Horror stories in reefkeeping?

[wabio]

Everyone at one time or another has had a disaster (major leak, fire, power outage, disease, etc.). If you haven't....count your blessings.

I'm just wondering if a thread has been created about them yet? I couldn't get the search function to work.....sorry. We seem to over-dramatize every little problem here at RC, and often overlook the huge uh-ohs.

I'm not trying to be a keeper of bad news, but I think we all can learn a lot from each others "major" mistakes. Anyone got a story they would like to share?

[usmc121581]

Yeah dont leve the RO/DI on overnight. I have done this over and over again. Well last night my Ro decide to work right. Woke up this morning to about 20-25 gallons all over the floor. It leaked from my water change trash can.

[jetta]

Tank over heated. Lost one fish and most corals. A chiller would have kept this from happening. Now my tank is in the basement / first floor of my new house. It stays cool down there year round.

[danferd2002]

Only thing major was tank overflow because of a stupid hob overflow. It dumped about 5 gallons of water onto the floor, which then leaked down through the ceiling fan of the floor below, it was a mess.

[rsw686]

If you remove the standpipe from the overflow make sure there is room in the sump to contain the water. I forgot how much water the overflow held and dumped 5 gal on the floor and stand.

Don't rely on the AC Jr. when your away. Program in some failsafe statements. The temp probe failed reading 100+ and my lights and heater stayed off. Had to get a buddy to come by and plug stuff in the wall.

[wabio]

Originally posted by rsw686
If you remove the standpipe from the overflow make sure there is room in the sump to contain the water. I forgot how much water the overflow held and dumped 5 gal on the floor and stand.

Excellent advice. NOTE TO SELF: No vertical overflow on my next tank.

[ACBlinky]

I'll play

1) 65g sumpless tank sprang a leak at midnight. My hubby and I spent the rest of the night pulling rock, sand, water and livestock out of the tank and into Rubbermaid tubs & buckets, then rushed to the LFS when it opened the next day to get a new tank. Fun, fun, fun!

2) 30g sump beneath my 90g cracked overnight. We woke up to ~20g of water on the wood floor. We had to dismantle the reef and move the 90g off the stand in order to get the 30g out of the stand. Went to the LFS, bought a new 30g, then had to remove all the baffles from the old sump, re-silicone them into the new one, and set everything up again. It was all my fault for having the baffles too tight - I stressed the glass. We shortened them so they're no longer pushing on the glass before we replaced them. The best part of all is that all this happened weeks before we had to tear the reef apart to move house.

[jlyles]

Had a power failure that caused my HOB overflow to lose siphon. When the power kicked back on about 6 gal pumped from the sump and overflowed out of the display. This happened in the middle of the night and I woke for work at 5:00 to find the mess. Also, the carpet was less than six months old. The worst part was trying to hide it from my wife. She kept asking why box fans were blowing on the fish tank . I told her just to keep the tank cool honey.

[cpl40475]

ok heres mine lol
we moved last thing to go was tank. Put tank into bed of truck and here SNAP. broke a bulkhead only thought it was my tank. Had to wait 3 days for a newone (Holiday) only to get it and overtighten it and SNAP again. Thank god my LFS stays open late

[stevelkaneval]

when i first bought my setup i listened to the lfs. haha jokes on me. oh yea thank you lfs for takeing all my money and telling me that pc is the best top of the line i could get, another haha jokes on me.

[Mr31415]

Never fill a brand new 480g tank and then leave for holiday 2000 miles away from home the next morning. Sometimes you discover 24 hours later that the tank broke the base in a 2.7m long crack with the water literally spilling out of the tank in less than 3 minutes - all on your living room floor. This while you are 2000 miles away by car.

[Lorretto]

When I fisrt started reef keeping I bough a 10gallon tank and packed it with about 8 fish including butterfly fish. Lfs said it's okay to have that many fish in the tank. 2weeks later after starting the tank everything died. I took a year off and educated myself. After starting again a year later i've never had any problems

oh I have forgotten about the hare snail or shrek that got sucked into the powerhead and shredded to pieces. The toxins wiped out everything but the 2 clown fish I have to this day. They are 7 years and still going strong

[IceWish]

Yeah dont leve the RO/DI on overnight

i am always doing this..:: i have a 55G barrel that is always overflowing onto the floor because i left my RO running all night. I sometimes leave open the tap (from the RO barrel ) leading to my 5 gallon reservoir . This also causes a big mess on the floor/....