disaster and possible rebirth

Ron Reefman

Ron Reefman

Active member
I have 4 tanks set up as 2 systems. The main is a 125g and a 50g. The back room system is a 65g shallow reef (4'x2'x14") and a 25g frag tank.

Friday morning we woke up to find the 1hp chiller thermostat had failed and was continually cooling the tank. The condensation running off the glass was a pool of water on the floor. The 2 main tanks were just under 60 degrees. The backroom tanks are a separate system, so no issues.

The main tank was 60 to 70% sps and now, 2 days later, 95% of them are dead along with all the fish, sea stars, shrimp and a cucumber (I think... but it could be alive under the rocks). The 50g is mostly anemones and a few corals, including a few more dead sps.

I have a long explanation and a discussion of what my future plans might be in my build thread. If you are interested, please read today's post
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showpost.php?p=25250172&postcount=248

If you want to read the full thread, the link is
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2593017

Please feel free to make comments, suggestions or criticisms . I'm planning a serious change in course and any help will be welcomed to the confusion that is already clogging my head!!! :strooper:

Thanks. :thumbsup:
 
Ron - so sorry to hear this! Times like this really do suck, but all of us who've been at it long enough have suffered similar disasters.

I think you are on the right track. I have always tried to keep things as simple as possible. IMHO, the more automation, the more chances for said automation to fail, so the only things I have set up that way are my lights, power heads (Gyre 250's), and dosing pumps. I recently suffered a somewhat similar problem when, while decreasing the timer on my Calcium dosing pump, I inadvertently switched it from "auto" to "on" and dumped 2 gallons of calcium 2-part into my 120DT, raising the Calcium from 600 (the "why" to changing the timer) to an estimated 1700ppm. I lost about 2/3 of my montipora sp corals in the process, and that failure was 100% mine, not the technology!

Pick up the pieces and take your time redoing things . Will it ever be the same? Nope. Will it, can it, be different but better? You Betcha!
 
Oh, what a bummer.

I looked at your first link real quick and wondered if it'd be worth it to keep the chiller but control it with a Ranco. Or maybe use a fan controlled by a Ranco blowing across the top of the tank. Running a chiller or dealing with humidity both cost money.

Maybe a water temp alert would be worthwhile.
Anyway, good luck!
 
Sorry to hear this. We put allot of time, effort and money into this hobby, but it’s worth it. I’m sure you will rebuild.

I have my chiller’s thermostat set at 79 and is controlled by an Apex Lite set at 80. if either one fails the other will kick in.
 
Sorry to hear. That is also why anything that can nuke a tank I have on my apex as a back up as well.
For me it's just my heater and CaRx. The apex does nothing for me other than redundancy for those
 
Thanks to all that have replied. Time has settled me down and I'll move forward with a different kind of tank. No more serious sps and no more expensive frags. From here here on it's all about the ability to fluoresce well under blue leds and being hearty coral!

Here is a small sample of the way the tank looks.










 
That stinks. Just reinforces how much our tanks skate on the proverbial thin edge of disaster. Trouble with large chillers (mine is 3/4 hp) is that amp draw means you cannot run them through a controller as a redundant thermostat. Mine would drop my system just as precipitously if the ranco stuck.
 
Last edited:
wrott said:
https://www.bulkreefsupply.com/reefkeeper-expansion-socket-digital-aquatics.html

This can handle high amps and control it. I got one from Neptune about 7 years ago, they dont sell it now.
Sorry for the losses. Same thing happened to me with a power surge--it reset my 1/2HP chiller to 57F during the night, so i got a socket expansion module set to turn off <76F.
Click to expand...

Neptune recommends a third party device that does the same thing (Titan Hercules 3). Works for units up to 1/2 hp, but still not big enough for 3/4 or 1 hp (plus 1 hp may be 220). Rated to 15 amps, but the fine print says 12.5 amps max continouls load.
 
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So sorry for the problems Ron. Look at it from a different view. Those things you'd like to have done but didn't want to mess up the tank, do them now. As a very old reefer, there's always things I'd like to do differently in a set up system that aren't possible. Keep working on what you're doing and just let your mind think about where you're at. Then just move on.
 
So sorry, Ron. More bad luck.

Good luck with the reboot I hope you stick with it, and hope you continue to be a great resource around here.
 
Sorry to see this, Ron. Good luck with the reboot, sounds like you are moving forward. Good for you!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
This morning the tank water is finally clear again. It looks almost normal except for all the skeletons. The rock flower anemones are looking normal and even all 10 tiny babies (pinhead to pencil eraser size) survived and are open. In fact we found a few we had missed in the blue leds last night. The RBTA's are doing a little better but nowhere near normal. About half the zoas are wide open and half are still closed up.

However, I do have a question/issue. My skimmer is now making very white bubbles at the top of the collection cup and they don't want to pop and drain down. Instead, they actually are pushing the top of the collection cup up off the cup and creating a big (as in 3 or 4 inches out the sides of the cup) ball of white foamy bubbles? In 12+ years I've never seen a skimmer foam like this. The bubbles in the neck of the skimmer look very normal, they just don't seem to pop.

I'm guessing they are so strong due to organics from the stuff that has died in the tank?

I did bad and cleaned it up this morning and I should have taken a photo. I intend to start pulling the tank apart to day. I need to get under the rocks and get after dead bodies.
 
I know I'm not saying anything new here, but hobbies are meant to be fun. This is an opportunity to make sure your tank actually supports that goal.

Good luck with the rebuild, I'm sure whatever you do will be spectacular and thoughtful.
 
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