First tank, first PWC, first bone head mistake...

Sierra_Bravo

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120 gallon tank; just put TBS rock and sand in it less than a week ago. Decided to use my fancy-schmancy plumbing system to do my first partial water change. Turn a valve here, twist a valve there and there you have it...twenty gallons sucked right out of the sump and down the drain, no buckets needed. Worked like a charm! Except...

What's that smell? What's that sizzling noise? Can't be good when you smell smoke in your fish room, can it? I have dual heaters hooked into my Reef Keeper Light and as the water level dropped, one became exposed. It melted the protective cover. Luckily nothing dripped into the sump.

Lessons learned:
  1. Having the Reef Keeper Light set up to monitor the water temperature is great, but it only monitors the water. It doesn't know when the heater itself is overheating.
  2. I need to create and use a procedural checklist for multistep tasks
  3. Express shipping to replace a heater is expensive. Probably good to have an extra on hand.
Hopefully, all the fumes don't cause an issue with the water quality. All that's in there now are crabs and snails but I don't want the little guys to suffer the consequences for my learning experience.

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shiftline

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Yikes! I put my heaters where the display drains into the sump so there is no risk of that chamber draining
 

High pressure shells: Do you look for signs of stress in the invertebrates in your reef tank?

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