Reef Fails That Taught You Something

[MikeReefs]

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!

had that happen once but caught it in time before it caused some real damage. Since that day I fill my 5gal buckets one at a time in the sink just incase and set timers on my phone

 

[IceNein]

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

That is the problem with bubble algae! If you see one bubble, there is more that you can't see. I was eventually forced to buy an emerald crab.

 

[Flukes]

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!

So eight years ago I thought I had an automated system in my basement with 2 100+ gallon display tanks plumbed into a single sump. Included a 100 gallon RO reservoir plumbed into an RODI filter controlled by my Apex system. The tanks weren't drilled so I used syphon boxes. Each box had 2 outlet hoses. I even had a means of purging bubbles from the syphon tube. I was so proud. DOH!
The system had been running without any intervention for months. All I did was clean it and spoil the little fishes with treats.
So when we decided to go on a month long driving trip I had no problem asking our neighbors to help with the mail but ignore the basement....
Bad idea of course.
2 Turbo snails managed to clog both syphons on one of the overflow boxes. That lead to a cascade of problems.
1. Water overflowed tank A.
2. The sump level dropped.
3. The ATO added RO water.
4. The controller made more RO water.
5. The salinity in both tanks A & B plummeted.
6. The carpet anemone died.
7. Everything else died and turned into a stinking mess.
8. Water continued to flow into the basement for days.
Finally my neighbors wondered about the smell. They kindly figured out how to shut things down and even vacuumed up the water.
There are so many lessons there. I abandoned the hobby until this year. I'm still striving for automation and monitoring. Turns out there's so many more things left to mess up. But I still haven't learned that I'm not a reef keeper.

 

[ColorMeGone]

That is the problem with bubble algae! If you see one bubble, there is more that you can't see. I was eventually forced to buy an emerald crab.

I would hate to put a crab in my small tank and it's a crap shoot if they would eat it or not.

 

[twentyleagues]

I would hate to put a crab in my small tank and it's a crap shoot if they would eat it or not.

In a pico yeah not sure. Pitho crabs work great.

 

[IceNein]

I would hate to put a crab in my small tank and it's a crap shoot if they would eat it or not.

All I can tell you is that I put one emerald crab in my 15 gallon, it has eaten all the bubble algae and then gave all my snails haircuts and hasn't touched any corals.

He does like to hang out on the skeleton of my hammer which sometimes irritates it, I was nervous about it at first, but he doesn't harm it.

 

[ColorMeGone]

All I can tell you is that I put one emerald crab in my 15 gallon, it has eaten all the bubble algae and then gave all my snails haircuts and hasn't touched any corals.

He does like to hang out on the skeleton of my hammer which sometimes irritates it, I was nervous about it at first, but he doesn't harm it.

Is he for sale?:cool:

 

[BryanM]

I'm sure this will change with time.... but .. I probably just got in over my head.. Of all the things I've learned in this past year, patience is pretty key with this endeavor, and I'm generally not a patient man.

So here we go:

1). Commented to wife while watching TV that she'd never want a reef tank in the house: You'd be wrong! Oh snap, we're in trouble now.
2). Found a great deal on a used tank 2 hours away. 91g DT, stand, sump, Neptune, extra powerheads, the list goes on and on, and I know very little about what all this stuff does. Noteworthy it was a RedSea, this plays a factor down the road.
3). Set up tank, live rock (not a mistake!), instant success.... Well yeah, its live rock!
4). This isn't so hard, add things. Add more things. Still going strong. WOOT.
5). Come across seam failure threads. Instantly depressed. Nearing christmas. Decide I cannot live with this ticking time bomb.
6). Buy larger waterbox tank. Hire people to help move it, transfer things, etc. Turns out this was a mistake, but in the end I needed the physical help to get this beast where it needed to go.
7). Been on the struggle bus pretty much since xmas, dealing with dinos, cyano, etc, even though my live rock is still plenty alive and in the new tank. Likely due to new substrate and lack of experience.

I'll eventually get through it. My wife and I love the new tank. I'm miffed at the absolutely horrific amount of maintenance I have to do right now to get through nuisance algae due to zero'd out nutrients. It's just a chore of all chores.

Lessons learned are still coming from this story, but I'll say this for now: New, or transfer, the transferred tank is really new, lapsing on testing water parameters is the #1 lesson here I think. Had I seen N and P falling I could have adjusted early on and I think likely avoided the hell I am in right now.

 

[drtechno]

Biggest reef fail ever that almost resulted in a flood:

Assuming your ghost overflow internal box does not need to be cleaned.

Basically my flow through my overflow was slowly dropping over time and I didn't realize it.. just kept adjusting my return pumps over the course of a year+. Until one day I noticed that my tank water level was very, very high after doing some tank maintenance and restarting the returns. I had to turn them way down and I proceeded to try to diagnose what was going on. I couldn't figure it out (weir looked clean) until I took the weir off and looked inside the internal overflow box - it was absolutely rammed with growing sponges. This almost turned into a massive 200+ gallon flood in my living room.

I can't believe that I never thought about this, and I consider myself an experienced reefer. This should definitely be a public safety announcement LOL