Seriously considering throwing in the towel

[Wrasse-cal]

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.

 

[ndrwater]

Ouch... That is a tough day to be sure....
Hang in there though. We have all had moments where we feel defeated. Good news is there is nowhere to go but up from here!!!

 

[AlexStinson]

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

 

[hockeyhead019]

I'm sorry to hear this. Definitely a run of bad luck but hang in there!

 

[hart24601]

I'm really sorry to hear it. But if you choose to rebuild it will be better than ever and you can remember this low point far in the rearview mirror!!

 

[crawling junk]

I have the same issue with brs calculator using old style soda ash. Way off

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Welcome to the show

 

[Wrasse-cal]

Yeah, so when is this hobby supposed to get fun?

 

[CMO]

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.

Really sorry to hear this. If you get things going again consider adding a low level switch to your pump chamber to shut pumps down quickly in the event of a leak.

 

[Wrasse-cal]

I have the same issue with brs calculator using old style soda ash. Way off

Bizarre. I'm not sure in my case it wasn't human error. It was a 2AM thing.

 

[Wrasse-cal]

Really sorry to hear this. If you get things going again consider adding a low level switch to your pump chamber to shut pumps down quickly in the event of a leak.

That's a good idea.

 

[Wrasse-cal]

Welcome to the show

This show sucks.

 

[Gregg @ ADP]

Yeah, so when is this hobby supposed to get fun?

Its always fun. This is just a part of the fun that’s a little more of an acquired taste.

I mean, did you like beer the first time you drank it?

 

[Wrasse-cal]

I'm really sorry to hear it. But if you choose to rebuild it will be better than ever and you can remember this low point far in the rearview mirror!!

I feel like this what I've been telling myself for the past year. "This is the low point," "no THIS is the low point," "no THIS NOW has got to be the low point." Feels like a moving target, moving in the wrong direction.

 

[Flippers4pups]

Sorry for the frustration and bad luck. I've had my share of "things going wrong" as others have had over the years. But each one was a learning experience. Didn't seem that way when it happened, but one way or another I learned from it.

Last mistake I had (notice the word "mistake") was leaving my hose that I use down stairs on and hanging the nozzle off the edge of the utility sink. I went up stairs for a few minutes to do something and headed back down the steps. As I turned the corner I could hear water splashing. The nozzel fell to the floor and was spraying water over everything! Lights, outlets, sump, floor above!

The GFCI's had tripped and everything was off, thank God!

Took me 6 hours to dry, clean and powered back up. SG wasn't off much, I got lucky there. A couple of water changes got me back on track.

I could go on and on about stuff that's happened over the years and write a book.

Alot of what goes wrong is our "mistakes" and others unfortunately aren't. It's the mistakes that can turn into opportunities to improve.

Hang in there, we all have been there at some level.

 

[Charlie’s Frags]

Stories like this convince me to just stick with good old fashioned consistent manual dosing and monitoring.

 

[Geebs19]

Im convinced that one day I will sit back and have a tank thats running peacfully. I am in about the same boat as you, have about 30 gallon get sprayed out of my sump from an overflowing skimmer. Wet carpet and leaked down the walls into the basement.

 

[marlinmon]

I made 10 gallons of RO water on my wood floor yesterday :)

 

[Flippers4pups]

Im convinced that one day I will sit back and have a tank thats running peacfully. I am in about the same boat as you, have about 30 gallon get sprayed out of my sump from an overflowing skimmer. Wet carpet and leaked down the walls into the basement.

I've had that happen too, long ago, numerous times. My current system did that to me till I put up a piece of acrylic sheet next it. (Skimmer pump was starting to fail and would ramp up and down.) It kept the overflow in the sump. Changed out the pump and it's been good ever since.

 

[d2mini]

My tank almost caught on fire when a hose popped off the skimmer and sent water shooting up inside the stand and onto a powerstrip hanging as far up the rear wall of the stand as I could get it.
Woke up the next morning to a fried powerstrip... melted. Black water everywhere. Good times.