Polo reef disaster . . . OMG

[MikeReefs]

Makes you think of the grand scale of maintenance in public aquariums. His tank is considered small in some of these public aquariums and it takes a whole team to run it. So many large colorful colonies. There wasn’t an inch of space in there. Tank was unreal

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Makes you think of the grand scale of maintenance in public aquariums. His tank is considered small in some of these public aquariums and it takes a whole team to run it. So many large colorful colonies. There wasn’t an inch of space in there. Tank was unreal

I could not imagine trying to upkeep a tank that size.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

Yea. One had to be opened via wrench but I believe he said that one or both were never cycled routinely. I can’t remember.

If this is true, how does a valve that is always closed, never gets exercised, and needs a tool to specifically, manually open it, "accidentally" open in the middle of the night/early morning? Im very curious to see how transparent this gets.

 

[Tahoe61]

If this is true, how does a valve that is always closed, never gets exercised, and needs a tool to specifically, manually open it, "accidentally" open in the middle of the night/early morning? Im very curious to see how transparent this gets.

Why?
Why is it so hard to just simply express sympathy with regard to the unfortunate event. No one is asking anything from you right?

 

[MikeReefs]

If this is true, how does a valve that is always closed, never gets exercised, and needs a tool to specifically, manually open it, "accidentally" open in the middle of the night/early morning? Im very curious to see how transparent this gets.

The other way was to activate it through the system. Either someone messed up and activated it by accident or the system somehow did it. He doesn’t mention if was activated or some malfunction led to it being activated. I’m sure looking into the commands in the system you can tell if it was and what time. I’m sure he’ll have it investigated so it never happens again

 

[BryanM]

This is tragic.

 

[AydenLincoln]

I could not imagine trying to upkeep a tank that size.

It’s not just him it is a team! He is very much like the owner and manager of it in a business sense. It is literally a labor of love!

 

[mfinn]

If this is true, how does a valve that is always closed, never gets exercised, and needs a tool to specifically, manually open it, "accidentally" open in the middle of the night/early morning?

I thought I saw something that might indicate ozone effects on plastic and seals may have something to cause issues.
Maybe because it wasn't tested?
IDK.

 

[IceNein]

I thought I saw something that might indicate ozone effects on plastic and seals may have something to cause issues.
Maybe because it wasn't tested?
IDK.

This is one of those things where hindsight is 20/20. Yes, in retrospect some system whereby you have every valve labeled and numbered like you would in a power plant, where you have a written maintenance schedule where you do things like exercise valves, and where you consider the lifespan of a component and replace them periodically makes sense.

But even if you do all that, you can still miss something. It's easy to armchair quarterback and say "oh, well of course if you run ozone you should replace seals every two years, and valves every five!" But none of this stuff comes with an operators manual as a whole.

 

[BryanM]

I'm sure they will do an after actions analysis and adjust maintenance schedules to try to prevent something like this from happening in the future.

I just hope it is not foul play. In so much as the timing of their citric acid tank cleaning (no available water), a system that's never been used failing, alerts not going out due to wifi issues, all at the same time, the security analyst in me just starts thinking that is a lot of coincidences happening at the same time.

That said, he did make the point that other little things were happening in the weeks prior, so I do kinda doubt foul play is involved here, in which case that's just one perfect storm of a disaster.

 

[DJF]

More of the golden rule and less of the orange one.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

Why?
Why is it so hard to just simply express sympathy with regard to the unfortunate event. No one is asking anything from you right

Wait what? Am I not allowed to ask or question why a HIGHLY publicized actastrophe happened?

Bluntly, what does a stranger, on an anonomous forum, "expressing sympathy" gain? Id rather potentially help other learn from it rather just empty fake emotions.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

The other way was to activate it through the system. Either someone messed up and activated it by accident or the system somehow did it. He doesn’t mention if was activated or some malfunction led to it being activated. I’m sure looking into the commands in the system you can tell if it was and what time. I’m sure he’ll have it investigated so it never happens again

Yeah I understand thats the electronic valving. But I was pretty sure he said there was also a manual valve that had to be opened by a wrench. By a person.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

I thought I saw something that might indicate ozone effects on plastic and seals may have something to cause issues.
Maybe because it wasn't tested?
IDK.

I could see that, but I wouldve assume it was cause a very gradual leak. Not a zero to 10,000 gallon leak in an instant. I guess we shall see. But, if he had ozone floating into the water column like that, Id also imagine the tank wouldnt have been as healthy as it was.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

This is one of those things where hindsight is 20/20. Yes, in retrospect some system whereby you have every valve labeled and numbered like you would in a power plant, where you have a written maintenance schedule where you do things like exercise valves, and where you consider the lifespan of a component and replace them periodically makes sense.

But even if you do all that, you can still miss something. It's easy to armchair quarterback and say "oh, well of course if you run ozone you should replace seals every two years, and valves every five!" But none of this stuff comes with an operators manual as a whole.

Yes, Im not saying it as a criticism but instead a curiosity. If one valve was specifically installed to make a person actually physically open it, and that was a redundancy to an electronic valve, how did the mechanical valve open? Again, Im only bringing it up because Im pretty sure he did a few times in the video.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

My take is that there was a brainstorming session where a lot of theories were thrown out by the expert staff and Andrew was just relaying a few of them.

They did seem to narrow it down to what failed but "how" is still a mystery.

I wouldn't get too hung up on any one particular idea as they're purely speculative at the moment.

The little information that he relayed isn't enough to conclude anything.

I would hope that regardless of how embarrassing the reason, we will get to know what the failure was. Whether or not the truth comes out will be at Andrew's discretion.

 

[vetteguy53081]

There is alot of theories and possibilities. I'm hoping we can keep this civil and learn from this experience and for me has opened eyes on the risks of automation. This is one hobby that invites risk

 

[MeanGreenStompa]

I've had the pleasure of meeting Andrew at a couple of shows in MA. Whilst I'm not a follower of his videos so much due to using my viewing time for more similarly sized aquariums to my own, I have certainly admired his capacity to give back via the scholarships and sponsorships he's done and via his free sharing of experience and information with the scientific community. It's heartbreaking to see those corals dead and, for me at least, crippling to hear so many fish were lost as well. I've been through similar at a much smaller scale and it's hurt me deeply.

While we can all speculate on the hows and whys, I bet there is no person on earth as driven to discover and fix for the future than Andrew Sandler himself. I wish him and his crew godspeed and good luck, both in the recovery and in the root cause analysis that will lead to this never happening again for them.

 

[tmillen68]

If you haven't heard of POLO REEF or Andrew Sandler, then I'm not sure how your in this hobby. He has one of the best reef set-ups in world inside his house. His large tank that had the mishap of leaking out 10,000 gallons is actually 17,000 gallons reef tank heavy in Acro's, plus he has many more tanks as well.

 

[MikeReefs]

If you haven't heard of POLO REEF or Andrew Sandler, then I'm not sure how your in this hobby. He has one of the best reef set-ups in world inside his house. His large tank that had the mishap of leaking out 10,000 gallons is actually 17,000 gallons reef tank heavy in Acro's, plus he has many more tanks as well.

The color contrasting in his tanks are unreal. Especially his LPS tank. Thankfully none of the other tanks connected to the 17k were affected