a single 40 breeder with the rock and sand still thriving today. In the process of building a 210 and will move the sand and rock forward.

Little bit of my control, more so the corrupted politics of California and/or private companies gaining control of the power.

[64Ivy]

Two major tank crashes in the past 20 years so I count myself as lucky. Crash #1 was caused by light (PAR) shock when I switched from a hood to pendants, and in the process, adding about 300 par to corals that had been used to a certain number for more than 10 years. Crash #2 was caused by copper poisoning, the source of which remains unknown to this day. I replaced 90% of the live rock, which is a lot in a 500g tank, did countless water changes, and employed several copper absorbing filter pads, etc. and it still took nearly a year before I deemed the tank ready again for coral. And although this was a few years back and my levels have long since been at 0, I STILL am not totally satisfied with the color or growth rate I'm getting from my SPS in particular. Nevertheless, two major tank crashes in the past 20 years so I count myself as lucky.