DISASTER!

[Stuart McCowan]

Ok...I am in desperate need of solace.

My auto-top off ran amuck for 5 hours...completely changing my tropical salt water reef tank to a cold fresh water graveyard for fish and corals. The only things alive are most of my hermits (don't know how) and some snails. Everything else is done, gone, even the macro's in my sump are dead, every worm and pod is dead. All the coralline algae has turned white even. I am devestated, as I had animals and corals that had been with me since I started 4 years ago. But life must go on, so outside of the obvious "don't use that auto-top off anymore" what advice do you all have for me starting over. I have done 2 complete water changes and it is STILL nasty (Ammonia spikes), and I am going to be doing another. Then I am just going to let the rock cycle for a month and then start over, so how about some advice on bringing the coraline back (I had very nice colors) and adding some diversity pod and worm wise after the cycle?
Thanks in advance!

 

[Anonymous]

Ouch. I would treat it as a new tank. As far as the coraline, you will need to seed the tank to get it back unless some survived. I would also get some fresh rock if you are looking for pods and worms. Some places sell "kits" that have sand bed critter, but the names excape me.

 

[Anonymous]

Gee, that sucks.

What kind of auto-top off system were you using?

Louey

 

[Jolieve]

*hugs for Stuart* I'm really sorry to hear about your loss and will keep you n my thoughts as you rebuild your system.

Good luck,
J.

 

[Anonymous]

I'm so sorry.

The coralline should come back fairly quickly methinks...within a month or two. Check out www.IPSF.com for pods and such.

 

[fishfanatic2]

Wow, that sucks, sorry man.

You can buy a new small rock with corraline on it or get one from a fellow reefer to 'seed' the tank.

GL

 

[lobo42a]

WHY are you using fresh water for a top off anyway? On my top off I have a 1gal container mounted on the wall above my tank which has a needle valve fitting att. to it to adjust the flow. To get it set properly I set up a 10 gall tank to see how much everovation I would have over 5 days. Which amounted to about 2/3s of a gal. Then I set my drip accorading. So every 5 days I fill the con. up. I have never had a problum sence I set this system up.

 

[fishfanatic2]

WHY are you using fresh water for a top off anyway

8O :?

The salt doesn't evaporate with the water, so to keep the salinity constant you need to add fresh back in.

 

[Sugar Magnolia]

Head to www.ipsf.com and/or www.inlandaquatics.com for some microfauna kits.

Sorry about the loss. That really is hard to take.

 

[Stuart McCowan]

WHY are you using fresh water for a top off anyway? On my top off I have a 1gal container mounted on the wall above my tank which has a needle valve fitting att. to it to adjust the flow. To get it set properly I set up a 10 gall tank to see how much everovation I would have over 5 days. Which amounted to about 2/3s of a gal. Then I set my drip accorading. So every 5 days I fill the con. up. I have never had a problum sence I set this system up.

Why? Well sometimes I travel for a week or two at a time for work and I evaporate more than you do, as much as 15 gallons a week sometimes less, sometimes more (I have a VERY dry house air wise), so I need something to keep the tank at the proper salinity while I am gone.

I don't dose anything else, Kalkwasser for example so I have a auto-top off that I built that runs right from a tap to a very large tank of RO/DI (that is now empty) the auto-top offs valve got stuck open and VIOLA instant fresh water tank.

Thanks for asking though! :roll:

 

[Anonymous]

8O

Good luck getting back on track.

 

[dougc]

Is your topoff hooked directly to a water supply? I have a Tunze Osmolator drawing water from a 25 gallon container. That provides several layers of redundancy. The Osmolater self-limits to some extent because it will not run for more than 10 minutes at a time. It also has a backup float switch to shut the pump off if the primary level switch fails. If both fail, it can only add water until the container runs dry. The Osmolator is supposed to shut off if that happens, too. My salinity would drop and I might end up with some water on the floor of the garage, but it probably wouldn't be fatal.

 

[Oceans Ferevh]

Very sorry to hear about your loss.

 

[eswanson16]

Sorry to hear about your loss and I hope you can get back on track. It's scary to think that a simple failure can nuke a system like this. On your next go, you may consider what I have done or overdone due to my decidedly OCD personality. Admittedly I am rethinking my setup after reading this.

I use softened pre-filtered well water to feed an RO/DI unit which is fitted with an accumulator. So, it is technically connected to pressurized unlimited domestic water supply. From there it routes to a normally closed selenoid which is controlled by a pneumatic level sensor in the sump. So far that alone has been extremely reliable (no failures in since setup Oct. 2003). However, this is backed up by two other systems. The input of RO/DI water into the sump is through a float valve which stops the flow should the level exceed a point. In that mode of failure I figure a drop in SG from 1.026 to about 1.022 - not ideal. The other method of protection is through the conductivity sensor on my AquaController PRO which runs a program to interupt power to the selenoid should the conductivty fall below a set point. This program also restores power to the selenoid when the conductivity exceeds another value so ideally the pneumatic systems could fail to "on" and the system would still control things, albeit in a wider range. It should be noted that I have been have problems with this sensor. I've gotten a second but it too is fluctuating causing issues that are currently unresolved.

Certainly, this setup does not solve several problems. The selenoid might fail closed - an alarm mode in the AquaController will alert of rising conductivity and theoretically email my cell phone though I am having problems getting this function to work properly (This function is actually through the software AquaNotes that works on a PC with the other serial unit). Continued uncorrected evaporation will unport the intakes of the systems three Iwaki 100s leaving the main tank without anything but local circulation...a very bad day if not immeadiately corrected. Power failure - though I have this basically licked as I put the whole house on a NG generator with an automated transfer system and key components are on UPS. Well pump failure - well I am not going to install a redundant well. Plumbing failure - unlikely. And, as always, human error - while working on the tank I unplugged the selenoid in question and forgot about it - almost a serious issue had not the alarm sounded. at least I was home.

This has led me to think that perhaps there is a better way. The RO/DI unit also feeds a float valve inside a 105g resevoir which currently stores water for sea water mix in another resevoir. I could feed water from the RO/DI resevoir to bank of these pneumatically controlled selenoids. Four in total, two each in series. If one were to fail open the other in series would stop it. If one were to fail closed the oposite parallel series would make up for it. Two would have to fail open in one series or closed in one of each parallel series to cause a problem. I think the math on this is 32 times more reliable than a single selenoid. The pnematic pickups in the sump should all be at precisely the same level, better yet, each selenoid should sense exactly the same pressure. If not, I can think of scenarios where the redudancy would be impaired or the system could cycle. This would also solve the problem of the house's well going out as it would take weeks to go through 105g in the resevoir. Of course I would need a redundant pump arrangement from the resevoir to pressurize -- never mind -- it will actually gravity feed to about level 15g in that resevoir.

Enough on that for now. Hope your future setup works out better and best of luck.

 

[Mihai]

Sorry to hear that man. It must be really tough!

I'd treat the tank as a fresh one with "base rock that needs to cure" (as your rock is not full of life, but still has lots of stuff dying off). I would start my skimmer at full power (borrow another one if I can) keep up with water changes until amonia stabilizes. Your biological filter is dead too - it doesn't take sudden changes in salinity well.

Then I would buy 5-10 pounds of high quality uncured LR to seed the rest of the systems with pods, corralines, etc.

Then take it from there. Redundancy is the name of the game in avoiding future tragedies.

I feel for you,
M.