Tank horror stories

[brandyrb]

I mis read the kalk label on the kent marine brand were it stated one teaspoon per gallon of fresh water. I thought it meant tank volume and added 50 teaspoons of kalk powder to my 50 gallon tank.......

When I woke up the next morning it looked like an aquarium filled with milk.

Funny, you just reminded me of the time my husband decided to make chocolate chip cookies for Christmas and read 2 tsp of baking soda as 2 cups. He used all the baking soda and told me "Honey, I have to run to the store, we didn't have enough baking soda." Those were some pretty salty cookies

 

[returnofsid]

LMAO Brandy, Ohhh you know I'm going to have to give Mike heck about that one!!!

Chend2, household 120 is the most common voltage of death by electrocution. The voltage isn't what kills you, it's the amperage...and it doesn't take much if it's crossing your heart. Saltwater is also an amazing conduit for electricity. Myteemouse, I'm so sorry to hear about your friend's loss. That's just horrible.

My worst was coming home from work one day to find water all over the carpet and the tank missing about 20 gallons of water. I turned off all plumbing, thinking it was possibly a leak in my system. Still took me awhile to figure out that the tank was actually leaking at one of the silicone seals. I was lucky enough to have an extra 75 sitting in the garage. I only still had it because I hadn't gotten around to building a stand for it yet!! I did a very rushed and panicked tank swap for the next 3 hours.

 

[MrSculpin]

Well, this happened to a customer of ours last year.
I wasnt there but husband was installing a countertop and asked him a question about his sink. He needed to clean it up to reuse it so he was doing that and a bit later the ceiling started dripping.. they both looked up to a saggy ceiling and water dripping everywhere.
Turned out he was filling a fishtank upstairs and forgot it. I guess there was water everywhere. After the concern about the tank, walls floor ect.. he was pretty worried about what his wife was going to say when she got home.

 

[chend2]

Well then, my condolences to your friend's cousin. That is a sad way to die.

 

[kirkland]

We switched over our 100g tank aggressive fish-only to reef. We had 2 aquaclear 110's on the back of the tank. our bta climbed up the back wall overnight and was partially sucked into the filter. I took scissors & cut him out. We didn't have a hospital tank but a LFS put him in theirs. He didn't survive but it was a lesson learned. I absolutely refuse to have intakes, pumps or anything that could possibly hurt our critters in the 90g corner tank we have now.

 

[busdriver]

Kirkland, should have turned off the power to it and let the nem get out itself. My left my dad to watch my reef when i left on hoilday, and the same day i left my nem meet the bisness end of a MJ 1200. i didn't know what to do, except call or go to my LFS. he cut it our first, then took in it. by the time the MJ and my dad was done with it it didn't have any tentacles... My LFS said to just let it get out by itself. The next 2 or three times it meet a filter I did what my LFS said, and it works great! (thanx Barbie!-))

 

[Barbie]

Well the idea is to not let them get sucked into the pumps in the first place, but lots of times they can get themselves back out if you give them a chance .

Ugh, Horror stories. Can I just make a list of things I've had to learn the hard way?

Don't leave the water running in the back room of the store filling the display tank if you have to leave the room, period, no matter what!

When the light falls in the tank, unplug it first, before you try to grab it.

A teeny hole in the line between your RO unit and the holding container CAN put about 2" of water over most of the basement over night.

That little crab you saw when you put your live rock in the tank is going to grow to the size of a football and be nicknamed Satan within a year. Just go ahead and kill it right then!

Just because it was reef safe in one tank does NOT mean it's actually safe to add it to your reef! (Tank raised neon gobies bite hell out of clam mantles, sexy shrimp eat palythoa skirts, cherub angels that won't touch LPS for years can decimate an entire pocillipora colony overnight. I can go on.... :lol

When the pump comes loose from it's holding clip and blows saltwater in the power strip, you really can still get zapped just trying to unplug the stupid thing while you stand in the puddle.

These are my personal experiences. No one was hurt (but me!) in creating them .

Barbie

 

[kirkland]

Kirkland, should have turned off the power to it and let the nem get out itself. My left my dad to watch my reef when i left on hoilday, and the same day i left my nem meet the bisness end of a MJ 1200. i didn't know what to do, except call or go to my LFS. he cut it our first, then took in it. by the time the MJ and my dad was done with it it didn't have any tentacles... My LFS said to just let it get out by itself. The next 2 or three times it meet a filter I did what my LFS said, and it works great! (thanx Barbie!-))

I had turned the filter off but 20 min later, the anemone was still stuck so I cut him out. I hate looking at it, but here's a pic of this tragedy:

 

[chend2]

That is sort cool looking. But you never know, I had an RBTA that did that once and I ended up with 5 RBTA a month later.

 

[busdriver]

I wish i was that lucky. it just got smaller because of tissue loss and it would hide.
chend2, what type of power head was it that choped up yours?

 

[chend2]

Koralia 4, like a food processor.

 

[muss60]

You're all putting major perspective in my own horror story that I'm living with as we speak; all but 2 fish are dead (2 clown fish) due to cuke nuke. This post put a lot of things in perspective though; somehow, it's hard to take though. Just told my one daughter and she freaked (we had names of most of those fish); we're just addicted. There will be another gumpy (bangai cardinal) and others.... to come.

 

[krisfal]

I had turned the filter off but 20 min later, the anemone was still stuck so I cut him out. I hate looking at it, but here's a pic of this tragedy:

I have had an anemone take most of the day to extract itself but it got itself out whole (Except for some shortened tentacles).

 

[brandyrb]

You're all putting major perspective in my own horror story that I'm living with as we speak; all but 2 fish are dead (2 clown fish) due to cuke nuke. This post put a lot of things in perspective though; somehow, it's hard to take though. Just told my one daughter and she freaked (we had names of most of those fish); we're just addicted. There will be another gumpy (bangai cardinal) and others.... to come.

Sorry to hear about your losses. I stay away from creatures that can release toxins in the aquarium when they are stressed or die. cucumbers, sea apples, etc... Hope all goes well for your remaining fish...

 

[asherah]

What? Your friends cousin died last week from tank electrocution? It takes more electricity than your would get from a household outlet to kill you....

You know how my times i've been shocked by my tank. My arm went numb once, but i'm still here.

asherah

 

[MC Lighting]

What? Your friends cousin died last week from tank electrocution? It takes more electricity than your would get from a household outlet to kill you....

This is a completely inaccurate statement that is far from the truth... You CAN be killed from far less than household power it is all about how you are shocked, not by what shocks you. To the other extreme you can be shocked by far more than household power and survive everything is based on whether your heart is between the two points of electrical contact.

For me the horror stories are pretty much water based, I have left R/O water running on more than one occasion to find it soaked into the carpet and a couple times now have had the skimmer go nuts and overflow a 5 gallon bucket onto the carpet. (Hoover Steam Cleaner = MY FRIEND!)

I have had the nem in powerhead problem on several occasions all but one got themselves out and survived. As for electrical I have not had any major issues thus far as I went way overkill on my power systems for the tanks. I did however have one powerstrip smoke as I had it on the floor for temporary power while making water but the GFI and breaker kicked before it got to hot.

 

[Pentagona]

In my early days in the hobby I was just learning how to dose kalk and use a buffer. I thought I grabbed the buffer but it was my jar of kalk that looked very similar. Dosed half a gallon of RO with three tablespoons of Kalk in it directly to my sump. When I woke up in the morning and my water was still cloudy and I had all this precipitate on my rock/sand/coral, I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Then I tested my pH......9+! After a couple of BIG water changes, some distilled viniger to knock down the pH, and a LOT of siphoning off the rock and sand, I didn't lose anything. Two weeks later I bought an Achilles Tang....wasn't sold on the QT philosophy yet.....turned out he had Velvet and I lost everything in just over 24 hours. Needless to say, everything gets a minimum of 4 weeks in QT as well as a Formalin and F/W dip.

 

[jeffnewt]

A few years back I had a small 10 gallon aquarium set up in the kitchen. The cats loved it beacuse they could get right up to it and watch the fish. And then one day I head a huge splash and seconds later a very wet cat went running by..

that and I have got shocked a few times trying to unplug a pump that came loose from its hose. Scared me quite a bit.

oh, and one of my freinds had a PC bulb explode in his face last week. He called poison control LOL.

 

[whudmydoin]

What? Your friends cousin died last week from tank electrocution? It takes more electricity than your would get from a household outlet to kill you....

If you get a 110 v shock during the brief period when your heart is repolarizing for another beat (60-100 times a minute) it can most certainly kill you! I hate GFI's but they do serve their purpose! : )

 

[davidl]

My worst horror story was the power loss durign the winter in '06 or '07.. we lost power for 9 days and I could only watch as the tank temp dropped down to 32 degrees..no water flow, not heater, etc.. it was pretty morbid. nothing survived except the LR and pods.. .. lost 3 tanks in that one week