What causes a tank crash? Share your experience.

[dous]

I've heard people talking about their tank crashing and losing everything so quickly and it scares me. What are causes so others can avoid making these mistakes?

Please post your experiences and advice. Thanks.

[LivinThaLyfe33]

adding fish to a tank that has been set-up for 3 days and not checking parameters...newbies never understand the phrase "let your tank cycle" or they just dont know what it means...now i do:)

[Drewcipher]

When you have your chiller repaired and hook it back up assuming that the settings haven't been changed and wake up to a reef tank at 60 degrees. Ouch!

We didn't lose everything though. Whew!

[LivinThaLyfe33]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=7838479#post7838479 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Drewcipher
When you have your chiller repaired and hook it back up assuming that the settings haven't been changed and wake up to a reef tank at 60 degrees. Ouch!

We didn't lose everything though. Whew!

wow and i thought 87 was bad when i came home yesterday...guess its better to be hotter than cooler

[Sk8r]

Ways to make your tank crash:
1. buy an anemone before your tank is stable. One anemone can take out a tank.
2. buy certain cucumbers. Ditto.
3. get a lot of big fish
4. run bioball or sheet filters and overfeed your fish.
5. turn your lights on and off by hand: [timer is best]
6. let your 5-year-old help you feed your fish [he'll do it when you're not there, too.
7. let drunken friends near your tank.
8. don't test and don't keep records of your tests.
9. keep buying fish after the last ones died
10. feed your fish for fun instead of to meet their needs
11. buy and use every gimcrack miracle additive that comes down the pike.
12. use tapwater
13. have no power backup or plan in case of power failure.
14. rush to fling a 'miracle cure' for algae into your tank instead of fixing problems with flow and overfeeding.
15. treat fish diseases in your main tank.
16. put new tangs, angels, or clownfish into your tank without quarantining and observing for ich and other problems.
17. buying fish or other specimens without knowing what they eat: it could be their tankmates.
18. overstocking in general
19. not proceeding in a cautious, well-planned order when dealing with topoff switches and reactors.
20. sheer coincidence: many disasters are intersections of 3 small things you have gotten away with forever, but all 3 happen at once---and Murphy wins one.

HTH.

[dous]

These are great. Hopefully newbies get to read posts like these and prevent disaster to their tanks from happening.

Please feel free to add more, if you think there are more, or just personal experiences, even though Sk8r covered a lot of the main ones I think.

[Sk8r]

Thanks, dous. I can add a couple more from bitter experience, plus a few: how to cause a tank crash [pt 2]
21. trust your thermometer blindly [always have 2 in action]
22. trust your heater thermostat [it's more like guidelines.]
23. use equipment that's on its last legs, particularly heaters.
24. hand a relative the fish food and tell them to feed your tank 'as much as they'll eat in 5 minutes' while you're on vacation [prepackage the food in pill boxes]
25. believe a store employee or a label that tells you it's reef-safe. [Reefs differ---a lot! Ask in RC].

[chem-e]

I left for a 2 week vacation and left the tank with a friend to watch (with no SW experience, only FW). My RTBA had split previously and during my vacation, I'm guessing it wandered into a PH. By the time I got home, my tank was covered in hair algae and all my acros were bleached.

[hogpark7430]

Adding to much Kallwaser at once while watching a football game.

[dous]

Oh man!