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#1
08/02/2007, 09:17 PM
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Your disasters, we all have had them..
OK, we can all learn from other's mistakes, but sometimes disasters happen, sometimes our fault, sometimes not. I've been in the hobby for quite some time, here's a few to share. Please share yours as well.
58 gallon show reef tank, loaded with everything. Took canopy off to clean. Enter family cat, so use to sleaping on top of the nice warm canopy. Does his usual leap onto the chair then leap onto the aquarium, except this time, no canopy on tank. Splash! Ok you say, no big deal. However, just dusted cat heavily with flea powder. Cat jumps right out. I quicky try to transfer all animals to quarantine tank. Too late. All die within 24 hrs. Ad next day in newspaper, for sale, cat, $2400. Recent bath. 46 bow reef. Finally running and looking great. Loaded with fish/inverts. Oops, winter storm. Loose power, generator won't start. Seems it worked fine in September but in febuary, NOT. Start big fire in fireplace, purchase big propane heater and place in front of tank. Still without power for 4 days. tanks is now 52 degrees. Loose everything but leather coral and one stubborn clown and a hawkfish. 46 bow reef, now recovered after big power loss. Wife (after several adult beverages) thinks she's doing me a favor by shutting the lights off when she goes to bed. Accidently hits dial on remote heater. In AM, tank is 96 degrees. need I say more. Have dozens more but would like to hear yours. :-) It's the healing process |
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#3
08/02/2007, 10:54 PM
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My power went out. The sump return pump failed to restart AND the siphon break hole clogged and siphoned out half the tank (sump big enough to handle it, so no flood), which proceeded to sit that way, with everything else on/running for at least 24hrs. I'm shocked to admit a couple corals actually survived.
Lessons. Keep siphon break holes cleaned religiously, or don't use them at all (my choice of the two). Use quality equipment and keep it clean with periodic vinegar soaks, ESPECIALLY if you know you will be leaving for Europe for 3 weeks 
__________________
Peter Click my red house to see my tank :-) |
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#4
08/02/2007, 11:22 PM
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#6
08/02/2007, 11:32 PM
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Quote:
__________________
Peter Click my red house to see my tank :-) |
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#8
08/03/2007, 12:20 AM
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Cheapo hang on the back skimmer overflowed while sleeping. Pump was near the bottom of the tank as one of many mods I made to get it skimming worth a damn. Pump drained tank of about 10 gallons of water all night... onto my second story floor. Nice water marks and some wonderfully stinky carpet for a while.
Lesson learned... overflows can happen for any number of reasons and sometimes for no reason that you can figure out... with almost any skimmer (especially cheap ones)... make sure that when skimmers overflow they do so into a sump or when you're buying one make sure that it can't easily overflow (use the back pressure from the skimmer lid, that builds as the collection cup fills, to force water back down into skimmer and out the skimmer exhaust instead of out the top of the skimmer). Also, in general, it's never a good idea to walk away from a bucket that you're filling with water thinking that you'll get back to it before the bucket overflows... I've found this to be the surest way of entering a time warp and coming back to find an always surprising amount of water already in the bucket and copious amounts pouring onto the floor.
__________________
Brian "I want to be like captain kirk get up every day and love to go to work don't want to be like mr. spock want to kick out the jams and rock the block" -Bob Schneider |
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#9
08/03/2007, 02:30 AM
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I bought my first setup used from a lady who was selling it after her divorce... Included in the deal was a mandarin that would readily eat frozen food... In my newbish ignorance, I left one of the powerheads without any type of guard over the intake. I noticed my mandarin missing for a couple of days, and happened to find him sucked up in the powerhead intake... I didn't realize how big of a loss that was until sometime later...
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#10
08/03/2007, 03:11 AM
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Happened tonight, I got back from the fish store and noticed 10 gallons of water missing from the tank. Found out my HOB skimmer overflowed. I had to empty the tank and move it. Also earlier this summer I was filling my 125g and fell asleep. Woke up water pouring out of the tank. Also I found my 55g overflowing because of a gummed up filter. Bad times this summer.
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#11
08/03/2007, 03:26 AM
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This goes under near disaster averted. Going out of town, I loaded up my ATO, feed the fish and thought the tank was well prepared for my weekend away.
I packed up my motorcycle with camping gear and my son then realized I forgot something important while several miles out of town heading to Yosemite (300 miles away). Went back and found my refugium sprung a leak, my carpet was soaked and the main pump sucking air. Had I not turned back, I'd be writing a "my tank crashed" thread. |
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#12
08/03/2007, 04:20 AM
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Came home from work early one day to find the smoke alarm was going off. Needless to say one the the ballest on my tank shorted out and start the tank and room on fire. Loss the tank, half of our wedding gift that were stored in the room and $7000 in hotel fee that the insure never payed me back for.
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#13
08/03/2007, 06:52 AM
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This happened last week. Sump is in the basement, I'm sitting at computer upstairs and smell electrical smoke. Go down to basement, power strip is burning up. Seems the humidity was so high down there that water droplets formed on EVERYTHING electrical, all cords, everything, including the expensive GFCI I had everything running on. Seems it didn't trip as advertised, instead it fried too. Lost that and a MAG12 pump. Funny it was only the electrical cords that had the water drops on them, perhaps because of the littlle heat they put out. Oh, and I have a dehumidifier down there, seems it filled up only 1/2 day after emptying it. It's been real humid, sumps been in basement for 6 yrs, no problems before.
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#14
08/03/2007, 10:04 PM
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Two words: Rio Powerhead
Equivalent to sticking everything in the microwave for 5 minutes. |
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#15
08/04/2007, 01:30 AM
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Ouch. Hurts to read the disasters. Sorry for everyone's loss.
No disasters luckily but a few near misses. Go to Reno for 3 days. Had someone come over to top off on the second day and check on the tank while gone. Get back and find the GFCI tripped. Tank was around 72F with still water. Must have tripped that day. Didn't lose any livestock. Said goodnight to tank and went to bed. Luckily left door open and heard strange gurgling noises. Go downstairs and find my skimmer was overflowing. Overflow about a cups worth. Lucky again. Had to move tank 20 miles and even with preparation, I still managed to foul things up like not making enough salt water. Set tank up at new place but had to make more water. Long story short, 6 hours later with livestock sitting in cold water and no circulation in the moving tubs, dumped everything in a tank at 70-72F and sand storm. Thought I would lose everything but everything survived except maybe for a head of xenia. |
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#16
08/04/2007, 02:14 AM
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- Heater malfunction (stuck on) raised the temperature in my old 65g from 78F to 90F+, stressed everything, killed a few corals
- Un-quarantined angel added directly to my reef brought ich, which infected everyone. I had to tear the tank apart, remove the fish, QT all of them in hypo for weeks. Lesson learned - quarantine EVERYTHING wet!! - Found a Xanthid crab, managed to extract him from the tank with great effort (had to smash a huge rock to get him out), then stupidly put him into the HOB fuge. He got out, promptly set up residence in the main tank again, and it took MONTHS to find him and remove him again. - Bought a fish without researching enough. Now instead of the pretty little white, yellow and blue damsel I bought I have a 4" grey monster terrorizing the reef. Can't wait to get him out of there when we move in a month - he's LFS bound. - Bought a goniopora on the advice of the LFS. Last time I listened to the LFS without doing research. - Bought every supplement I could find when I was brand new. To make things even worse, I was unknowingly shopping at an overpriced LFS. Now I have 10 bottles of useless crap taking up space in my cupboard, which I can't bring myself to throw away because they were so expensive! There are more... seems a lot of the time I learn through making mistakes :/
__________________
"The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears, or the sea." - Isak Dinesen |
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#17
08/04/2007, 01:21 PM
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i was about 12-13yrs old and i just got the fish tank of my dreams, 150 gallon salwater tank with just a fluval filter under the stand. the tank was set up 12 hrs before i thought it would be good to check out the filter and open the canister filter while running..... cracked it open to see inside of it... and the motor pumped about 40 gallons of saltwater onto my parents solid hardwood floor before i could figure out how to stop the water.
tank was fine, had no life it it yet, ruined the floor and cost thousands to redo the entire woodflooor room again. my tank was no longer allowed to be anywere but in the dark cold basement and thats where it still is to this day 8 yrs later. |
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#18
08/04/2007, 01:31 PM
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not with my tank but I was filling up my RO water in my 45g brute tub and I went to sleep and forgot all about it. well about 12 hours later I walked in the room and I was walking on water..lol I got a float valve now..lol
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#20
08/04/2007, 02:01 PM
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Quote:
He was helping 
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#21
08/04/2007, 02:24 PM
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Did my own Foam background, but failed to apply at the right humidity. When I filled the tank with water, the whole background came off in one big foam piece. Pain in the but to get out of the tank, and ended up having to drain the tank and clean all the floating debris out. What a mess!
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#22
08/04/2007, 02:55 PM
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I got awoken late one night to a loud pop and the sound that scares all of us.. the sound of water pouring onto carpet. I ran into my home office to find that my JBJ 24 gallon nano cube had cracked and was pouring water into my custom built too expensive gaming computer. My LFS was nice enough to hold my livestock and replace the cube for me. I got another stand for it and set the new cube up. Three weeks later I am getting out of the shower already running late for work and here the same sound again a crack and pouring water... Needless to say I did not get another 24 gallon nano cube.
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#23
08/04/2007, 02:56 PM
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1. glass heater broke - tank wiped.
2. hurricane Charley, no power for 3 weeks, no generators in the area available - tank wiped except a single candy cane coral. 3. fire, extinguished itself with minimal damge, my fault for using cheapo PC endcaps. 4. fire, started when I dropped a canopy onto plumbing causing a leak onto a ballast. I was right there and extinguished it with minimal damage. |
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#24
08/04/2007, 05:03 PM
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Okay, so the worst was the koi mishap. I was housing some friend's koi in my new 110 for a little while after a rip in the liner (most likely caused by a tree root) caused a massive leak (to the point that you could stand on the pond's edge and watch the water level drop). I went out of town for two weeks to visit my family, and left the koi in the care of my roommates.
They fed a 3 lb bag of food to a half dozen four-inch koi in two weeks!. When I got home, the tank was white, and the koi were very quickly evicted to the LFS as soon as I got word that my friends had never intended to replace the pond. Another time, again while heading on vacation, the U-joint on my SeaClone failed. I got a frantic phonecall from a different roommate about how 4-5 gallons of water pumped out onto the floor of the house.... and drained down, into the basement.... where it almost hit the fuse box.
__________________
"So long and thanks for all the fish!" |
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#25
08/04/2007, 06:46 PM
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Quote:
__________________
Brody: It doesn't make any sense when you pay a guy like you to watch sharks. Hooper: Well, uh, it doesn't make much sense for a guy who hates the water to live on an island either. Brody: It's only an island if you look at it from the water. Hooper: That makes a lot of sense. |
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