Hurricane Bernard: power head gone bad

Bernardhny

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Jan 14, 2014
Messages
168
Reaction score
3
Location
Selden, NY
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Funny thing happened to my tank last night. I was doing my normal maintenance routine and at the end decided to add a new powerhead. The one I picked attached itself with a very substantial locking suction cup. I positioned it to send a river of water through a channel in my aquascape and started her up. The new flow was awesome and it was putting current in the perfect spot. The fish would sit outside the current, pop in and fight there flow and pop out. It was looking like a nice fun game. After a few hours I went to bed. I had happy dreams.

Then when I woke up and got ready to leave I went to check out the tank. Sand everywhere. Fish lying on their sides as and four inches of deep sand bed was pushed from one side of the tank to the next. Everything buried. Even the leather coral that is at the top of the tank had an inch of sand on it.

The powerhead fell and created a hurricane in my tank. Coral toppled over, a plate coral was completely buried. NOTHING where it should have been.

I cleaned off all the rock and coral the best I could but tonight I will have to aquascape again.

Lesson learned: no suction cup powerheads. Only magnetically coupled ones (like I have always used).

Oh the frustration. Oh and I did make sure the glass was clean and it was secure b4 going to sleep.
 

Daniel@R2R

Living the Reef Life
View Badges
Joined
Nov 18, 2012
Messages
37,364
Reaction score
63,261
Location
Fontana, California
Rating - 100%
1   0   0
Yep! That's why I only get ones that have magnets now. I lived that experience too many times. :)
 

CBurgei

New Member
View Badges
Joined
Aug 2, 2014
Messages
8
Reaction score
0
Location
Pacifica Ca
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
I just recently changed my suction cup power heads for the ones with the magnets. I have seen the ones with the suction cups in my tank drop before but I always stacked empty rocks next to the so when they dropped they would lang on the rocks. I will never use power heads with suction cups again, not even if someone gave them to me for free. I needed new ones anyways because the old power heads were not creating enough current/circulation for the tank. I love to watch my fish play in the current that is created in the tank and do not want a sand hurricane.
 

racin2438

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Nov 20, 2013
Messages
485
Reaction score
31
Location
California
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
Been there done that too.

Hopefully you can get it all situated again, with no more life lost....
 
OP
OP
Bernardhny

Bernardhny

Active Member
View Badges
Joined
Jan 14, 2014
Messages
168
Reaction score
3
Location
Selden, NY
Rating - 0%
0   0   0
It only took me 4 home depot buckets and 5 hours but the tank is back together. Lost 1 fish due to crushing.
 
Back
Top