I believe my tank is dead.

[SeanT]

It all happened suddenly.
Everything failed at once.
My tank is dying.
By morning, I expect it all to be dead.

A derisively, odious comedy of equipment malfunctions, back up equipment malfunctions and alarms that never sounded has killed my four and a half year dream into the world of Reefing.

At 5:30 p.m. EST everything looked great. My wife and I left for dinner and a movie.
At 9:30 p.m. EST everything looked great upon our return.
At 10:45 p.m. EST my wife went to bed while I stayed up to watch the History channels Crescent and the Cross
(I recorded it from a few days ago).
At 12:10 a.m. EST I glanced over at the tank because it was almost time for the VHO’s to go off.
The tank looked cloudy, very cloudy.

I went into the tank room and saw nothing out of the ordinary. I never glanced at any of the controllers; I decided to go into the garage to see if I could locate the source of the cloudiness.
My thoughts were that the pump in my top off container might have sucked in a bit of undissolved kalk powder from the bottom.

That is when I saw it.
I couldn’t believe my eyes…how the hell could it have happened?
The temperature was at 94.8 degrees.
I have three separate digital thermometers each with alarms set to go off at 83, 84 & 85 degrees respectively.
None sounded, all just happily recorded the temp, including the one in the display tanks room, as my system screamed in pain.

WHAT THE HELL!?! Was the only thought going through my mind. Then came the panic.

I have a 1 hp PCI chiller. It is a beast and has NEVER had a problem keeping my system cool.
I found the problem.
The Mag 9.5 chiller feed pump failed.
The ceramic shaft shattered, the chiller got no water to cool, the pumps and lighting boiled my tank.

I hooked up a spare Mag 5 I had laying around to start cooling the water and examined my tank.
Two colonies already in full blown RTN, 9 more bone white and bleached (if not completely dead – lights are out and it is hard to tell).
All Zo’s and Ric’s shriveled up to the size of pinheads.
Not a fish in sight.

I honestly had tears well up in my eyes.

Then, I went to the aquaculture facility to get some NSW.
I changed out about 100 gallons on my 300 gallon system.
I started the return pump back up and for some reason the water began to overflow my main tank. Unbelievable.
I killed the return pump, pulled the overflow pipes up and restarted it, everything drained fine.
I think I may have had some air trapped in the plumbing causing pressure. I have no idea.

I have done all I can do right now.
It is 3 a.m. here and I need some sleep.
When I awake, I truly expect it all to be gone.
I will do another large change tomorrow in the hopes something may make it.



I think I have just been forced out of this hobby.
My dreams will not peaceful tonight.

Guard your tanks well my friends,
Sean

[Purple Haze]

that sucks. Sorry to hear that. I caught mine at 88 one day and everything survived.

/me shops for that Ranco dual stage controller.

[flyhigh123]

good luck... sounds aweful....

A quote I like from Galaxy Quest "never give up, never surrender"

[milhouse74]

I lost a lot of corals and inverts when I came home one day and the tank temp was over the 94 degrees that my therm reads. I had no fish at the time, I keep mostly coral tanks.

Don't let the crash force you out of the hobby.

[Snakebyt]

oh man.. cant believe that so many things went wrong all at the same time..
Dont let this run you out of the hobby
Keep us updated

[cyclgrl]

Crossing my fingers for you, Sean!

[Old Yeller Tang]

Sorry to hear about this! Hope all isn't lost!

I just told Dave B what happened and he said to email him and he'll happily send out a frag care package.

Good luck once again.

[staticfishmonger]

what are the odds of all three temp alarms not working, that seems very odd. i will say most of the people i have heard from that have had major temp problems usually run tanks that depend on chillers to keep the temp in check. i know in some cases it is not practical, and a chiller is needed, but i go to some lengths to design my tanks so that they dont need one.

[64Ivy]

Any idea yet why NONE of the temp alarms worked?

[BLKTANG]

Man, this makes me want to cry.Dude im so sorry,I hope that your tank survives.My tank is in the process of coming back,I had scorched some sweet corals with new light.I cant imagine how you feel losing like 10+ pieces.

[NexDog]

Oh man, hearing this kind of thing makes me so nervous about the hobby. I mean, you had layers of redundancy and they all failed. Have to ask what more you could have done but there isn't anything more. Truly very scary.

I hope the tank survives or enough is salvaged to restart.

[pro99line]

Sorry to hear this and I'm hoping the best for you. I definetely agree with staticfishmonger. My tank has no chiller and I have to use heaters to keep the temp in the 78-80 range.

[G_cuvier]

I don't mean to take this lightly but look on the bright side.

There is no need for you to get out of the hobby - You just had _all_ the bad luck you could have in this hobby all at the same time - you should be golden from here on out.

Lastly, don't write off your entire livestock collection yet. Many marine creatures are far more resilient than we give them credit for.

[bonerfortuna]

Sorry to hear , you still have "My daughter's well being, living life " , now its time to fight back and capture the other. Good Luck.

[toonces]

wow, sean.
after all you've contributed here, i can't tell you how bad i feel.

i really, really hope that some of your critters make it, and i hope you don't leave the hobby.

best wishes.

[nossalucard]

Hey Sean, dont quit my friend. I know you're hurtin' and I hope all your livestock bounces back. Anyway, if I can come back from the destruction of Katrina (although I only lost a 29 gal versus your 300), you can do it. Heck, I'm even seriusly contimplating(already got the price quotes) upgrading to a 58 reef ready setup . i truly wish you the best, but alas I have been there before myself(Total system crash).

[Frick-n-Frags]

OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!

you can only learn and go on, and go on you will.......

[CeeGee]

man, you are taking this quite well.

I hate to say it but this could have been avoided by simply glancing at your temp a couple of times a day. I know you have spent a lot of money on equipment that is supposed to take care of this for you but if you are home there is no reason why you shouldn't glance at a thermometer every now and again.

I had a similar circumstance not too long ago while I was out of town but my temp dropped instead of the other way around. I thought everything was gone. I was so PO'd. I left everything in the tank and it appears that I lost nothing. Even the SPS that was solid white with no polyp extension is making a recovery.

Keep doing all you can and give everything a chance to recover and keep us updated.

[scchase]

A good number of years ago I had a tank get to 100+ when light fellin and started arcing but not tripping the breaker. I sitll had a few things survive amazing though none of them were SPS. I am currently a little over 6 months out since my last tank wipeout in a 90 gallon LPS/Softie tank that was cuased bt a powerhead getting clogged while moving the tank and I would have to say I still do not regret starting from scratch things are beggining to look like a tank again in there and I am starting to see stuff come back from the dead. Keep on plugging.

[Flatlander]

Sorry to hear of the problems Sean. Its unbelievable some of the things that can go wrong with our systems. Despite all our caution.

All we can hope is that some of the livestock makes it through this.

[Cluckr7]

Originally posted by CeeGee
man, you are taking this quite well.

I hate to say it but this could have been avoided by simply glancing at your temp a couple of times a day. I know you have spent a lot of money on equipment that is supposed to take care of this for you but if you are home there is no reason why you shouldn't glance at a thermometer every now and again.

While he's at it, he could probably test his pH, measure his salinity, test for copper, and check his TDS a few times a day. Just cuz you're at home doesn't mean you have time to check your fish tank all the time.

[funkyman]

That's terrible Sean. I know the amount of effort and attention that are poured into this hobby. It's almost like having another child. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that what you find this morning won't be what you're expecting.

Please let us know how everything goes.

[kabal2]

Sorry to hear that sean, i hope everything comes back up
please keep us posted

[cwegescheide]

Oh man!!! I feel for you Sean... I hope you recover ok... That totally sux... Sounds like you did have all your stuff fail at once though. Hopefully you should be in the clear for a while now.

Good luck,

Chris

[mhurley]

Best of luck Sean...I know how much work these big systems are and I fear for the day that something like this comes my way. I suspect I may just close up shop for a couple years if it does.

Good luck.