Tank Crashes

[sseling]

I'm thinking about a new marine tank (debating FOWLR vs reef) and I have a question about the tank "crashes" I see mentioned fairly frequently in threads here. It seems many sophisticated and dedicated reefers still experience crashes.

Where would the primary cause fall in most cases:
a) lack of attention to some aspect of routine maintenance?
b) power outage?
c) equipment failure?
d) unknown

Is it reasonable to expect that most everyone will have one of these at some point or are there a silent majority of hobbyists who are doing just fine and never experience a "crash"?

Steve

[lisafoster]

Ammonia spike could of been from when I moved live rock that was deep in sand bed or something died. Melted almost all of my lps in my 125

[Tater11]

i've been keeping reef tanks for about 7yrs.i would say yes to all of the above stated..i will tell you do a ton of research on it.like anything else you can ask 3 people the same question and get 3 different answers.go for the reef tank and have fun with it.you won't regret it but your wallet will.

[2B Reefer]

Yup, agreed, all of the above and that's what makes makes this hobby interesting and challenging! Keeping it all in balance and knowing it can be done...there are a lot of tanks out there that are beautifully balanced with growing corals and healthy fish

[AndyH5512]

D- all of the above. The best advice I can give after 5 years of reefkeeping is to stay ahead of the maintenance. Dont fall behind on water changes, or changing your lighting. Make sure to budget ahead for new lights, as it is easy to realize too late you need new bulbs. They arent exactly cheap.

Also, from having both type of tanks, both FOWLR and reef, I can honestly and easily say that reefing is way more enjoyable.

[flying_dutchman]

Welcome to RC!

Yes your right, reason mentioned above a the reasons tanks crash.

c) equipment failure?

My SPS tank crashed because of a stupid heater... Water got boiling hot, got home after a weekend with a tank full of bare SPS skeletons...

[ALH]

Originally Posted by flying_dutchman

Welcome to RC!

Yes your right, reason mentioned above a the reasons tanks crash.

My SPS tank crashed because of a stupid heater... Water got boiling hot, got home after a weekend with a tank full of bare SPS skeletons...

That's why I will never run a tank without a controller again. I just don't trust heaters

[tibob32]

heaters
kalk reactors
auto-top off

[cewoodall3]

Heater

[preef]

Originally Posted by sseling

d) unknown

My tank recently crashed. I lost a lot of SPS. I don't exactly know what caused mine. I changed several things at once trying to nurse a fish back to health that was losing weight despite the fact that it was eating.

Could have been:
a) Change in food from Rod's to home made using grocery store fresh seafood.
b) Adding Metro medication to the food.
c) Using too much carbon all at once in a reactor to pull the medication out of the water column. May have inadvertently pulled out too much of what the corals eat.
d) Overfeeding to try to put weight on the fish.
e) Rearranging rocks to eventually catch the fish and put in a hospital tank.
f) Changed bulbs several weeks before I started treating the fish. I may have done it too quickly.
g) Some combination of the above.

Lessons learned:
a) Pull a sick fish out of the tank
b) Never add medication to tank. Even if people say it is reef safe.
c) Only change one thing at a time so you know what may be causing problems.
d) Wait a month from one change to another since it can take some time for your tank to tell you it is unhappy.

[tidepool2]

This is helpful thread - thanks Steve for getting it started.

If heaters have been a problem, could you all tell us what kind of heater caused the problem? I'm using two Marineland Visa-Therm Stealth Heaters that come with a lifetime guarantee. Any problems with this heater?

[preef]

Originally Posted by tidepool2

I'm using two Marineland Visa-Therm Stealth Heaters that come with a lifetime guarantee. Any problems with this heater?

The stealth is very unreliable. You have a crash waiting to happen.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1831011

I'd get rid of the Stealth's ASAP. I had one at one time. I replaced it with a Hydor heater because it was causing me to get a shock every time I put my arm in the tank.