Reef Fails That Taught You Something

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Ha! This is Chat GPT's portrayal of my reef fail story.​

We all have THAT story—a flood, a fried outlet, a coral war, or that one fish that taught us a lesson the hard way. Mistakes are part of the reefing journey, but they often lead to the best learning moments.

Here’s one of mine: I recently turned on the RODI water to top off my 225g system… and forgot to turn it off. I woke up at 4 AM to an absolute disaster—our kitchen and living room were flooded. It took hours to clean up. The lesson? The higher the risk and potential level of damage, the more failsafes you need. Timers, float valves, shut-off switches—ANYTHING to prevent that kind of nightmare. I now have multiple points of protection in place.

But the bigger lesson for me was: Never take your spouse’s support for granted. My wife is a saint with the patience of Job, and that’s the only thing that kept me from being put up for sale with the rest of the equipment. She helped me clean it all up without a single word of scolding—just calm, steady grace while I ran around with a shop vac, soaking wet and spiritually convicted. Honestly, if sanctification had a face, it might look like her wielding a mop to clean up MY awful mess at 4 AM. I married way out of my league.

So let’s hear it—what reefing fail did you live through, and what did it teach you? Bonus points if you’ve got photos or a good laugh to go with it!

 

[JumboShrimp]

I was doing 'Spring Cleaning' on both of my 150-gallon tanks, and pushed it right to the point of mental fatigue. So I thought I'd go to bed and pick it up in the morning. Well... in the process I accidentally left both heater probes hanging out of water (in mid-air) overnight, and awoke to find every fish dead. Cooked to about 105-degrees. :(

 

[Reefer Matt]

Stick with what works, versus trying to save a dime. It may cost you many dollars later.

 

[XtraKargo]

Never trust free/used equipment with out testing it in a separate water source from your main display.

 

[Ramon84]

I was making Rodi water and didn’t set a alarm started doing other thing my wife heard running water came to me that the laundry room was flooded whole floor clothes in a basket and started leaking into living room. Smh I got overwhelmed but also my wife has patience and started help me keep up the mess I made took a couple of hours. I also was feeding my corals and turn pumps off but left my ato on by mistake realized when I notice water dripping from top of tank dropped my salinity. Have to stop doing multiple thing at the same time .

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

I was doing 'Spring Cleaning' on both of my 150-gallon tanks, and pushed it right to the point of mental fatigue. So I thought I'd go to bed and pick it up in the morning. Well... in the process I accidentally left both heater probes hanging out of water (in mid-air) overnight, and awoke to find every fish dead. Cooked to about 105-degrees. :(

Oh man, that's tragic! I've had a heater get stuck on before and similar outcome. That was when I started using a heater controller. Sorry for your loss.

Stick with what works, versus trying to save a dime. It may cost you many dollars later.

Yep! I've lived this one too!

Never trust free/used equipment with out testing it in a separate water source from your main display.

This is really very solid advice!

I was making Rodi water and didn’t set a alarm started doing other thing my wife heard running water came to me that the laundry room was flooded whole floor clothes in a basket and started leaking into living room. Smh I got overwhelmed but also my wife has patience and started help me keep up the mess I made took a couple of hours. I also was feeding my corals and turn pumps off but left my ato on by mistake realized when I notice water dripping from top of tank dropped my salinity. Have to stop doing multiple thing at the same time .

Yep! Sounds like my story. Doing too much at once can lead to disaster!

 

[X-37B]

Bumped my return pump with my skimmer and did not think anything of it. Woke up to the return pump shooting water everywhere. Lost about 20g's in my 150.
So lesson learned is put titainium hose clamps on your return and don't think just slipping them on is ok.
All tanks now have them.

Although not a failure still something to think about is dosing elements based off of other past tanks success.
I dosed strontium without running an icp. Strontium came back 27.
Stopped dosing and will run another icp down the line to check.
Past tank was running the same amount dosed to keep strontium between 7-10.

Biggest failure was putting nice green disco mushrooms in my old 120. Had some stn going on that I could not explain until one day I woke up and a shroom had released and was hugging my stag.
I ended up taking the 120 down due to them.

 

[exnisstech]

Copy from another post a while back.

I've made a lot of small messes with saltwater. I really shine when comes to making a mess with fresh water. A few years ago i was refilling a 180g FW during a WC . My Gal and I decided to do some Xmas shopping on the PC in the meantime. The PC is in another room. The German shepherd that was with us at the time kept running back acting all goofy then running out. She repeated this several times before my Gal asked "what's her problem?" I said "she's stupid" When we walked back to the area where the tank was the dog was laying in the dinning room floor staring at the living room that was completely filled with water. The dividing strip on the floor kept the water from flowing out of the living room and all of the water was flowing into the heat registers and draining out into the basement. My Gal looks at me and says"she's stupid?" :zany-face: :rolling-on-the-floor-laughing:

EDIT: I forgot the lesson learned. Never walk away when the water is running.

 

[twentyleagues]

Mine is less house hold damage, but I have done the water spillage many times.
I have learned to set up a coral QT observation tank. Why? Well between my first tank back into the hobby and my current running reef aiptasia and bubble algae are driving me nuts so one of the many tanks I have will be a coral QT. Where I can deal with pests that happen to arise.

 

[Llyod276]

I should not buy nor will I ever buy sps corals.

 

[X-37B]

I should not buy nor will I ever buy sps corals.

 

[Rusty_L_Shackleford]

Ive had a lot of fails over the years. I now never run ro water into a container without a float valve installed. I even have one on a 5 gallon bucket when I only need to make a little because ive forgotten to turn it odf and had a flood. Every tank has an inkbird temp controller because I've had heater fails cook tanks. I now try to keep enough ready made saltwater on hand to do total water change in case of emergency. Oh and I recently chipped the rim of an im-100 moving it into my storage unit.

 

[Aquarist76]

If you accidentally dump too much food into a tank, take it out immediately. Ammonia will build up quickly and destroy your tank.

Also, quarantine everything!!! And I mean everything. Best to have a separate tank set up for new fish and if possible prophylactically treat (I like copper power and prazi, separately). Isolate them for at least 1 month.
Have a separate tank setup for coral for at least 1 month to ID any pests. No coral dip is fool proof and aiptasia could survive a nuclear disaster.

Never put Xenia in a tank, ever!!!

 

[Dfost]

Putting two new torches where my other torches are. Thought they would be fine but didn’t really think about it. They were getting anywhere from 250 to 300 par and they melted.

 

[chickendirt]

Test before dosing. Don't even think about cheating.

Its always better to understock live stock. You miss a maintenance day and its nothing but an uphill battle. That one week of missed water change can be two months of algae battle in the tank. Never mind lost corals. So always stock to where if you miss a week doing something its not going to kill you.

 

[IceNein]

That chip on the IM-100 is darn near a best case scenario chip though, so you've got that going for you.

 

[-XENOMORPH-]

Never buy a used tank. 5 years ago? Blew out at 2am. Horrible. Live and learn.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

Never buy a used tank. 5 years ago? Blew out at 2am. Horrible. Live and learn.

Did it wake you up, or did you not notice til the following day?

 

[ColorMeGone]

I had a bubble algae free tank since I dip all my corals in a peroxide solution...
But, I should have never put this dang thing in my tank (couldn't dip it, and it died anyways) microalgae. It had a few bubbles on it and I took them off but it got in my tank and now/still screwed. lol

 

[Rusty_L_Shackleford]

That chip on the IM-100 is darn near a best case scenario chip though, so you've got that going for you.

I'm actually not that upset about it. It looks cosmetic to me. I don't even really have anywhere to set it up right now. I got it for super cheap and just stuck in storage for a future project.