Tank-O-death
- Thread starter steveweast
- Start date
Steve,
I am so sorry to hear about your tank. Not that it matters now but I usually have several hundred gallons of fresh and salt RODI water ready and on my store answering machine I have my cell number listed for when things go wrong in the middle of the night.
How can I help you get your tank up and going? We have in some really nice live rock and I can help you get some corals at my cost. Just let me know how I can help.
Patrick
Saltwater FantaSeas
503-255-1645 store
503-939-4560 cell
503-492-8777 home
I am so sorry to hear about your tank. Not that it matters now but I usually have several hundred gallons of fresh and salt RODI water ready and on my store answering machine I have my cell number listed for when things go wrong in the middle of the night.
How can I help you get your tank up and going? We have in some really nice live rock and I can help you get some corals at my cost. Just let me know how I can help.
Patrick
Saltwater FantaSeas
503-255-1645 store
503-939-4560 cell
503-492-8777 home
Fraggle Rock2
New member
Sorry to read about your loss. Best of luck on the recovery.
But, let me tell you, I am really looking forward to Oregon Reef v2.0!!!
But, let me tell you, I am really looking forward to Oregon Reef v2.0!!!
invincible569
New member
Good idea Alberto. Never thought about that.
cward
Premium Member
That really sucks Steve, but I know how you feel. I had some equipment failures combined with a brain fart and lost most of my corals, including my huge millepora. I felt like dumping a parrot fish in the tank to mow everything down and teach those damn AEFW's a lesson:lol: I chose to save what I could and start over again, so in a year or so I should be happy with it again.
WDLV
Skunk Hybrid Freak
Ya know, I've been doing some experimenting in my tank after observing the natural reef. Dead coral in a tank is not an alltogether bad thing. If you can tough it out for the month that it takes to get past the red slime and grow over with green algae and corraline, it looks very natural. It looks especially good when the corraline, tubeworms and sponges grow in completely and the other corals are growing in and around it. I'm not quite to that stage yet, and hope I never have a full tank of dead coral to experiment with, but I've seen it on natural reefs.
Of course I'm sure this aspect of nature is not for everyone.
- This is in no way intended to make light of Steve's loss. I really feel for anyone that has this kind of occurance. Saying it sucks, doesn't quite capture the "Oh Sh-t" factor you feel when you see your own tank in that predicament. I've been there, but mine was not well established at the time. I can only imagine.
jnarowe
New member
Wow Steve, just heard about this on Marc's PodCast. Not cool. Glad to see you are taking it well...I know I have had some serious issues and a lot of swearing but after the initial shock (or shocks 
) I seem to get back on the horse.
I am surprised that you didn't have water ready. I remember when I visited I saw your empty holding tank but didn't really think anything of it. Right now I ALWAYS have 90+g SW aged, aerated, and stirred a few times/day. And I always have 75 - 90g of RO/DI on hand. Both are heated as well. In fact I did that based on input from Weatherson's site, but I thought you did the same.
I am planning on ripping out my 1,200 sq. ft. deck and installing a tiered outdoor area with a spa, BBQ, seating etc. When I build this, it will be like a house foundation, retaining walls, and multiple sumps. One sump will be 1000g for RO/DI wastewater, which I use to water my vegetable garden. (it's high in nitrate, phosphate, and minerals) One 500g sump for SW, and one 500g sump for RO/DI. An additionaly 50g RO/DI will be inside the tank room for top-off. I know it sounds like overkill, but I seem to be adding to my system over time and I want to make sure I have the capacity for the future.
The best suggestion yet in this thread is a low-water cutoff. My last disaster was when a seam split on my multi-media reactor and although I had it mounted on top of a sump for leakage, pressure actually made the water spray out onto the floor. It emptied my sumps, overflow, etc. and in the end fried some electrical outlets causing several breakers to trip. Long story short, I got everything back in order and the tank inhabitants were fine. I had enough water to refill the sumps and get her going again, but a low water cut-off could have kept the smoke inside some of my electrical components.
I can't wait to see what you will do to modify your system and how you will deal with aquascaping. Good luck!
) I seem to get back on the horse.I am surprised that you didn't have water ready. I remember when I visited I saw your empty holding tank but didn't really think anything of it. Right now I ALWAYS have 90+g SW aged, aerated, and stirred a few times/day. And I always have 75 - 90g of RO/DI on hand. Both are heated as well. In fact I did that based on input from Weatherson's site, but I thought you did the same.
I am planning on ripping out my 1,200 sq. ft. deck and installing a tiered outdoor area with a spa, BBQ, seating etc. When I build this, it will be like a house foundation, retaining walls, and multiple sumps. One sump will be 1000g for RO/DI wastewater, which I use to water my vegetable garden. (it's high in nitrate, phosphate, and minerals) One 500g sump for SW, and one 500g sump for RO/DI. An additionaly 50g RO/DI will be inside the tank room for top-off. I know it sounds like overkill, but I seem to be adding to my system over time and I want to make sure I have the capacity for the future.
The best suggestion yet in this thread is a low-water cutoff. My last disaster was when a seam split on my multi-media reactor and although I had it mounted on top of a sump for leakage, pressure actually made the water spray out onto the floor. It emptied my sumps, overflow, etc. and in the end fried some electrical outlets causing several breakers to trip. Long story short, I got everything back in order and the tank inhabitants were fine. I had enough water to refill the sumps and get her going again, but a low water cut-off could have kept the smoke inside some of my electrical components.
I can't wait to see what you will do to modify your system and how you will deal with aquascaping. Good luck!
tgreene
Reefer
Steve,
A little over a year ago, I had nearly the exact same thing happen to my 125g reef, with the difference being that all of the water lost was replaced with fresh top-off water that went through my Kalk reactor... The end result was a milky tank with a pH of 10.8x that sat that way for several hours.
As soon as I discovered what had happened, I began dumping vinegar, and ran out at 2 gallons, and it didn't move it much. I then had no option but to grab a gallon of Muriatic Acid, and begin slowly adding it to the tank in order to drop the pH to a safe range. Once the pH had been dropped and stabilized in the upper 8's, I began the ardous task of damage assement while mixing water.
I ultimately did 5 massive water changes over a period of 2 weeks, to try to reduce the Nuclear Winter look, and ended up with huge losses. The upside is; I learned something valuable, and now have a high-pH limiter in place that kills the top-off controller when the pH reaches 8.6. The unit is a Milwaukee SMS-122 pH Controller that is factory modified to function in reverse, and it's also been added to every single tank that I maintain that has a Kalk reactor mated to an auto top-off controller. This is not a piece of equipment that is manufactured or marketed for this reason, and Milwaukee thought I was nuts for wanting one for a reef tank, but once I fully explained the logic behind it, they understood the need.
It sucks man, I know, but without these disasters, we would never be able to develop new or modified products, or create new uses for existing products. With proper logic and documentation, our failures can ultimately become our greatest gains.
Kindest Regards,
Tim Greene
A little over a year ago, I had nearly the exact same thing happen to my 125g reef, with the difference being that all of the water lost was replaced with fresh top-off water that went through my Kalk reactor... The end result was a milky tank with a pH of 10.8x that sat that way for several hours.
As soon as I discovered what had happened, I began dumping vinegar, and ran out at 2 gallons, and it didn't move it much. I then had no option but to grab a gallon of Muriatic Acid, and begin slowly adding it to the tank in order to drop the pH to a safe range. Once the pH had been dropped and stabilized in the upper 8's, I began the ardous task of damage assement while mixing water.
I ultimately did 5 massive water changes over a period of 2 weeks, to try to reduce the Nuclear Winter look, and ended up with huge losses. The upside is; I learned something valuable, and now have a high-pH limiter in place that kills the top-off controller when the pH reaches 8.6. The unit is a Milwaukee SMS-122 pH Controller that is factory modified to function in reverse, and it's also been added to every single tank that I maintain that has a Kalk reactor mated to an auto top-off controller. This is not a piece of equipment that is manufactured or marketed for this reason, and Milwaukee thought I was nuts for wanting one for a reef tank, but once I fully explained the logic behind it, they understood the need.
It sucks man, I know, but without these disasters, we would never be able to develop new or modified products, or create new uses for existing products. With proper logic and documentation, our failures can ultimately become our greatest gains.
Kindest Regards,
Tim Greene
WDLV
Skunk Hybrid Freak
Did it look sort of like this? I awoke to this one morning after an incident where a pound to a pound and a half of kalk was dumped into my system.
When this happened to me, I had about one third of my corals and two thirds of my fish actually survive. But only after 450 gallons worth of water changes on a 300 gallon system.
When this happened to me, I had about one third of my corals and two thirds of my fish actually survive. But only after 450 gallons worth of water changes on a 300 gallon system.
steveweast
Active member
Wow.....I guarded against that happening in my system by NOT having the top off driven by a float switch. If I did.....it would have been a total loss.
Folks here seem to be blaming my RO -DI unit or my skimmer. While it is true that these components played a small role in starting the disaster......the REAL reason for the SPS crash was MY failure to correctly react (not over-react) to a small problem. Had I just left well enough alone....added some air to the main tank....spent the 48 hrs or so to prepare more water.....I wouldn't have lost anything. The equipment did play a small role....but....the real failure was in me.
Folks here seem to be blaming my RO -DI unit or my skimmer. While it is true that these components played a small role in starting the disaster......the REAL reason for the SPS crash was MY failure to correctly react (not over-react) to a small problem. Had I just left well enough alone....added some air to the main tank....spent the 48 hrs or so to prepare more water.....I wouldn't have lost anything. The equipment did play a small role....but....the real failure was in me.
melev
Well-known member
Having to wait on water would make a person bite their fingernails in anticipation, but you are right. You could have added 100g a day later, and 100g the day after that.
Hindsight - ugh! Did you check into possibly getting a Merlin system?
Since you aren't going to update your site as planned, do you think you could incorporate some of the coldwater tank instead? That would be a very welcome addition to your website and keep the information easy to find.
melev
Well-known member
tgreene
Reefer
Please don't take my comments in regards to my own disaster as anything more than that... MY OWN DISASTER.
The point that I was trying to get at, is that if everything functioned perfectly all of the time, then we would not have the capacity to learn and advance in either our understanding and/or with the equipment that we develop to prevent such disasters from happening again, either to ourselves or to others.
I've long been told that the weakest link of a system is likely a float controlled auto-topoff that's directly connected to an RO/DI unit, so when I designed and marketed the Reef-Relief AATOC, I made sure that it had a number of fail-safes built into it. In a million years I never imagined what happened to me since mine supplies a Kalk reactor, but now with a Reverse-pH Controller at the helm (monitors sump pH and controlls the top-off unit), it CANNOT happen again.
Also, in regards to the Merlin system -- While they do crank out several hundred gallons a day, the rejection rate is only 90%, which is considered extremely sub-standard by many of us. In an emergency situation though, I wouldn't hesitate to use it! I'm currently looking at a $2000 500gpd commercial unit, with a 98.5 % rejection rate.
-Tim
