mmkeeper
Well-known member
I rushed things in the early days of my reef, and had a nitrate spike and killed off all my fish in about 4 hours.
Whats your worst Reef Experience??
- Thread starter shallowreef
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shallowreef
Well-known member
I had a bad case of ich when first started (Fish only tank at the time). I bought 5 fish in less than a week from three different stores. One was A PETCO. I lost $240.00 in fish over a weekend. That Sucks!
shallowreef
Well-known member
I'm lucky i haven't experienced any major floods yet (Knock On Wood!!)
shallowreef
Well-known member
Lets keep this rollin i know someones got a story that can top everybodies.
I was filling my 260 for the first time. I had the product line going into the tank and the waste line going to the kitchen sink. After about 2 days I had to go out of town so I told my roomate to watch it. I called her before heading back to check up on things and she said everything was fine but the tank looked like it was almost full. No problem, I figured it would take 3-4 days to fill up. I told her to take the line out of the tank and put it into the sump in the stand. I was in Jacksonville and it was only going to take me 3 hours to get home. Well, what she did is take the waste line out of the sink and put that in the sump. I run at about 3-1 ratio of waste water to product water. I think I had about 80 gals of water on the floor down the hall into the living room even into the guest bedroom. It was not a pretty sight.
I can only blame myself. :doubt:
I can only blame myself. :doubt:
Krish
RF STAFF
LOL...And I thought I had flood problems! Here's one from my freshwater setup a while back. I borrowed a cooler to pump my water from my tank into so I could move the tank to the other room. I stood there pumping pumping, but the cooler didn't seem to be filling. "Hmm" I thought, must be pumping really slow. That is until my foot and the floor was all wet and I realized the plug for the cooler was missing!:lol:
reedman
Well-known member
I learned the hard way early on that using a 5 gallon bucket with kalkwasser in it and a maxijet 1200 as the pump is not a good idea. Spiked the PH is a hurry and had to do water changes for about 3 hours to get the tank back down to a reasonable ph. Not fun. Lost 3 anthias, 2 chromis, blue tang, and later the yellow tang.
On the upside, that's about the worst I've had.
On the upside, that's about the worst I've had.
DonW
R.I.P.
Whats your worst Reef Experience?? When? What week? Theres always something, never major just enought to drive me crazy.
Because I'm cheap I put off buying a $10 float valve for my mixing can. Telling myself dont forget to shut off the rodi and waking up to a flooded laundry room. After at least 50 of these I decided to spend $10. Cool no flood for at least two weeks, on the third week the waste line get yanked out of the washer drain. No problem I put in a flood sensors and a shut off. Nope the float sticks, only to find out the last 50 or so floods made the underlayment wavy so the water just ran away from the sensors. By now my wife is getting pretty upset so I fix the floor problem. The flood sensor works great. The inlet line springs a leak and the sensor shuts down the water. Cool, well not really because the tank never filled which burned up the mixing pump. No problem, I added a float so pump only runs if theres at minimum of 20 gallons. Thinkin Im on a roll months go by no problems, kid says "dad your big garbage can looks like its on fire". Instantly I knew what happened. Another leak the shut off works perfectly. Except for one thing, I screwed up the code for the automation. Instead of turning off the tanks heater when the tank got low, it turned off my kalk reactor. Oh well heater is cracked no big deal, leak fixed and new heater installed. I redid the code so that cant happen again. In goes 30 cups of salt to do a water change the next day. Now what, the next day theres no water just salt. The heater melted the tank and left a small hole. Heck I was almost happy to see that the system finally worked.
Don
Because I'm cheap I put off buying a $10 float valve for my mixing can. Telling myself dont forget to shut off the rodi and waking up to a flooded laundry room. After at least 50 of these I decided to spend $10. Cool no flood for at least two weeks, on the third week the waste line get yanked out of the washer drain. No problem I put in a flood sensors and a shut off. Nope the float sticks, only to find out the last 50 or so floods made the underlayment wavy so the water just ran away from the sensors. By now my wife is getting pretty upset so I fix the floor problem. The flood sensor works great. The inlet line springs a leak and the sensor shuts down the water. Cool, well not really because the tank never filled which burned up the mixing pump. No problem, I added a float so pump only runs if theres at minimum of 20 gallons. Thinkin Im on a roll months go by no problems, kid says "dad your big garbage can looks like its on fire". Instantly I knew what happened. Another leak the shut off works perfectly. Except for one thing, I screwed up the code for the automation. Instead of turning off the tanks heater when the tank got low, it turned off my kalk reactor. Oh well heater is cracked no big deal, leak fixed and new heater installed. I redid the code so that cant happen again. In goes 30 cups of salt to do a water change the next day. Now what, the next day theres no water just salt. The heater melted the tank and left a small hole. Heck I was almost happy to see that the system finally worked.
Don
liveforphysics
Banned
My girlfriend still bugs me about this one 
I have always been into trying out cold water critters that I harvest diving or tidepooling in my warm reeftanks. I brought back a 10" diameter purple starfish (dont really know what I was thinking) and stuck it into my 7gal self-contained reef. It was just going to be overnight untill I could set something better up the next day.
Morning comes, and my GF wakes me up with a very upset look on her face. Her clowns, royal grama, annomnie, snails, and some other things are all dead floating in a pool of white chunky slime. The starfish is half his original size, and has this amazingly repulsive odor.
1 damsel, and all the hermits were the only survivors. It was a very sad day, and I felt very foolish for dumping in a cold water starfish that couldnt even fit all the way into the tiny tank.
That 7gal was my first salt experience, and it was very sucessful for many months before the starfish mistake.
Don w- You have an amazingly understanding wife. I know my GF would have freaked out way before 50+ floods. That must be really nice. I wish you the best of luck in finally finding a lasting solution.
I have always been into trying out cold water critters that I harvest diving or tidepooling in my warm reeftanks. I brought back a 10" diameter purple starfish (dont really know what I was thinking) and stuck it into my 7gal self-contained reef. It was just going to be overnight untill I could set something better up the next day.
Morning comes, and my GF wakes me up with a very upset look on her face. Her clowns, royal grama, annomnie, snails, and some other things are all dead floating in a pool of white chunky slime. The starfish is half his original size, and has this amazingly repulsive odor.
1 damsel, and all the hermits were the only survivors. It was a very sad day, and I felt very foolish for dumping in a cold water starfish that couldnt even fit all the way into the tiny tank.
That 7gal was my first salt experience, and it was very sucessful for many months before the starfish mistake.
Don w- You have an amazingly understanding wife. I know my GF would have freaked out way before 50+ floods. That must be really nice. I wish you the best of luck in finally finding a lasting solution.
Ok..OK ....I got one..... I had a problem with my water quality so a freind intoduced me to a guy named "JEFF"....That owned a Fish store and maintained the Tanks at Rainforest cafe in the mall.."Gurnee Mills"..A big mall in the chicago land area.So i talked to jeff about coming over and cleaning my tank and setting up a 6 month maintence agreement For $125.00.I was really busy working 2 jobs so i figured if he maintained it .My reef would be Rockin......So he came over and cleaned all my sand and rocks 10% water change and added some chemical....WHY?????Didn't ask questions seemed like a professional.2 Days later my water started turning brown and my corals wornt looking that good.So i called him he came over while i was at work and fixed the tank...At least thats what my girlfreind told me on the phone.....I came home to all my live rock on my deck dry as bone..Needless to say I SNAPPED.....MY Tank Died and had to start all over...:evil:
:evil:Kitteness
Well-known member
I learned the hard way why to always ground the tank. I had something shocking me everytime I stuck my hand into the sump but i never got shocked when I stuck my hand in the main tank. So I preceded to unplug everythink one at a time testing to see if I got shocked so I could figure out what was causing it. So after about 7 plugs I was convincing myself to stick my finger back into the sump that I wouldn't get shocked knowing that I would(mental challenge). After taking all the plugs out I still had a problem to make a long story short I finally discovered that the fans screw had came loose in contact to a wire so i unplugged the fan and found the problem hours later. It never even crosssed my mind to look at a screw. I still don't know why it only affected the sump and not the main tank but boy was I relieved it could of wiped out the whole tank! Needless to say I went and bought something to ground the tank. I learned the power of electricity that day that is for sure!
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moortim
Mountain Goat
You should have found some neighbor kid and offered him $5 to stick his hand in the water for you.:lol:
....:lol:....Hey you ....Kid....Wanna make 5 bucks?.....For what sir?...Well it involves electricity and water but its not a bad shock......I don't know i better ask my mom.......Come on kid do u want 10 bucks or not...:lol:moortim said:
Kitteness
Well-known member
Damn wish I woulda thought of that!
Wow, thankfully my worst reefkeeping experience isn't as bad as some of those I'm reading in this thread... I guess I must learn from other's mistakes pretty well.
Anyway, I'd say my worst experience occurred when I was tearing down my 55g tank to upgrade to my 120g. I pulled out all the corals, then all the rocks, and siphoned out about 85% of the water so that we could catch the fish (easier when there's not as much room to run), then we proceeded to take out the sandbed... what remained was the foulest, smelliest, nastiest sandbed water I have ever seen.
So what do I do? I decide that the tank is still too heavy to move off the stand (the stand was 42" tall), so why not siphon out whatever water I can...
BIG mistake!
Let's just say that's one taste that just stays with you... a mouthful of that crud later, here I am, gagging and trying not to barf all over the living room carpet, and my wife is laughing hysterically (at my expense of course)... so, the lesson I learned, is if you only have a couple inches of foul sandbed water, remove it with a cup... siphoning will only lead to tears and heartache (and downing half a bottle of listerine).
Anyway, I'd say my worst experience occurred when I was tearing down my 55g tank to upgrade to my 120g. I pulled out all the corals, then all the rocks, and siphoned out about 85% of the water so that we could catch the fish (easier when there's not as much room to run), then we proceeded to take out the sandbed... what remained was the foulest, smelliest, nastiest sandbed water I have ever seen.
So what do I do? I decide that the tank is still too heavy to move off the stand (the stand was 42" tall), so why not siphon out whatever water I can...
BIG mistake!
Let's just say that's one taste that just stays with you... a mouthful of that crud later, here I am, gagging and trying not to barf all over the living room carpet, and my wife is laughing hysterically (at my expense of course)... so, the lesson I learned, is if you only have a couple inches of foul sandbed water, remove it with a cup... siphoning will only lead to tears and heartache (and downing half a bottle of listerine).
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[addict] said:Wow, thankfully my worst reefkeeping experience isn't as bad as some of those I'm reading in this thread... I guess I must learn from other's mistakes pretty well.
Anyway, I'd say my worst experience occurred when I was tearing down my 55g tank to upgrade to my 120g. I pulled out all the corals, then all the rocks, and siphoned out about 85% of the water so that we could catch the fish (easier when there's not as much room to run), then we proceeded to take out the sandbed... what remained was the foulest, smelliest, nastiest sandbed water I have ever seen. So what do I do? I decide that the tank is still too heavy to move off the stand (the stand was 42" tall), so why not siphon out whatever water I can... BIG mistake.
Let's just say that's one taste that just stays with you... here I am, gagging and trying not to barf all over the living room carpet, and my wife is laughing hysterically (at my expense of course)... so, the lesson I learned, is if you only have a couple inches of foul sandbed water, remove it with a cup... siphoning will only lead to tears and heartache (and downing half a bottle of listerine).
That's just not right
That would be worse than having a skimmer float!!!!!!!
