Why do tanks crash?

[abcha0s]

If you have ever suffered a full or partial tank crash, what caused it? Alternatively, if you have never suffered a major tank crash, is there any part of your system that could potentially cause one in the future?

[kien]

My tank crashed due to a design flaw, which led to an electrical failure, which led to equipment failure, which led to a temperature deviation, which led to low oxygen levels, which led to a water chemistry change, which led to disease and parasites, LOL. Seriously though, in my experience it tends to be a cascading series of unfortunate events which does stem from one or more points of origin. The sad part is, sometimes (or most of he time), it can be hard to pin point exactly where it all started to go down hill..

edit: wasn't referring to my current tanks BTW. Rather, previous tanks I've had. I've tried to learn from those past mistakes, and so far so good *knock on wood*

[sphelps]

No tank is bullet proof, any kind of equipment can fail at the right time to cause a fatal crash. I had a partial crash once due to a programming error in my controller logic which shut off the return pump over night. Almost had another one due to a damaged overhead power line.

[badAZZlars]

The issue that I ran into was a snail in my sump getting stuck in my return pump while on vacation.

Quite a bit of water had evaporated from the display and the temp was quite low by the time I got things fixed. No major losses but some of my coral frags browned out.

[fishytime]

Full on crash for me.... And full with capital letters.....caused by moving the tank

[Dez]

Only crashes I've had are due to vacations and very capable people "looking after" the tank and being lazy. (not topping up sump and letting it run dry).

[eli@fijireefrock.com]

I never had any crash ever no equippment,no heating,no electrical and no chemical problem in any of my tanks, i think simply because i take my time for everything.

Well once only due to house fire shorted wires in bathroom killed all fish (lack of oxigen) i voted to bullet proof so far crossing my fingers.

[abcha0s]

I've had a couple of misfortunate happenings.

My last fresh water tank was shut down due to a heater malfunction. The heater stuck on and cooked the tank. While the loss was sad, this sent me looking for an aquarium controller which lead me down the salt path.

I had two flame wrasses die in my 90G from what I believe was shipping stress. (A good argument for QT). The problem was I couldn't get the dead fish out. The water quickly went bad. With a series of massive water changes and the careful use of Prime, I lost only my shrimp and brittle star. The rest of the tank survived but it was a very close call.

I had another near miss when my Tunze ATO pump decided to stop working while on vacation. The return chamber in the sump ran dry and the return pump ceased. The real problems started when the tank sitter found the problem. After replacing the return pump and restarting the ATO pump, the ATO proceeded to pump 5 gallons of Kalk saturated water (pH 12.4) into the tank. The pH in the tank quickly rose to over 11.

Heres where the controller saved me. I received an alert for high pH and figured out what had happened. The tank sitter returned to my home and slowly brought the pH back down with vinegar. No losses. Thanks Bryce.

My new tank has two controllers, two return pumps, two groups of heaters, two fans, two ATOs, two auto feeders, and two skimmers. All of the critical equipment is split across two separate electrical circuits. Each controller manages one set of the listed eauipment. I'd still say there are potential problems, but I've gone a long way towards reducing risk.

I asked the question just for fun and to see what other peoples experiences have been. I'm very happy to learn from other peoples mistakes - especially if it saves my tank. Anyways, the chiller poll had been up for long enough.

[viperfish]

Mine started when I purchased my Apex Controller. There was a problem with the sensitivity and it would constantly reset the EB8 so a heater became a chiller dosing pumps would run contsantly etc. etc. it would reset on randon days but always at midnight. so a lot of damage was done while I was sleeping. I finally went online with it and the rep from Neptune logged into my controller and fixed it up. It is a great controller and I've sworn by it ever since. I did lose almost all my SPS in the process, a bunch of inverts died, cyano outbreak to the point where I had to bake my rock to cure it. To make matters worst I transferred my fish to a tank without a controller, I had the temp set correctly in the holding tank with my Rena heater. That night the heater stuck on an I woke up with all my fish dead! Some of these I had for years, my large yellow Tang and Hippo Tang were the biggest dissappointment. The silver lining was my Maxima and Squamosa clams lived! Go figure. I'm a big fan of redundancy but I learned the hard way that it just takes a moment and it can happen to anyone.

[Snappy]

As they say - there are two types of reefer's ------those who have had their tank crash and those who haven't -----------------yet!

I have had too many different issues and things go wrong I couldn't list them all. (especially since I don't know some of the causes)