Are you worried to discover a disaster?

[ScubaSkeets]

So, my tank is not in a main area of my house. It's in the finished basement.
While I am walking down the stairs, before I see my tank, I am terrified. Terrified that I am going to turn the corner and see a disaster.
"Did the tank explode?"
"Are all my fish dead due to some kind of crash or something?"
"Did one fish eat all the others?"

And I breathe a sigh of relief when I see none of that.

Am I the only one?

 

[medi]

I have a red sea so yes, every day I worry the same..

 

[Jay Hemdal]

So, my tank is not in a main area of my house. It's in the finished basement.
While I am walking down the stairs, before I see my tank, I am terrified. Terrified that I am going to turn the corner and see a disaster.
"Did the tank explode?"
"Are all my fish dead due to some kind of crash or something?"
"Did one fish eat all the others?"

And I breathe a sigh of relief when I see none of that.

Am I the only one?

As a public aquarium curator, I had this issue 100x - coming into work each morning wondering what could have gone wrong overnight. Upgraded all systems to have emergency sensors and that took care of that problem.

I have a home water system on a well. Last year, I had four basement floods due to pipe/filter failures. I caught all of them before damage was done because I have leak sensors all over the house.

I use this, plus a pack of five additional sensors:


You can also get a remote camera. There are temperature sensors as well.

Jay

 

[Marquarium]

Yes I think about it all the time because I've had a disease go around my tank and wipe nearly everyone out
Think it's super normal and will only go away with time.

But you can think this way about everything in life. Am I going to die in my car on the way to work? Is a plane going to crash into my house? Is my dog going to poop on the floor again? Why did I eat so many darn donuts last night?

Try to focus on the positives when going to look at your tank, things like - Let's check the massive coral growth this week, lets see how big the fish have gotten, wooo I get to watch this new fish/coral

 

[ScubaSkeets]

As a public aquarium curator, I had this issue 100x - coming into work each morning wondering what could have gone wrong overnight. Upgraded all systems to have emergency sensors and that took care of that problem.

I have a home water system on a well. Last year, I had four basement floods due to pipe/filter failures. I caught all of them before damage was done because I have leak sensors all over the house.

I use this, plus a pack of five additional sensors:


You can also get a remote camera. There are temperature sensors as well.

Jay

Thanks. I do have a remote camera but I work in an area where I cannot have my cell phone with me, so at best, I can check that every 90 minutes or so. I don't have the sensors that you mentioned but I'm sure they give some peace of mind. However, they only alert you so you can fix any issues before they turn into disasters, no?
I'm not looking for solutions to prevent unavoidable disasters. Life is full of those. I just worry a little, that's all.

 

[I never finish anythi]

I try not to worry about it tbh, otherwise I wouldn't leave the house or go to work

 

[ScubaSkeets]

I try not to worry about it tbh, otherwise I wouldn't leave the house or go to work

I really like your username!!

My worry doesn't consume my life or anything, but it sure feels good when I see nothing happened!!

 

[fish farmer]

So, my tank is not in a main area of my house. It's in the finished basement.
While I am walking down the stairs, before I see my tank, I am terrified. Terrified that I am going to turn the corner and see a disaster.
"Did the tank explode?"
"Are all my fish dead due to some kind of crash or something?"
"Did one fish eat all the others?"

And I breathe a sigh of relief when I see none of that.

Am I the only one?

If my tank crashes....then it's time for a rebuild!

I also work at a trout broodstock hatchery. Flooding this year destroyed our basement furnace and killed/washed away valuable brood stock. We were still fixing issues from last year's major wind event that caused lots of damage.

The week of Thanksgiving my home furnace crapped out, finally got a new one last week. On top of that my septic backed up a couple weeks ago.

At least I have my health.

 

[ScubaSkeets]

At least I have my health.

True that!!

 

[JZ199]

I try not to stress out about it too often. When I had my 125 I had a pretty bad accident with a malfunctioning skimmer that dumped about 30 gallons onto my floor. With my current tanks I try to do as much to safe guard everything and not really worry or stress. Ironically enough though our freshwater tank has been giving us issues lately! I'm trying to find out if water is leaking from the filter pump seal sporadically or if it's leaking out the top of the filter, either way this has been a cause of worrying about discovering a disaster. If it starts acting up it could leak probably about 5-10 gallons onto my floor before the pump runs dry. If I were to go back into having another 125+ gallon tank, then I would be more stressed out

I do plan to get the govee moisture alarms in the very near future as a piece of mind.

 

[EricR]

Yep -- wondering when I'll walk in to seam fail or leak.
Tank has been running a little more than 2 years and no problems YET.

For a chuckle, setup is:
- Aqueon 40 gallon breeder from Petco sale -- rimmed so at least that's good (in this case)
- sitting on HardieBacker board and shimmed for level (scrap from another project)
- right on top of finished drywall in house nook with no consideration given to structural integrity of the nook framing

*have plenty of 18mm (3/4") Baltic birch plywood (13 ply) leftover from telescope building projects but my wife didn't like the cosmetic implications of what I was planning to do in the nook,,, so I wimped out

 

[Cichlid Dad]

So, my tank is not in a main area of my house. It's in the finished basement.
While I am walking down the stairs, before I see my tank, I am terrified. Terrified that I am going to turn the corner and see a disaster.
"Did the tank explode?"
"Are all my fish dead due to some kind of crash or something?"
"Did one fish eat all the others?"

And I breathe a sigh of relief when I see none of that.

Am I the only one?

Great! Now i will have that on my mind! Thanks for nothing..... Just kidding, yes sometimes, but in the end, the only control we have is our do diligence. Keep our system clean organized and always inspect everything.

 

[exnisstech]

If I worried that much about it I wouldn't be in the hobby. Worrying just isn't my thing, it causes too much unnecessary stress.

 

[Lbrdsoxfan]

After coming home from a work trip to a crashed tank, I get it. I opened my front door to a rancid, dead ocean smell and that is exactly what happened. I upped my controller game @ that point (crash due to a bad smart outlet).

 

[vlangel]

I am an old salt and have been in the hobby since the late 90s without any catastrophic events ( and I use a HOB overflow box). Now that isn't to say that something won't happen tomorrow but I have a few principles that I follow to lessen the potential of a disaster.
1. I run my tank using the KISS method. I don't use controllers, reactors, skimmers, or even filter socks. It's is 100% biologically filtered with rock and deep sand bed. Everything break so I don't rely on equipment too heavily. Also I have my tank and sump covered to lessen evaporation.
2. I do water changes. I was an aquarium tech for a lfs and saw our tanks that we serviced for clients lasts for years even decades. As the tank matures the water changes can be smaller.
4. I have had a cheap battery operated air pump that turns on automatically with a power outage. The number one reason for tank crashes that I witnessed was lack of oxygen.
5. I keep easy coral and hardy fish and don't add new things to the tank every week. Instead I let the tank run with the animals in it and then if news one need added I do a bunch at once which I buy from trusted sources. I do not QT but I do keep new fish in an acclimation net until they have adjusted to tank parameters.
Anyway, I enjoy my tank without sweating it.

 

[themcnertney]

When you’ve experienced just about everything that can happen, you tend to not get that anxiety and stress when away. However, not really sure it ever completely goes away.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

I forgot about this article:

Emergency Protocols for Home Aquariums

While this article cannot solve every aquarium emergency, it hopefully gives some ideas that can be implemented with little cost which may pay big dividends in saving the lives of aquarium animals.

reefs.com

Jay