Tank Crash -- And, what did you learn?

[member 99594]

Hey all,

I just recently experienced what I think I would consider a small crash. A few things died and the tank took a noticeable down turn for a few months. Like everything in this hobby we try to take as much out of anything and learn along the way. I thought this would be a great thread starter not only to learn about other hobbyists but, to show new hobbyists that there is a way back to success when all could seem lost. Possibly preventing a tear down.

"TANK CRASH -- Now, what did you learn?"

5 or so months ago I had been doing some rock scaping and changing some things around in my system. I had a fairly large rock of Pulsing Xneia that was starting to move from its island to other main rock scape in my tank. I made the decision to replace this rock with a similar size rock from another system. This rock was about 12x4x2. *this removed a massive amount of bioload and ticked pretty much everything off in my system and I think brought in flatworms and aptaisa. (what it think was the main issue)

After I had done this and combined with flatworms an aiptasia issue and an asterina starfish breakout I had some corals, various SPS and some LPS and even Zoas take a turn for the worst. I was at this time trying everything, LiveRock Enhance, Vibrant, bigger massive water changes, I tried Flatworm exit (worked for the flatworms), and overall trying too much to fast and too much at once. I think the flatworm exit was also a big part of it too. I was ready to pack it in.

That all being said, I now feel like I know my tank better than ever after this crash. I am way more in tune with what is going on, and how important nutrient levels and ca and alk all play a role and when you move one leaver at a time.... KEEP IT SIMPLE FOLKS, especially when you are starting out. Don't get sucked into all those pour and pray remedies. I do think Vibrant and Live Rock Enhance are great products if you are using them sparingly and giving enough time between trying other things and all the while TEST TEST TEST.

What I think helped was taking a step back and simplifying the system and getting back to basics!!

• 5% water change weekly
• Only running Alk and Ca 2 part
• Carbon replaced every couple of weeks
• Acropower on a doser 1/4 the recommended dose

Its now been some time 4 weeks - 6 weeks and I have noticed a VERY significant turnaround and I am back loving this tank again.

I would love to hear some more stories of crashes where you knew you did something or something happened and instead of packing it in you returned from the dead and revived your tank.

Cheers!!



Astrina Starfish had eaten a bunch of coraline algae and Monti's colour coming back.



Here you can see a large chunk of coraline fell off the back of the tank above.



Right side and left shots and on the right side of the tank you can see better the coraline is coming back.



Silver Hammer lost a head and one almost coming back out. Some zoas that were not happy.

 

[Macdaddynick1]

Learned that .11 po4 and 45 No3 is much safer than 0. Back at it, corals are growing faster than ever.

 

[andrewey]

I learned to quarantine everything that goes in my tank. No exceptions. I had to learn that twice the hard way- some of us are too stubborn to learn the first time :/

I learned not to allow anyone who is drinking near my tank unsupervised

 

[member 99594]

I learned to quarantine everything that goes in my tank. No exceptions. I had to learn that twice the hard way- some of us are too stubborn to learn the first time :/

I learned not to allow anyone who is drinking near my tank unsupervised

OH YEAH!! Me too. I want to add more now so bad, however, I am waiting. There is no way I am going back down that path... and it WILL be quarantined.

 

[member 99594]

Learned that .11 po4 and 45 No3 is much safer than 0. Back at it, corals are growing faster than ever.

I am also around there now for P04.. (.1 PO4 and 15 No3) I was also drawing back the feeding thinking that was going to help.. now I have added more food and things are just happier.

 

[Coral Bros]

i learned to test the new water going in when doing a water change. a bad batch of reef crystals completely wiped out my 110gal tank @4 years ago. that was my biggest crash. since then I test sal/ph/alk/ca/mg of every new batch of water during a wc.

 

[Mark Novack]

I learned to always check the ceiling to see what my screws have attached to. I thought it was a beam. It was OSB. 8 T5 tube/3 bank LED hybrid in the tank. Complete power outage for 8 hours as I was not home. 99% loss.

 

[Doctorgori]

I learned every latest trend/fad works until it doesn’t
I learned water changes are cheap insurance
I learned not to trust the power grid
I learned our local water supply is just plain nasty and I’ll remember that this Nov

 

[Heychanelle]

I really don't know what caused my crash but I've learned to be more attentive and I keep a diary now, I also test more regularly

 

[Joedubyk]

This is a GREAT question.


My tank crash happened because red sea phos kit was reading .08 instead of what it really was

I also was not doing as much WC, keeping up with my RODI filter as much, nor testing as much as I should have for the results I wanted.

 

[Joedubyk]

I really don't know what caused my crash but I've learned to be more attentive and I keep a diary now, I also test more regularly

Yup. I am more attentive and test more. Testing definitely catches something before things go really south. My acros were hurting for weeks -- maybe months before they really turned for the worse.

 

[Scubasteve11]

Still a newbie reefer here, but I just had a similar crash as OP. My tank was doing GREAT and just hit the 1.5 year mark. Started to move rocks around to get ready for an upcoming upgrade. Around the same time switched salts(TMP to IO) and lost a lot of acans and euphyllia to brown jelly. One of the ironic things about this "crash" was I had a cheap tester acro that thrived the entire time. The acro and zoa's were unaffected. This acro is now my favorite Coral. Knock on wood, it will probably die today now that I'm talking about it.

Lessons learned:
When things are going well, don't make any major changes!
Test more when I do make changes. I'm still not sure what caused most of my lps to die off.

 

[DeniableArc]

This is a GREAT question.


My tank crash happened because red sea phos kit was reading .08 instead of what it really was

I also was not doing as much WC, keeping up with my RODI filter as much, nor testing as much as I should have for the results I wanted.

Was that a Red Sea pro test ?

 

[Joedubyk]

Was that a Red Sea pro test ?

Yep. And I was running GFO (which I'll never run again). I really should've known somethingg was up when my macro all died. Either way, my export will be WC, filter floss, skimmer and macro. I'll never do gfo again.

 

[Katrina71]

I learned most coral will come back in 6+ weeks!

 

[member 99594]

I use that test as well and I still don’t believe it.

I did have a Hannah checker but the reagents were costing a small fortune at the rate I wanted to test. BUT, now I think I might go back to that tester just for it’s accuracy. I’d rather have that than a range of .17-.34.

 

[CherBear811]

After 25+ years in the hobby, I had my first and only (so far, knock on wood) crash a few years ago after trying to recharge a purigen pouch. I followed directions to the letter, but minutes after putting it back in, all the polyps on my corals had completely retracted and were turning pale. It took me a few minutes to figure out that the pouch had bottomed out my pH so low that it wasn't measurable. It took water changes and adding kalk to get the pH back up. No idea exactly how low it went. Within an hour the tank was milky white. I did 4 90% water changes in 3 days, changed ROX carbon and rowa every 12 hours, and added bacteria and a limestone airstone to the tank. I lost all sps except the poci's. Lost about half my LPS. Managed to save the fish and nems, but the nems were never the same after that. Pretty sure most of the zoas survived. I still use purigen, but I will NEVER try to regenerate it again.