What caused your tank crash?

[shoelaceike]

It seems that a lot of reefers end up with a crash at some point. I'm hoping a list of causes from personal experience, can keep others from making the same mistakes.

 

[Duke4Life]

Disease took me out my first go around. Now every fish goes through quarintine.

 

[bruleyii]

Over feeding with new fish and not keeping up/ bumping up my water changes.

 

[Ljaus]

Faulty chiller + hot Australian summer=
Game over

 

[shoelaceike]

Faulty chiller + hot Australian summer=
Game over

You don't have AC?

 

[shoelaceike]

Disease took me out my first go around. Now every fish goes through quarintine.

Not really a crash but still sucks

 

[shoelaceike]

Over feeding with new fish and not keeping up/ bumping up my water changes.

So what happened?

 

[CarrieB]

Does a crack across the bottom qualify as a "crash"?

 

[bruleyii]

So what happened?

Nutrients spiked way up and started a massive algae bloom(still dealing with it) along with killing half my corals.

 

[R_C]

Following. Nothing like learning from other people.

 

[themcnertney]

When I first started in this hobby I had a crash due to silicone. I had a 55 gallon setup for a few months and decided to build a refugium. Went to home depot to get silicone. Thinking silicone was silicone, I just bought whatever. Not the case. It leached chemicals in the water and caused me to lose most coral and all fish. Lesson learned.

 

[Kershaw]

Does a crack across the bottom qualify as a "crash"?

Yes I would imagine anything that forces you to start over counts

 

[revhtree Verified Admin]

Glass heater busted in the sump and didn't know for over a week. Xenia started dying, a lot of it, and took out a lot of the corals in the tank. This was when I first started reefing.

 

[twilliard]

An overdose from a study gone wrong :) (have done this twice now)

 

[shoelaceike]

Does a crack across the bottom qualify as a "crash"?

It does. Do you know what caused it?

 

[shoelaceike]

Glass heater busted in the sump and didn't know for over a week. Xenia started dying, a lot of it, and took out a lot of the corals in the tank. This was when I first started reefing.

Do you know why it busted?

 

[shoelaceike]

An overdose from a study gone wrong :) (have done this twice now)

I don't think that counts lol

 

[CarrieB]

Does a crack across the bottom qualify as a "crash"?

It does. Do you know what caused it?

Only theories. The tank was a used 150T that had been set up for four months with no apparent issues. Theories:
* Pressure point from a sharp rock.
* Wave action
* Not level
* Rock fall

The third one seems the most likely as we failed to exactly level the tank. It was not noticeably off, but we have leveled the replacement tank and found a difference of 1/4" between corners.

I also added an egg crate to the bottom this time just in case.

 

[DracoKat]

Nutrients spiked way up and started a massive algae bloom(still dealing with it) along with killing half my corals.

Same here. took over month to get it back under control.. lost my 6-line wrasse and about 90% of my corals

 

[shoelaceike]

Only theories. The tank was a used 150T that had been set up for four months with no apparent issues. Theories:
* Pressure point from a sharp rock.
* Wave action
* Not level
* Rock fall

The third one seems the most likely as we failed to exactly level the tank. It was not noticeably off, but we have leveled the replacement tank and found a difference of 1/4" between corners.

I also added an egg crate to the bottom this time just in case.

I guess that's possible but I would think the silicone would come apart before breaking the bottom glass....I use pieces of acrylic on the bottom