Is it inevitable that an SPS dominated reef tank will crash?

[All Delight]

Absolutely, unless you break it down and get out before it gets you.

 

[Sallstrom]

I was responsible for a SPS reef tank at work (public aquarium) for about ten years. It was a journey
But the last 4-5 years the tank was really stable and quite easy to maintain. The first years were a struggle, but also a good way to learn.
So to get to the questions, I do not think a SPS tank will inevitably crash. I think if you keep up the maintenance, keep the water quality good, things gets easier with time. IMO old tanks gets more stable. They have tuned themselves in some way.
But you need to keep up with changes and sometimes you need to really cut back corals and almost restart parts of an old tank. It’s easy to just be happy with the corals growing, but after not too long you don’t get any light down to the lower parts of the reef, or the flow gets too low, for example.

Here’s a video my colleague did from the tank.


I’ve started writing an article on this tank. Not because it’s the greatest tank, but since it’s like an old friend/enemy to me. And I have a “logbook “ on this tank 2010-2019, which is pretty fun to go through. Unfortunately we had to take the tank down last year due to a large rebuild. We saved all the corals

 

[Highgrade]

In short, my answer is no. With proper husbandry, and using the technology available today, there is no reason that any tank SPS or not "has" to crash.

Knock on wood, but to date my only crash was do to Hurricane Irma making landfall on the island that I lived on in the Florida Keys in 2017 and losing power for 28 days...

+1 100% agree. If an SPS tank is to crash it is most likely due to human error, hardware failure or natural disaster.

 

[Reeffraff]

Hurricane Sandy took my tank out. I was only out of power for 3-4 days but I was unprepared. I learned a valuable lesson. I will never own a tank without a generator again

This. Most of the tank crashes I personally have witnessed were due to prolonged power outages (hurricanes, blizzards etc). Invest thousands in reefing equipment and livestock, may as well spend a few hundred on a generator (which can be used for others things as well). I have two. One is dedicated for the reef tank if the power is out.

 

[Wampatom]

Maintenance gets to be a big job. My 1000 words.

 

[RazorRamon]

all equipment fails at some point. Sooner or later a power head won’t work, or your doser might go nuts. It’s inevitable

 

[anit77]

I think it's possible to sustain an sps tank long term but the person will have learned some lessons the hard way at some point to get there. Most, if not all, crashes are the result of the person managing the system. Alk spike or fall, introducing a pest, heater failure, power failure, stagnant water entering the system... the list goes on and on.

Wherever there aren't levels of redundancy are points where a failure can result in a crash. One is none and two is one. Take heaters. Having multiple lower watt heaters vs one large one will always be better.
All equipment will fail at some point. If you go in too cheap and haven't planned for those failures it's just a matter of time till you experience a crash. But then its the equipments fault for dieing. No, I don't think so. It's your fault for not being prepared or deciding the risk of SPOF was worth it to you. The latter is fine if you can live with a crash, but you have to realize from day one you're already on borrowed time.

Same goes for educating those that are in your home and visitors. No, we can't light candles in here. Please don't spray Pledge on the furniture in here. And so one...

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

all equipment fails at some point. Sooner or later a power head won’t work, or your doser might go nuts. It’s inevitable

This is true, but a well planned and maintained system does not have to crash because one piece of equipment fails. I f a tank crashes because a powerhead dies, then you have a lousy setup.

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

This. Most of the tank crashes I personally have witnessed were due to prolonged power outages (hurricanes, blizzards etc). Invest thousands in reefing equipment and livestock, may as well spend a few hundred on a generator (which can be used for others things as well). I have two. One is dedicated for the reef tank if the power is out.

Just to note, in my case I did have a generator, but I was in the Lower Florida Keys where Irma made landfall as a strong Cat 4 hurricane. There was no gas available at all down there for over a month, so when I ran out of gas for the generator, it died along with my tank. I managed to keep everything alive for a week before that happened.

 

[erky]

with alk monitors and other monitors now i think it is a lot easier to keep them stable. As long as general maintenance is preformed i think they could run for years.

 

[Lojenn]

About to purchase 2 Norwesco 40 gallon tanks, 1 RO/DI the other salt mix. What are the possibilities of Water "going-bad" prior to using it up? Intend on using power heads to keep water on the move. Thx in advance.

 

[DeniseAndy]

Old saying “picture worth a 1000 words”

I would love some of those skeletons for my kids to see. I am referring to the outreach educational program I do, not my own kids. I work with sooooo many kids from 2yrs up through high school. Want to ship them? Although, they are really nice to keep. As long as not killed intentionally for decor, I do not mind them.

 

[Waynerock]

Old saying “picture worth a 1000 words”

Or a thousand dollars at least

 

[erky]

About to purchase 2 Norwesco 40 gallon tanks, 1 RO/DI the other salt mix. What are the possibilities of Water "going-bad" prior to using it up? Intend on using power heads to keep water on the move. Thx in advance.

BRS did a video on storing saltwater and what to think about when doing do.

 

[ycnibrc]

I know I will have a lot of criticism by saying this but I don't mind to be wrong in order to learn.
For me bacteria population reduction is a reason why Sps tank will crash eventually if we don't replenis. In the 90 we had a lot of successful tank with mature colony and even though the reefer keeping up with maintenance task and without equipment failure Sps start dying and we named it old tank syndrome. Some blame on phosphate and nitrate release from old sand bed but for me I observed that with a reef tank we start out with live rock and sand to create place for bacteria to populate and reproduce. In time as Coral grow the bacteria population will running out of space to provide adequate numbers to support the system.
Bacteria get eaten by corals, skim out by protein skimmer and die off so without replenish eventually the population will reduce and created an imbalance biology leading to Sps die off.
Without proper testing it's hard to proof this theory is correct but with intelligent reduction of all parameters causing the reef tank to crash then bacteria is the last suspect.

 

[Crustaceon]

An acropora-heavy tank is just as likely to crash as any tank other that has a heater failure or massive additive overdose which is typical of most tank-wiping episodes. With good husbandry, acros aren’t any harder to keep than zoas. I’ve seen plenty of examples of those just “melting away”, yet no one will mention it because they’re supposedly “easy” corals. The reality is, if you’re diligent in providing your coral with the specific care it needs, there’s no reason for a crash to happen as far as human-input goes. But things do go wrong with equipment and at that point, no coral is safe.

 

[mrlavalamp]

If given enough time Entropy will reign supreme, even for the most well-prepared of us.

I too look forward to the heat death of the universe!

 

[Belgian Anthias]

I say Yes.
A skimmer removes DOC and TOC constantly but does this very selective, an unbalance is created and maintained. This influences evolution, favorizing organisms, and toxin production. In a closed environment, the elimination of normal natural competition by constantly removing the same kind of organic compounds and organisms must finally, sooner or later, end up in a system crash if not recognized. Polarization!? Old tank syndrome?

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

I say Yes. A skimmer removes DOC and TOC constantly but does this very selective, an unbalance is created and maintained. This influences evolution, favorizing organisms, and toxin production. In a closed environment, the elimination of normal natural competition by constantly removing the same kind of organic compounds and organisms must finally, sooner or later, end up in a system crash if not recognized. Polarization!? Old tank syndrome?

I disagree

 

[Crustaceon]

I know I will have a lot of criticism by saying this but I don't mind to be wrong in order to learn.
For me bacteria population reduction is a reason why Sps tank will crash eventually if we don't replenis. In the 90 we had a lot of successful tank with mature colony and even though the reefer keeping up with maintenance task and without equipment failure Sps start dying and we named it old tank syndrome. Some blame on phosphate and nitrate release from old sand bed but for me I observed that with a reef tank we start out with live rock and sand to create place for bacteria to populate and reproduce. In time as Coral grow the bacteria population will running out of space to provide adequate numbers to support the system.
Bacteria get eaten by corals, skim out by protein skimmer and die off so without replenish eventually the population will reduce and created an imbalance biology leading to Sps die off.
Without proper testing it's hard to proof this theory is correct but with intelligent reduction of all parameters causing the reef tank to crash then bacteria is the last suspect.

I could see this issue being attributed to the old-school methodology of low and ULN systems. There’s nothing that grows faster than bacteria, especially in elevated-nutrient systems and this will be regardless of how much acropora is in the tank. Maybe this is the cause of the problem especially considering your mentioning of protein skimming. At some point, mechanical filtration & biological filtration in the form of coral uptake become too much. Now how many reefers will take their skimmer offline at this point? I’ll bet not many because they fear they’ll get nuisance algae as a result. So what they do instead is dose potassium nitrate or aminos. This could be an issue of coral uptake in lower nutrients being so fast that bacteria have trouble propagating combined with the same overly-aggressive mechanical filtration. We all know tanks progress as they grow out, but how many people remove things to compensate for this. Of course the best way to prevent a crash related to stripping out too much bacteria is simply fragging some of your colonies every now and then. Another way could be just letting your tank get dirtier, which is probably why we see absolutely amazing long-term acro tanks with sky-high nitrates and phosphates. Maybe our little oceans need to gradually become more conducive to keeping a certain level of free-floating bacteria.