Seriously considering throwing in the towel

[Scorpius]

I feel your pain. If you have any reefer friends call them up and have them come over to help.

 

[Wrasse-cal]

So, seriously dumb question:

Do I need to fully seat braided vinyl tubing fully into a barb? In other words, should I have the tubing sit all the way to the hilt/base? If so, how the heck to I do this? I could gorilla some down 1/2 to 3/4 of the way, but no further.

 

[Wrasse-cal]

Thanks everyone as well for sharing stories of your own disasters. It doesn't make me feel better per se, but it does make me feel like less of an idiot.

 

[Flippers4pups]

So, seriously dumb question:

Do I need to fully seat braided vinyl tubing fully into a barb? In other words, should I have the tubing sit all the way to the hilt/base? If so, how the heck to I do this? I could gorilla some down 1/2 to 3/4 of the way, but no further.

Try heating the end a little and wet the barbed end. Takes a little elbow grease, but works.

Thanks everyone as well for sharing stories of your own disasters. It doesn't make me feel better per se, but it does make me feel like less of an idiot.

No idiots here on Reef2reef. We are family and family supports family. We are human and we make mistakes too!

 

[Koigula]

I have had my share of BS happen, especially when I leave home.

I set things up veey simply that are hard to fail.

1- I have a 350 gallon system without an external pump and a thick walled fiberglass sump from Rubbermaid suitable for drinking horses.

2- I had a 50 cent IC on Apex classic board fail and only trust it for monitoring and 2 part. I do not centralized on this unit at All!!

3 - I use finnex heater elements for 18 months, click the cord and get a new one. I will keep a spare on hand, use the spare, and replace back up.

4 - I use industrial rated din rail power supplies and keep hobby grade ballasts and power supply in a box. All power supplies are on ARC breakers in a dry electrical cabinet. This is not expensive as most are new on ebay but never installed... I am not giving advice on panels or installing.

5 - Do not use DC sump pumps. They are failure prone and high end and low end are all failure prone.

6 - DC powerheads on deep cycle batteries are needed. I uses xf280s with 2 deep cycle Northstar batteries with pro charge.

7 - Despie what I wrote above, every piece of equipment has a long term purpose or is pulled from system.

8 - Do not buy new salt brands. There is a reason they are being sold and explodong in options.

9 - Do not be on bleeding edge of new tehnology. I would use T5s sicce pumps, and jaeger heaters to start put with. Most neq items break.... I could go on but will not

 

[hart24601]

I have a heat gun just for attaching soft tubing. Can go too far and melt, just trim it! I used soap and anger to get soft tubing with bards in the past, heat gun I was ashamed how easy it was and I hadn't done it years ago

 

[vetteguy53081]

Take a breath and re-group. Youre talking to a guy here who has endured it all to achieve success. This is chemistry and patience.

 

[theMerchant]

I learned from my tank leaking...

Now have Apex leak detectors on all four sides if the tank, they shut off all pumps when tripped

 

[theMerchant]

I learned from my tank leaking...

Now have Apex leak detectors on all four sides if the tank, they shut off all pumps when tripped

 

[Aquatic Sealife]

Install a LDK, problem solved, it will notify and shut off devices

 

[Jase4224]

There is a very helpful video that BRS did all about redundancy, I learned heaps from it.

I once had a large tank that produced a leak on the back bulkhead. The water crept between the rear glass and the paint on the rear glass and soaked through the stand. I had to get the 300gal tank off the stand before it collapsed so got 4 x 50gal tubs and plumbed them together to put my fish and coral while the new stand was built. I got home from school to find my blue linkia Starfish climbed into a pipe and 50gal of water on my parents dining room floor.

Gave up that tank now 8 years later I’m planning my next. Your not alone

 

[Katrina71]

So things can only look up from here!!!

 

[Radman73]

I have never not gotten my floor wet with a tank. It just happens.

Yep. When we built the new house even my wife was on board with paying to extend the tile into my office.

To the OP, sorry for your troubles. I had the silicone hose from my return pop resulting in 20-30 gallons on the floor. Have had my ATO back siphon while on vacation and had to walk my 13yo son through fixing it. Also had a dog freak out during a thunderstorm and hid in the cabinet unplugging EVERYTHING along the way lol! That was on day 2 of a 7 day vacation. Have to thank God for friends who are willing to fix things for you while you're gone. This hobby can definitely be a struggle at times. Still love it though. Any time I think of getting out, my wife says no lol! She knows how much I love it. Hang in there. It'll get better.

 

[steveaus10]

I personally have never considered reef keeping fun for me it is the challenge to keep everything going smoothly with the mechanics of it all I am old school so I must monitor it all pretty much manually and by observation I happen to be retired so I have pretty much 24 hours a day 365 days a year to play with my system and no matter how much you think you know about the hobby there is always room to learn more Just my take not for everyone

 

[User1]

I understand you are having a difficult time but I wouldn't throw in the towel. Life wouldn't be life if we all didn't have troubles. We pick up and learn.

I mean you think you are having a bad day just be glad you are not Stephen Curry who believes the moon landing was faked...

 

[SinCityRee4r]

my Apex ALD saved me from the exact issue. only mine was a stuck ato float off my ro/di. it filled my entire trigger 34 sump and was just overflowing. My salinity went down to 1.020 from 1.026. To swing caused me to lose all of my SPS coral and most of my LPS coral. It was at least a $3000 loss. this was a reef learning lesson. Now I have many systems in place to keep this from happening. You already have so much invested in this hobby so I would stick with it. Install some float switches in your some of your breakout box this way you will get an alarm well before things are over full or too low. It’s one of those things if it’s good it’s awesome and if it’s bad it sucks. good luck,hope you stick with a hobby we all lose lots of money in it but I think that’s why we enjoy it LOL.

 

[Docdiggy]

I had something similar happen. I set up an algae reactor and the output hose fell out of the sump. Drained the whole sump on the floor. Luckily all the water found a small cracked area where the basement floor meets the wall. It happened overnight and my live rock was exposed to air for who knows how long. Totally sucked. Months later the tank started crashing and I'm not sure if it was a delayed reaction from that or swapping out my sump. Could be both. I was ready to quit after the crash, but didn't and I'm happy I didn't.

 

[Crabby48]

Well, last night at around 8:00 PM I got an alarm on my Apex that my salinity, temperature, pH were all abnormal. I checked the app, and I could see that the amperage was also off normal.

Turns out a hose from my manifold uncoupled from my ARID reactor and emptied my entire sump on the floor--my best guess based on how much water I had to add, and how much water I sucked up, was about 30 gallons. My calcium reactor was also leaking since the peristaltic pump was pushing in air into the chamber.

I spent the next 6 hours of vacuuming up water, mixing and adding fresh salt water and checking the alkalinity to try and keep things stable. Well, I didn't. I'm not sure what happened, but I I added soda ash per the BRS calculator but somehow managed to overdose on soda ash and drive the KH up to 10.5 from 8.5. My KH was only 7.0 with the new saltwater. It's now 10.3.

So I've got a wet carpet that's still drying, a CA reactor that I can't figure out how to get working again, a KH spike, and to top it off, a manifold that I have to fix.

This is after having a cracked sump, two failed pumps, seriously scratching my front glass, dealing with dinos and losing all my coral, a defective gyre power supply and that's just what's off the top of my head.

I'm just feeling so defeated.

Flippers4pups summed it up with the clamps and to use channel locks to tighten them an extra couple clicks. If you have room you can use 2 clamps per barb fitting.
Also I agree to use heat and get the hose all the way on. I try and blow most heat on the inside but don’t over heat it.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Flippers4pups summed it up with the clamps and to use channel locks to tighten them an extra couple clicks. If you have room you can use 2 clamps per barb fitting.
Also I agree to use heat and get the hose all the way on. I try and blow most heat on the inside but don’t over heat it.

I just dip the ends of the hose in boiling water for 30-60 seconds

 

[drblakjak55]

My tank is in the basement mancave. Luckily. In my short three years of reefing I’ve discovered seven ways to put 30g onto the floor. Hang on back skimmers going nuts, hoses falling out, not placed right, overflowing sumps, ATO, reverse siphon out of wastewater tank, overflowing wastewater tank. The picture is after three days of electrical outage everything died except for some palys and trumpets. Two weeks of blowing, vacuuming, daily water changes and parameters back to normal. Now I know a little more and buying corals and fish from fellow reefers, going to their homes to see their amazing setups. Fun is back