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

[SamsReef]

I voted Yes, it can and will eventually crash because something will go wrong and will not be caught on time. Murphy always rules

Sam

 

[tnyr5]

There are external variables that come into play as well. I remember reading about an incident that happened to Paul B where his water supply added zinc orthophosphate. Even with proper maintenance/testing/backup an event like this could wipe your corals.

Or like my old tank, where some now-jailed neighbors were cooking meth in their garage and the fumes killed my corals ( and gave me daily unexplainable nosebleeds.)

This thread is interesting so far. It seems the consensus is " NOOOO, it will never happen, ever ever ever because we're all too good at this now. Except when it does happen, like it does to all of us, all the time...BUT THOSE REASONS DON'T COUNT!!!!!" lol

 

[PeaBrain]

It will never happen. And when it happens, I'll look back and say, It will never happen.

 

[Rick.45cal]

Even if you manage to avoid all of the equipment failures, natural disasters, changes in the tank ecosytem, all things come to an end, should your tank outlive you, is your next generation (if you have one) going to be successful (or even willing) to keep it going? As for whether a single piece of equipment failing causing a crash a generator dying for lack of gas is a perfect example of a single equipment failure causing a tank crash. It‘s unfortunate but true whether we care to admit that or not.

As for trident, alkatronic and any other automatic control means, those things are only as good as the supply of their consumables, there are threads of people looking for reagents right now, once the reagents are gone, so is their usefulness. I can attest to the fact that a simple lightning strike can destroy your entire controller and send your tank out of control, only experience, human intervention, and luck can prevent the inevitable.

So much in life is unplanned, especially the traumatic and life changing things. Ever had to have your ACL replaced, or a hip replacement, then have scar tissue in the joint where instead of a few weeks of physical therapy you end up spending at least 6 months to a year without being able to squat to service your sump? (I have). Not everything can be planned for. How many of us prepared for a global pandemic that’s likely to last years, shrinking the global economy, changing the way we have to live, possibly destroying every aspect of our supply chains?

Having lived through 4 hurricanes in one summer in Florida, where we didn’t have power for weeks and weeks and weeks, there’s no way an aquarium even becomes a priority at that point (Fortunately I didn’t have one then).

The only real way to prevent the inevitable demise of a closed ecosystem is to break it down and throw in the towel and leave while the getting is good. I’m not saying you might not get a lifetime out of it, but you’ll be in the tiniest minority of this hobby, and one of the absolutely luckiest aquarists on the planet.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to try and make mine last as long as I can, but I’m going to enjoy it’s beauty while I am able because life is fleeting!

 

[robbyg]

I also voted YES.
No matter what you do something will always happen. I think the only way to really lesson the odds of losing everything is to monitor as many parameters and pieces of equipment as is humanly possible and have alarms if something goes wrong. Generators are a must as well as spares of every critical piece of equipment. At the end of the day even with all that Murphy will hit but having a second tank makes it possible to save some of the livestock from most disasters.

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

Or like my old tank, where some now-jailed neighbors were cooking meth in their garage and the fumes killed my corals ( and gave me daily unexplainable nosebleeds.)

This thread is interesting so far. It seems the consensus is " NOOOO, it will never happen, ever ever ever because we're all too good at this now. Except when it does happen, like it does to all of us, all the time...BUT THOSE REASONS DON'T COUNT!!!!!" lol

I certainly am not saying that it will never happen, but what I am saying is that it doesn't HAVE to happen, therefore it isn't inevitable in my opinion. If I felt it was "inevitable" I would never even consider setting up an SPS tank...

I am also defining it as my tank, not someone taking over my tank when I croak. Of course I realize that my tank will most likely not outlive me, but I fully expect to keep it going until I make the decision to take it down, instead of it making the decision for me.

 

[brandon429]

we have found a system that makes sps reefs not crash. instead of reviewing the different theories on cause and effect, I'll offer you an eight year micro model you can track via youtube updates...its lifespan. see if it crashes over the years.

With large sps reefs, you wait forty years as you work to establish longevity proofing. with micro systems, they take on aging much faster than large tanks/you get to see a reef bell curve in two years, not forty from the large scale.

Most people dismiss a micro model as novelty and look past the real science: you have a map for a no crash, no invasion, no RTN system and if you want to track it eight more years, a sixteen year old micro model is functioning with the same aging characters as a fifty year old reef tank that's for sure.


Increase studies with micro models to quickly advance sps adaptivity science is my offer.

my friend maritza from youtube:




we think sps are not destined to crash due to the number of mini models currently running using similar methods and attaining strong age across the board. simply keeping accumulations out of the system is the trick, along with typical sps care like water quality and feed consistency.

 

[robbyg]

I certainly am not saying that it will never happen, but what I am saying is that it doesn't HAVE to happen, therefore it isn't inevitable in my opinion. If I felt it was "inevitable" I would never even consider setting up an SPS tank...

I am also defining it as my tank, not someone taking over my tank when I croak. Of course I realize that my tank will most likely not outlive me, but I fully expect to keep it going until I make the decision to take it down, instead of it making the decision for me.

I use to believe that until my tank that had been thriving for 15 years was wiped out in minutes by a cleaning lady that used half a can of insecticide to kill about 20 ants about 5 feet from the side of my tank. Everyone in my household knows not to use pesticides inside the house and that system worked fine for 15 years, Did it ever dawn on me that a new lady coming in would grab for a can of pesticide on her first day of work and wipe out about $10K of corals and fish, Nope! It was the furthest thing from my mind. That is the day I realized that no amount of planning can save you from every event. As one person said, he had a bolt of lightning hit his house and it wiped out all of his equipment. I had the same thing happen but luckily because I am an Amateur Radio operator I have five x 10ft grounding rods going around my house and about $2K worth of grounding installed. How many people have that in place? How about bullet proof glass on your windows. I once had a neighbor fire off his gun at an intruder and the bullet hit the side of my house. luckily no one was hurt , but it could have also hit my tank and broken the glass. The list of rare and unforseen events is almost endless.

 

[Popkorn0407]

No, whit all the technologie we can put on the tank, and whit all the monitoring that we are able to get, AWC , Auto dosing, auto shutdown, apex, triddent, generatrice, back up batterie, sps and accropora can live all your life time.

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

I use to believe that until my tank that had been thriving for 15 years was wiped out in minutes by a cleaning lady that used half a can of insecticide to kill about 20 ants about 5 feet from the side of my tank. Everyone in my household knows not to use pesticides inside the house and that system worked fine for 15 years, Did it ever dawn on me that a new lady coming in would grab for a can of pesticide on her first day of work and wipe out about $10K of corals and fish, Nope! It was the furthest thing from my mind. That is the day I realized that no amount of planning can save you from every event. As one person said, he had a bolt of lightning hit his house and it wiped out all of his equipment. I had the same thing happen but luckily because I am an Amateur Radio operator I have five x 10ft grounding rods going around my house and about $2K worth of grounding installed. How many people have that in place? How about bullet proof glass on your windows. I once had a neighbor fire off his gun at an intruder and the bullet hit the side of my house. luckily no one was hurt , but it could have also hit my tank and broken the glass. The list of rare and unforseen events is almost endless.

Again, I'm not saying that it won't ever happen. I am saying that it doesn't HAVE to happen. In other words the questions is:

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

In my humble opinion, the answer to that is NO, it is not inevitable...

 

[Wampatom]

Corals can potentially live forever. In an aquarium you can keep moving necessary items in and out and pruning to maintain balance. So a crash is not inevitable. (At least before the end of mankind LOL.)

One of the greatest dangers to coral in an aquarium is the owner loosing interest. How many here have kept a SPS coral longer than 20 years? A few. I guess less than 2%.

 

[robbyg]

Again, I'm not saying that it won't ever happen. I am saying that it doesn't HAVE to happen. In other words the questions is:

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

In my humble opinion, the answer to that is NO, it is not inevitable...

Corals can potentially live forever. In an aquarium you can keep moving necessary items in and out and pruning to maintain balance. So a crash is not inevitable. (At least before the end of mankind LOL.)

One of the greatest dangers to coral in an aquarium is the owner loosing interest. How many here have kept a SPS coral longer than 20 years? A few. I guess less than 2%.

I would bet you cannot find .5% at 20 years and as for going back 30 years I bet you could count the people on one hand. That is when you consider the millions of tanks that have been setup over the last 30 years including public Aquariums etc.

If you want to know what its like dealing with tanks over a 30 year period I suggest you read @o2manyfish build thread THREAD.
He had a better tank in 1996 than 95% of us have today. Read his thread and you will see how simple things can ruin everything. There is always a Rat that will eventually get your tank

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

I would bet you cannot find .5% at 20 years and as for going back 30 years I bet you could count the people on one hand. That is when you consider the millions of tanks that have been setup over the last 30 years including public Aquariums etc.

If you want to know what its like dealing with tanks over a 30 year period I suggest you read @o2manyfish build thread THREAD.
He had a better tank in 1996 than 95% of us have today. Read his thread and you will see how simple things can ruin everything. There is always a Rat that will eventually get your tank

I see, you consider the tank half empty. I, on the other hand consider the tank half full I certainly understand how things can happen, and cause tanks to crash. I've been doing this since 1991. Heck I was shipping SPS around the country before most of the vendors around today even existed... I used to ship SPS frags in wet paper towels succesfully . I'm not saying things won't happen that will cause tank crashes, I'm simply saying that they don't have to and therefore it is not inevitable that an SPS tank will eventually crash. If I were so pessimistic as to assume my tank will crash before I have even set it up, I would save all that money and use it for toilet paper or something else more productive . I guess we just have to agree to disagree...

 

[Shaka_Reefer]

Old saying “picture worth a 1000 words”

Oh no!!! What happened?

 

[ecamden]

I hope not lol. My reef is sps only

 

[ecamden]

I hope not lol. My reef is sps only

 

[robbyg]

I see, you consider the tank half empty. I, on the other hand consider the tank half full I certainly understand how things can happen, and cause tanks to crash. I've been doing this since 1991. Heck I was shipping SPS around the country before most of the vendors around today even existed... I used to ship SPS frags in wet paper towels succesfully . I'm not saying things won't happen that will cause tank crashes, I'm simply saying that they don't have to and therefore it is not inevitable that an SPS tank will eventually crash. If I were so pessimistic as to assume my tank will crash before I have even set it up, I would save all that money and use it for toilet paper or something else more productive . I guess we just have to agree to disagree...

Do you have any SPS coral still alive from 1991?

 

[jamo130788]

my tank just crashed this week. Over night all my sensitive coral just died and over the last seven days more pieces rtn'd. I have figured out the cause to either an alkalinity spike or a large drop in PH from 8.2 to 7.6. Its my first proper SPS dominant tank and its been running well fro two years.
I am not too bothered by it though. Will just wait for things to stabilize and add some more coral.

 

[Crustaceon]

If we’re citing “murphy’s law” then this isn’t a question of whether an acropora (or other sps) tank is doomed to crash or not. It’s whether ANY tank is doomed to crash or not. I think the longer any tank is up and running, the more time passes and the more chances pop up for some fault to crash the tank. Odds are eventually the reefkeeper will not be there to stop it from happening. It’s a question of numerical probability just as if you were stay in one place for eons, odds are you’ll eventually get struck by a meteorite, which makes it pretty much a statistical certainty.

 

[Epic Aquaculture]

Do you have any SPS coral still alive from 1991?

No, just that I've been in the hobby since then. I have had the one tank crash due to the hurricane. Every other tank has been taken down by me and the livestock was sold or given away as we have moved several times since 1991. I do however have one of the corals that I imported back in 1991, as Adam at Battle Corals has it. It is the North Star Corals Pink Clathrata ( I owned and ran North Star Corals).

Here's my baby!