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

[Daniel@R2R]

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.

 

[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!