ChrisKirkland's 300DD Reboot Build Thread

[ChrisKirkland]

Folks I came home today to some very sad news.

Around 4PM today I found out that the 20A breaker my tank was on tripped at 9AM. All fish except my Blue Hippo, Orange Diamond Goby, Potters Wrasse, Leopard Wrasse, Starry Blenny and clownfish were all dead.

I am extremely saddened by this and very upset by the fact that a breaker which was for this tank only tripped (breaker had about a 15A load at its peak) and I didn't check my reef cam till after 4. At any rate I had to decide if I wanted to take the tank down and sell it or reboot it. I decided to do the reboot. This time I and going to take all the mistakes I made (over stocking, crappy rock work, not having a back up circuit) and use this to make the rebuild the best ever.

I have been following ReefMutt's build thread ("Learning/rebuilding from my epic fail") since he first started it. This has inspired me to take my mistakes and fix them if I ever had the chance to rebuild.

I have removed almost all rock work so far. I guess its time to reboot the tank, I wont give up on this tank, this is my dream tank.

First Item is to get an electrician in to install a new circuit.

A few questions:

Should I remove all the old sand?

What should I soak the rock in to clean all the crap off it and make it like new again?

 

[Joe0813]

do you know why the breaker tripped in the first place?? i would think having the tank offline for only 7 hours wouldnt have killed everything

 

[ChrisKirkland]

do you know why the breaker tripped in the first place?? i would think having the tank offline for only 7 hours wouldnt have killed everything

Tank was fully stocked, when I cam home the tank temp was at 70 and ORP was below 225.

Honestly I think its the GFIC break it is on. I have read thing about them not liking continuous high loads.

 

[Joe0813]

sorry to hear... but at least you are not throwing in the towel

 

[ChrisKirkland]

I dont think I ever will. Everytime something fails it give me an opportunity to root case the issue and improve on it next time. Grant it this big of a failure is not something I want all the time.

 

[ChrisKirkland]

So it begins. Water change is tomorrow, will clean the sandbed and even out. Rock is soaking in a bleach wash, will clean it tomorrow also.

 

[lionfish300]

Sorry for your lost. Good luck with the restart and have fun

 

[karsco]

Chris, I feel your pain. I went through the same thing this last summer while on vacation. We had a power outage, then the power kicked back on tripped the GFI and it was probably off a few days before I got home. I had a temporary stock tank set up (Since I had just built the house) and was working towards setting up a 300DD as well.

It was brutal losing corals & fish I had for 10+ years! I thought of throwing in the towel as well but I am to addicted to the hobby for that to happen. Good luck on the reboot, looks like you on your way. Are you going to add a culture or some fresh live rock to seed the old rock? Do you run a controller that could alert you the next time? I plan on adding (Probably an Apex) with Internet, and back that up with a UPS system of some sort. Good Luck!

 

[ChrisKirkland]

Chris, I feel your pain. I went through the same thing this last summer while on vacation. We had a power outage, then the power kicked back on tripped the GFI and it was probably off a few days before I got home. I had a temporary stock tank set up (Since I had just built the house) and was working towards setting up a 300DD as well.

It was brutal losing corals & fish I had for 10+ years! I thought of throwing in the towel as well but I am to addicted to the hobby for that to happen. Good luck on the reboot, looks like you on your way. Are you going to add a culture or some fresh live rock to seed the old rock? Do you run a controller that could alert you the next time? I plan on adding (Probably an Apex) with Internet, and back that up with a UPS system of some sort. Good Luck!

I will be seeding with pods and some new rock. I do run an apex. The problem is when the breaker tripped the APEX also went down. it will not alert you until it comes back up.

 

[druzzelle]

I've had that type of issue with my GFIC that shares the line from my front porch.. I have 5 LED uplights drawing about 60w total and i've had to reset the switch a few times over the past 2 years since installing the lights... not sure whats causing it.. the lights I had in the same place were standard bulbs drawing close to 300w.. the new ones are on a timer dawn/dust sensor... if you figure out why it happened be sure an share it with the rest of us... may help prevent someone else from having the same issue.. sorry you lost so much... new circuit, battery backups, good things to consider