Atomic's 800g In-Wall with fish room.

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

How's this beautiful reef doing?

 

[atomic081]

Its a sad day today as my tank crashed last week. Everything died while my family and I were away on vacation. We travel frequently and I had never had issues in the past. My MIL always get the mail, and does the eye test on the tank, but this time she skipped for a few days. Bad timing I guess.

I had the main pump and powerheads all on a circuit that was controlled by a 20 amp switch to allow for frozen feeding. I have no clue what happened but the switch melted and the breaker popped. Thus everything in my tank died within 48 hours. I'm truly thankful that nothing caught on fire! This switch had been running with electricity through it for over 5 years and i have no clue why it failed. It was rated correctly for the amps it should have been able to pull. At one point the apex was set up to notify me if something would go wrong, but I learned that the apex system is not built for the power requirements (5 400w metal halides, 1200 watts heating, plus all other equipment) for a tank of this size. The breaker on the apex was constantly tripping, thus I took most of my fail safes off.

I'm mad and disappointed.

Now is the question on how to proceed. I'm considering taking a Sawzall to the tank and turning it into storage room. I think my wife would prefer that at this point. The tank had gotten boring, I had not really been into it for the past few years. I LOVE building the tank, watching it mature, and tinkering with all the equipment but I truly got bored with the mature tank. All of my Fish tank buddies have left the hobby in the past two years.
It also had a small leak in the front glass that I can assess now that the tank is empty. I'm going try and reseal the front glass to ensure i never have a water issue. If that fails, then ill leave the hobby for sure.

The other option is to turn it into more of a predator tank. Maybe a small shark, rays, puffers, eels. I always told myself that I had one chance to build the "reef" and I'm not going to spend the money to get it back up and running again. I may try my hand with a few lower light corals to make the tank pop, but no more expensive hard corals. Just a Fowler with some more aggressive fish.

Ill know more in the coming weeks......

 

[McPuff]

That really sucks to read about. Sorry that happened and I definitely feel your pain! First thing, don't make a quick emotional decision. Give yourself some time to think it over. The idea to go with a simplified system may be just what you need. It'll give you the change to be creative again and see if your heart is still in it. Good luck moving forward with it.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Its a sad day today as my tank crashed last week. Everything died while my family and I were away on vacation. We travel frequently and I had never had issues in the past. My MIL always get the mail, and does the eye test on the tank, but this time she skipped for a few days. Bad timing I guess.

I had the main pump and powerheads all on a circuit that was controlled by a 20 amp switch to allow for frozen feeding. I have no clue what happened but the switch melted and the breaker popped. Thus everything in my tank died within 48 hours. I'm truly thankful that nothing caught on fire! This switch had been running with electricity through it for over 5 years and i have no clue why it failed. It was rated correctly for the amps it should have been able to pull. At one point the apex was set up to notify me if something would go wrong, but I learned that the apex system is not built for the power requirements (5 400w metal halides, 1200 watts heating, plus all other equipment) for a tank of this size. The breaker on the apex was constantly tripping, thus I took most of my fail safes off.

I'm mad and disappointed.

Now is the question on how to proceed. I'm considering taking a Sawzall to the tank and turning it into storage room. I think my wife would prefer that at this point. The tank had gotten boring, I had not really been into it for the past few years. I LOVE building the tank, watching it mature, and tinkering with all the equipment but I truly got bored with the mature tank. All of my Fish tank buddies have left the hobby in the past two years.
It also had a small leak in the front glass that I can assess now that the tank is empty. I'm going try and reseal the front glass to ensure i never have a water issue. If that fails, then ill leave the hobby for sure.

The other option is to turn it into more of a predator tank. Maybe a small shark, rays, puffers, eels. I always told myself that I had one chance to build the "reef" and I'm not going to spend the money to get it back up and running again. I may try my hand with a few lower light corals to make the tank pop, but no more expensive hard corals. Just a Fowler with some more aggressive fish.

Ill know more in the coming weeks......

I am so sorry to hear about that!

 

[FishTruck]

Oh NO!!! I always enjoyed checking your thread. I feel your pain and have contemplated what I would do if my system crashed.

I’d clean it up and put an interesting inanimate object in the display, give it a year before you get out the sawsall. Maybe, that ultimate legos Star Destroyer you always wanted to build.

If the inspiration comes back for aquaria… start over. If not… move on.

 

[MrsBugmaster]

So sorry to hear. :loudly-crying-face:

 

[Sltloser]

Its a sad day today as my tank crashed last week. Everything died while my family and I were away on vacation. We travel frequently and I had never had issues in the past. My MIL always get the mail, and does the eye test on the tank, but this time she skipped for a few days. Bad timing I guess.

I had the main pump and powerheads all on a circuit that was controlled by a 20 amp switch to allow for frozen feeding. I have no clue what happened but the switch melted and the breaker popped. Thus everything in my tank died within 48 hours. I'm truly thankful that nothing caught on fire! This switch had been running with electricity through it for over 5 years and i have no clue why it failed. It was rated correctly for the amps it should have been able to pull. At one point the apex was set up to notify me if something would go wrong, but I learned that the apex system is not built for the power requirements (5 400w metal halides, 1200 watts heating, plus all other equipment) for a tank of this size. The breaker on the apex was constantly tripping, thus I took most of my fail safes off.

I'm mad and disappointed.

Now is the question on how to proceed. I'm considering taking a Sawzall to the tank and turning it into storage room. I think my wife would prefer that at this point. The tank had gotten boring, I had not really been into it for the past few years. I LOVE building the tank, watching it mature, and tinkering with all the equipment but I truly got bored with the mature tank. All of my Fish tank buddies have left the hobby in the past two years.
It also had a small leak in the front glass that I can assess now that the tank is empty. I'm going try and reseal the front glass to ensure i never have a water issue. If that fails, then ill leave the hobby for sure.

The other option is to turn it into more of a predator tank. Maybe a small shark, rays, puffers, eels. I always told myself that I had one chance to build the "reef" and I'm not going to spend the money to get it back up and running again. I may try my hand with a few lower light corals to make the tank pop, but no more expensive hard corals. Just a Fowler with some more aggressive fish.

Ill know more in the coming weeks......

O man, I'm so sorry to hear this, that's a tough way for it to all shake out! Like others have said I think that taking some time to see how you feel before pulling it all apart is worth it.

If you decide to give it another go maybe you can look back at learnings and try to improve your processes for full proofing. But until you make that decision I hope you can work through the loss!

 

[atomic081]

Quick Update!!

When life hands you lemons, make lemonaid!

I was able to take this opportunity to drain the 800g and reseal around the glass. I hope i never had any issues going forward.

I removed my 90g frag tank (i still have a 60g and a 30g frag tank) and replaced it with a larger water changing station. I secured another RODI and I will now be able to have 300 gallons of saltwater mixing at any point.

I took down all 5 of the 400w Metal Halides and replaced them with 8 of the Viperspectra 165w fixtures. These will give me the ability to still have coral and I already had 6 of them from the frag tanks.

The tank has cycled and I have my only remaining tang from my bigger frag tank in the display. That fish is living large having 800 gallons all to itself! Its a hog and is doing a great job of cleaning up any remaining algae from the cycle.

I took out about 200lbs of live rock to give a 3x5 area of sand and open swimming for fish.

Lastly a buddy reached out to me to rehome a Shark....:astonished-face:! A client of his had this fish and its 2.5 feet long. Im not sure of the species yet, but its an adventure that im looking forward to. Once i get it established, im going to add a few other larger fish.



Ill update once I get a it looking good again, but as of now.....I'm still in the game!

 

[mehaffydr]

Quick Update!!

When life hands you lemons, make lemonaid!

I was able to take this opportunity to drain the 800g and reseal around the glass. I hope i never had any issues going forward.

I removed my 90g frag tank (i still have a 60g and a 30g frag tank) and replaced it with a larger water changing station. I secured another RODI and I will now be able to have 300 gallons of saltwater mixing at any point.

I took down all 5 of the 400w Metal Halides and replaced them with 8 of the Viperspectra 165w fixtures. These will give me the ability to still have coral and I already had 6 of them from the frag tanks.

The tank has cycled and I have my only remaining tang from my bigger frag tank in the display. That fish is living large having 800 gallons all to itself! Its a hog and is doing a great job of cleaning up any remaining algae from the cycle.

I took out about 200lbs of live rock to give a 3x5 area of sand and open swimming for fish.

Lastly a buddy reached out to me to rehome a Shark....:astonished-face:! A client of his had this fish and its 2.5 feet long. Im not sure of the species yet, but its an adventure that im looking forward to. Once i get it established, im going to add a few other larger fish.



Ill update once I get a it looking good again, but as of now.....I'm still in the game!

This is Great to hear. Glad you staying in the game!