Hair-raising, Horrendous, Horrifying Tales -- Tank Crashes

[Sod Buster]

I had a similar experience to shreds. A 4 year old tank that I finally had down so I could actually grow some acros that was looking pretty good. My confidence put me into a lazy groove. I noticed some stuff was looking pretty ticked off, so a big water change was performed. Two days later it looked worse, another big water change. I had tissue loss and even the lps was wasting away. I finally got out the test kits to see what was happening. Turns out my fancy 3 part salt must've got frozen in transit or something. The liquid component "A" had precipitated to crystals in the bottom of the jug. I test every gallon of water that I mix since 2017. Cal, alk, & mag. Lost all sps, the acans and zoas came back around eventually. Took awhile before I even wanted to do anything with the tank because it was my fault, not anybody else's.

 

[cracker]

sorry double post

 

[Dkeller_nc]

I'm leaving my tank in the hands of the thirteen-year-old neighbor girl over the next three days. I'm hoping I will not have a story to post on this thread when I come back. ;Nailbiting

You really might consider a tank controller (an Apex) - at the very least, you can see the tank through the interface if you hook up a webcam, and give the girl instructions. Both of you will likely feel better about it!

To add to your thread, I set my first true reef tank up in 1990 when I got my first real job after college and could actually afford to do it. That was just a little 15 gallon tall with a high output fluorescent fixture and a Skilter - loudest dang filter I've ever heard, and it was in my bedroom at the time (was still in a "college" rental house with roommates). One thing led to another, and by 1992 I had about 800 circulating gallons in various large tanks equipped with all of the latest and greatest equipment, which back then meant Iwaki pumps and metal halides/VHO lighting systems. Did extremely well for the times, with many hard corals growing over the reef rocks and tank glass. That was well before the widespread knowledge that alkalinity and calcium was important, and looking back on it, what actually allowed that success was water changes, which I did religiously since I'd come from a freshwater background of some 25 years before I got into salt.

Life happened, and I bought a house in 1996 in Raleigh, only 1/8th of a mile from the "college house". I managed to move all of those tanks and critters, and got everything stabilized and running for about a month before the first hurricane to hit the city in some 40 years - Hurricane Fran. It was a category 2 with 90 mph winds when it came over Raleigh, which is highly unusual - most hurricanes are slow moving enough that we're not affected all that much. The storm took down most of the old 3' - 5' diameter oak trees in this neighborhood, and of the 22 houses on the street, 18 of them had giant oak trees on them or in them. Fortunately no one got killed or seriously injured, but we were without power for 2 weeks.

Needless to say, I lost everything. But I've been keeping aquatic creatures in glass boxes for most of my life starting at around age 5 with an indoor turtle "pond", so I was back in with a reef tank in less than a year. This time, though, I set up small with a nano, and made sure that I had an inverter and a couple of 12V deep cycle marine batteries on hand to survive at least a couple of days without power, since I figured that Hurricane Fran was a real aberration, and I only needed to cover an occasional ice storm or perhaps a tropical storm. That was a severe miscalculation, because Raleigh was again hit by a powerful hurricane in 1999, which resulted in being without power for 10 days this time around. I managed to save that tank by shuttling 12V batteries back and forth between my house and a friend's house continuously for that 10 days.

Fast forward to now, and I have several reef tanks, but this time I'm either older and wiser, or just older and no longer have the physique to shuttle 50lb. batteries across town. So I have a generator!

 

[Hemmdog]

Stock biocube stand diy finish. Such high expectations.

Cycling fresh live rock from the ocean, super stinky. The stand explodes in the middle of the night. This was week 2 into reefing.

Some how it didn’t crack the actual tank. The smell from the ocean rock was so bad in our carpet my wife and I ended up moving a month later. We were scarred from that experience. Lost only about 10-15 gallons but it seemed like we had just lived through a tsunami. My biocube is starting to leak now, a year and a half later. But I forsure got my moneys worth out of it, lol.

This was my tank crash story in the most literal sense.

 

[Salty Lemon]

You really might consider a tank controller (an Apex) - at the very least, you can see the tank through the interface if you hook up a webcam, and give the girl instructions. Both of you will likely feel better about it!

To add to your thread, I set my first true reef tank up in 1990 when I got my first real job after college and could actually afford to do it. That was just a little 15 gallon tall with a high output fluorescent fixture and a Skilter - loudest dang filter I've ever heard, and it was in my bedroom at the time (was still in a "college" rental house with roommates). One thing led to another, and by 1992 I had about 800 circulating gallons in various large tanks equipped with all of the latest and greatest equipment, which back then meant Iwaki pumps and metal halides/VHO lighting systems. Did extremely well for the times, with many hard corals growing over the reef rocks and tank glass. That was well before the widespread knowledge that alkalinity and calcium was important, and looking back on it, what actually allowed that success was water changes, which I did religiously since I'd come from a freshwater background of some 25 years before I got into salt.

Life happened, and I bought a house in 1996 in Raleigh, only 1/8th of a mile from the "college house". I managed to move all of those tanks and critters, and got everything stabilized and running for about a month before the first hurricane to hit the city in some 40 years - Hurricane Fran. It was a category 2 with 90 mph winds when it came over Raleigh, which is highly unusual - most hurricanes are slow moving enough that we're not affected all that much. The storm took down most of the old 3' - 5' diameter oak trees in this neighborhood, and of the 22 houses on the street, 18 of them had giant oak trees on them or in them. Fortunately no one got killed or seriously injured, but we were without power for 2 weeks.

Needless to say, I lost everything. But I've been keeping aquatic creatures in glass boxes for most of my life starting at around age 5 with an indoor turtle "pond", so I was back in with a reef tank in less than a year. This time, though, I set up small with a nano, and made sure that I had an inverter and a couple of 12V deep cycle marine batteries on hand to survive at least a couple of days without power, since I figured that Hurricane Fran was a real aberration, and I only needed to cover an occasional ice storm or perhaps a tropical storm. That was a severe miscalculation, because Raleigh was again hit by a powerful hurricane in 1999, which resulted in being without power for 10 days this time around. I managed to save that tank by shuttling 12V batteries back and forth between my house and a friend's house continuously for that 10 days.

Fast forward to now, and I have several reef tanks, but this time I'm either older and wiser, or just older and no longer have the physique to shuttle 50lb. batteries across town. So I have a generator!

I recently invested in a generator -- I still need a chiller since I live in Arizona. I'm hoping for an Apex eventually...but not now. I'm really, REALLY, glad I don't live in the path of a hurricane -- especially after your story. I'm glad you didn't give up and kept going. I'm going to be searching to see if you have build threads.

 

[Salty Lemon]

Stock biocube stand diy finish. Such high expectations.

Cycling fresh live rock from the ocean, super stinky. The stand explodes in the middle of the night. This was week 2 into reefing.

Some how it didn’t crack the actual tank. The smell from the ocean rock was so bad in our carpet my wife and I ended up moving a month later. We were scarred from that experience. Lost only about 10-15 gallons but it seemed like we had just lived through a tsunami. My biocube is starting to leak now, a year and a half later. But I forsure got my moneys worth out of it, lol.

This was my tank crash story in the most literal sense.

@Hemmdog you are fantastic on this forum. I'm so glad you stuck with it.

 

[Hemmdog]

@Hemmdog you are fantastic on this forum. I'm so glad you stuck with it.

Aw thank you ! That means a lot. Me too, best hobby there is!

 

[Salty Lemon]

I had a similar experience to shreds. A 4 year old tank that I finally had down so I could actually grow some acros that was looking pretty good. My confidence put me into a lazy groove. I noticed some stuff was looking pretty ticked off, so a big water change was performed. Two days later it looked worse, another big water change. I had tissue loss and even the lps was wasting away. I finally got out the test kits to see what was happening. Turns out my fancy 3 part salt must've got frozen in transit or something. The liquid component "A" had precipitated to crystals in the bottom of the jug. I test every gallon of water that I mix since 2017. Cal, alk, & mag. Lost all sps, the acans and zoas came back around eventually. Took awhile before I even wanted to do anything with the tank because it was my fault, not anybody else's.

;Jawdrop Oh no! I'm glad you're still here.

 

[Sod Buster]

This was my tank crash story in the most literal sense.

Bummer. I would have exploded like that stand!

 

[Hemmdog]

Bummer. I would have exploded like that stand!

Yea I wasn’t happy. My wife was in tears, saying things like why did you have to pick this hobby! It was bad, really bad, lol.

 

[Salty Lemon]

Yea I wasn’t happy. My wife was in tears, saying things like why did you have to pick this hobby! It was bad, really bad, lol.

I liked this, but I couldn't not "like" it. There were no other options. How awful.

 

[Hemmdog]

I liked this, but I couldn't not "like" it. There were no other options. How awful.

Yea... lol. It’s all good. We don’t trust particle board ANYTHING now, haha.

 

[Dkeller_nc]

I recently invested in a generator -- I still need a chiller since I live in Arizona. I'm hoping for an Apex eventually...but not now. I'm really, REALLY, glad I don't live in the path of a hurricane -- especially after your story. I'm glad you didn't give up and kept going. I'm going to be searching to see if you have build threads.

Nope, sadly no build threads. While I've been a serious photographer for 40+ years, I really stink at documenting things. I just unboxed, setup, plumbed, did a lighting install, stocked with real-deal live rock and aquascaped a brand-new IM40EXT. Zero pictures so far.

 

[Dkeller_nc]

Yea... lol. It’s all good. We don’t trust particle board ANYTHING now, haha.

While what you have now will probably be A-OK for the small biocube, those types of metal shelves aren't terribly sturdy. So if you're contemplating a newer/bigger/better tank, and don't go with one of the higher-end solutions like Waterbox or RedSea that have actual cabinet-grade stands, you can order the parts and build a stand out of aluminum t-slot extrusions from a place like 80/20. A stand built of aluminum extrusions is bullet-proof - you could park a car on it and not have it collapse.

 

[Dkeller_nc]

I recently invested in a generator -- I still need a chiller since I live in Arizona. I'm hoping for an Apex eventually...but not now. I'm really, REALLY, glad I don't live in the path of a hurricane -- especially after your story. I'm glad you didn't give up and kept going. I'm going to be searching to see if you have build threads.

Actually, depending on your living situation and the capacity of your generator, there's a much better option than a chiller. A 12,000 BTU/hr window air conditioner can be had from the BORG (Big Orange Retail Giant) for about $250, and it will run on 120 VAC. So in the event of a power outage, you put the air conditioner in the tank room, plug it into the generator, and keep both you and the tank cool.

The difficulty with a chiller is that if it's exhausting the heat back into the same room as the tank, and the house AC isn't on, the room will quickly get so hot that the chiller will shut down.

 

[Salty Lemon]

Actually, depending on your living situation and the capacity of your generator, there's a much better option than a chiller. A 12,000 BTU/hr window air conditioner can be had from the BORG (Big Orange Retail Giant) for about $250, and it will run on 120 VAC. So in the event of a power outage, you put the air conditioner in the tank room, plug it into the generator, and keep both you and the tank cool.

The difficulty with a chiller is that if it's exhausting the heat back into the same room as the tank, and the house AC isn't on, the room will quickly get so hot that the chiller will shut down.

While this sounds awesome -- it won't work. We have a very open home. But maybe I can make this work. I can build some make-shift room dividers. Now you have me thinking...

 

[Dkeller_nc]

Well, another consideration is the capacity of your generator, and the size of your AC compressor/heat pump. Depending on the size of your home, it might have more than one. AC units are measured in "tons", and a residential unit is typically 2 to 5 tons, with more cooling accomplished by additional units instead of a single much larger one. A 3-ton AC unit pulls about 3500 watts, and your average BORG Generac wheel-around gas/LP generator is capable of supplying 7,500 - 9,000 watts.

In other words, more then enough to run a relatively small residential central AC unit, plus some additional capacity to power a refrigerator, some lights, and a reef tank.

 

[Salty Lemon]

Well, another consideration is the capacity of your generator, and the size of your AC compressor/heat pump. Depending on the size of your home, it might have more than one. AC units are measured in "tons", and a residential unit is typically 2 to 5 tons, with more cooling accomplished by additional units instead of a single much larger one. A 3-ton AC unit pulls about 3500 watts, and your average BORG Generac wheel-around gas/LP generator is capable of supplying 7,500 - 9,000 watts.

In other words, more then enough to run a relatively small residential central AC unit, plus some additional capacity to power a refrigerator, some lights, and a reef tank.

We are hijacking the thread topic. I'll message you.

 

[Dkeller_nc]

We are hijacking the thread topic. I'll message you.

Hmmm - not really, since this discussion is important to PREVENT the sort of tales of woe that we're discussing.

 

[Sod Buster]

Before I'd let a tank overheat during a power outage, I'd be emptying the contents of my freezer into the display. Who cares about that dollar bag of frozen broccoli anyway.