Animals that DESTROY equipment! What could have done THIS?!

Have you ever had aquarium equipment damaged by livestock?

  • YES (tell us in the thread)

    Votes: 42 15.6%
  • NO

    Votes: 208 77.0%
  • Maybe now that you mention it

    Votes: 17 6.3%
  • Other (please explain)

    Votes: 3 1.1%

  • Total voters
    270

revhtree

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A recent post got me thinking the other day about animals that could cause destruction to your aquarium equipment and how common it is or isn't. Today let's find out!


Have you ever had aquarium equipment damaged by livestock? If so how and what?


What animal could do THIS to your equipment? Check out the next post for the answer!
images via @WVNed
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revhtree

revhtree

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@WVNed tell us the story of when the "beast" ate your stuff? LOL!
 

WVNed

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They broke the electric wires for a heater and energized my sump too.
These animals are VERY strong, and can tip a large skimmer over.
IMG_3134_heic-L.jpg

This one is carrying baby crabs. This is the second time. The crabs have sex. The female molts and the baby crabs go from being inside the shell to outside and she carries them for quite a while.
This is like when my long spine urchins spawned. You really don't want 100 or 1000 more in your tank.

Hey they are tiny and cute when thy come on your live rock. You get invested in them.
Then they grow.
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So you move them to the sump.
Then they grow some more
IMG_2986-L.jpg

and you find other ones and catch them
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I started armoring things in the sump with plastic pipe
IMG_3352_HEIC-M.jpg

Now I feed them every day. I give them the same stuff I feed my eel. They don't destroy stuff looking for food.
2021041318271922-5491391995260038156-IMG_3508_HEIC-L.jpg

They also eat each other legs. They do grow back though but they are tiny at first.

IMG_2957_heic-M.jpg
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So far they have destroyed two double junction ORP probes, a Jebao pump, My ATO optical sensor and a 300 watt heater.
But they are so cute, I forgive them.
 
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Treefer32

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I have an 8 inch long Dragon Wrasse that can move some pretty major rocks. When he was young, I glued corals down to some larger flat rocks that easily weighed a pound. Thinking the corals and rock would be safe.. I had 3 frags probably totaling between $100 and $150 total glued to the rock. Within a week the rock was gone. I couldn't find it. Eventually I found where the Wrasse's cave is and he had placed the rock upside down over his cave. Most of the corals died.

I have found bits of egg crate getting stuck to powerheads and or in powerheads. . . I'm pretty sure he chewed chunks of egg crate out from beneath my sand bed and spit them into the water column. My entire tank used to be a sand storm when I didn't use filter socks and/or any type of mechanical filtration other than skimmer. My Skimmer pump would be jammed up within a month. My return pump would make odd grinding noises (external pump). I put in a filter sock on just one of my two overflows. I installed a 25 micron Nu-Clear cannister filter to polish the water. Not understanding what was killing my pump efficiency.

Within a day my cannister cartridge and filter sock were full of sand particles. My dragon wrasse was continuously digging in the sand each and every day and the sand had no where to go but through my pumps and return back to the aquarium. Using filter socks and the cannister filter. I've probably easily removed 20-40 lbs of sand in the last 3 years. My sand bed keeps getting smaller and smaller exposing areas of the bottom. I know it has to be the dragon wrasse....

I've seen him actually take a mouth full of sand and swim up to close to the top of the tank and release it slowly.. Crop dusting the whole tank with sand. . .

Occasionally the wet sides of my new mp40s just stop, jammed up. I pull the magnets out and discover where the magnet is is full of sand particles... It gets even into the sealed areas of the magnets... I flush them out and grease them back up and they start running at full power again. . .
 

stephnjeph

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I had a clown trigger that loved to nip on any cable that was present in the tank. She continued to nip even with cable wraps. Unfortunately she succumbed to an electric shock. This happened many years ago. The pumps were Tunze 6200s. We switched to Vortechs on our tanks that have larger fish. I am a Tunze fan and have had continual bad luck with Vortechs, but I like the concept of not having cords on the tank so we keep throwing money at them to keep them running. The rest of our pumps are all still Tunze except for two of our nanos that are running Nero's.
 

Diesel 2021

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I havent had this issue yet but my turbo snails keep pushing over my leather fingers and breaking the stems. Darn bullies! Lol.
 
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revhtree

revhtree

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I've seen him actually take a mouth full of sand and swim up to close to the top of the tank and release it slowly.. Crop dusting the whole tank with sand. . .

Literally LOL!
 

Grill

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I had a star fish crawl up through the return (against the flow) and down 6ft of PVC into the return pump. The flow was way off with the sound of the pump working extra hard. I initially thought snail or possible cheato clump. Low and behold it was my Linckia Star. Luckily the outlet on my return is clear so I could see what was causing the issue. After turning everything off and removing the pump I finally pried it out, no major damage other than a few scratches.

Stra 1 (1).jpg


Stra 1 (2).jpg


star 1 3.jpg
 

TheDragonsReef

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Ive had urchins scratch the glass on my 265. Its not just like one scratch either its a quarter sized circle roughed into the glass and theres 3 or 4 of them. :mad: Ive also have a long spine urchin try to eat the corner silicone seams. Both went back to the store. I think im done trying urchins.
 

Mastering the art of locking and unlocking water pathways: What type of valves do you have on your aquarium plumbing?

  • Ball valves.

    Votes: 58 49.6%
  • Gate valves.

    Votes: 64 54.7%
  • Check valves.

    Votes: 28 23.9%
  • None.

    Votes: 28 23.9%
  • Other.

    Votes: 9 7.7%
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