My Reef Tank Crashed :(

This thread is a perfect example of not panicking. Look at it this way, if the tank is indeed crashing, we can't really stop it. So, take a deep breath when something happens and try to remedy the situation through reason and caution.

 

this is true.....

I had thought about it.... Lots of things were going through my head when I saw nothing but white inside my tank. I did take a deep breath.. Performed a large water change. took advice from a couple of people here on 3reef and used my common sense with all that I have learned... and it all turned out well.

 

Sorry to hear about your mishap. I had an ato on RO water overflow my sump and water spilled out into the stand and the floor. I disconnected the damn thing and decided to just add RO as needed myself. I couldn't imagine being out of the house and having that happen! But, there is value in the statements here about just taking it easy and think about it. We know that making drastic changes quickly to a tank can only lead to other problems so handle them with good solid understanding and that includes a phone call to your LFS and get on this site and post your problems and see who has had that same thing happen and what they did to effectively clear up the situation. You did well and you learned from this.

 

Glad to hear there wasn't a lot of damage besides the scare of your life. We always assume the worst when things get out of hand.

 

glad to hear your tank is recovering

 

Glad its turning around for you Tatted

Steve

 

Glad everything is turning out ok. I always consider ato's and then decide against it. Its more work to add everything manually but the less problems I avoid the better. Plus doing everything manually makes me check the tank everyday at least 4 times.

 

you mean your ca is only 440? lol

 

yea... i did a huge water change right after.... alk was high.... so i think it was a combination of both ca and alk.

Thanks everybody for the nice post on the recovery

 

In addition to staying calm, there's another thing that we can all learn from this.

A couple of chemical engineers taught me once to look at not only the probability of something going wrong, but also the consequences.

If something does go wrong, even at low probability, is the failure acceptable?

In other words, consider both the odds of a certain thing going wrong, and also the size of the consequences -- if it does.

There might be a one in a thousand chance of a low quality piece of equipment failing, but if that kills your 100 gallon tank, then is that acceptable? If not then look for a different way.

It also helps to stress test stuff. Pull all of the electrical plugs out of the wall. Watch what happens. And so on.