-A PERFECTLY SUCCESSFUL FAILURE-

[SCMatt]

Glad everything turned out fairly well in the end! Makes me start re-thinking my setup. I have a few tweaks I need to put in place now! And I agree, I need to get that Apex alarm thing setup asap!

 

[shred5]

That stinks Adam I was thinking of stopping over too.. Hey at least you have other tanks to house stuff if you ever do have a bad failure.
Actually I am ripping down the 75 for a 90 and building a new stand.. Actually you guys should stop over and see the 75 before I rip it down.
By the way thinking having a cook out soon... Maybe You, Chad, Phil, Carlos and maybe get Therman up with wives. I know Carlos want to shoot some more footage of your lights and mine..

Take it too pm...

 

[ReefMadScientist]

Dude I was laughing at the part when you said you swore out loud as your wife clenched your kids LOL.

Really happy everything went ok. Oh man you are a great story teller!

Heres Adam

 

[JBNY]

That's scary when you get the call that there is water cascading down the tank. Glad to see you were able to remain calm and quickly react to the situation. My Apex has saved my tank many times. I always tell people if you plan your system on how it will fail at some point, you will weather quite a bit of storms.

 

[Battlecorals]

That's scary when you get the call that there is water cascading down the tank. Glad to see you were able to remain calm and quickly react to the situation. My Apex has saved my tank many times. I always tell people if you plan your system on how it will fail at some point, you will weather quite a bit of storms.

Hey joe

That's the beauty of this one. It was me calling her because I got the apex alarm. No frantic call from home at all.


I was aware of the leak within seconds because as soon as the outlet got wet and tripped the gfi, the apex went to work

I knew before she did!

And Dave lets do it man. Will get ahold of you soon

 

[JBNY]

Hey Adam,

Those are the better calls to have. Years ago I had a GFI trip on my heaters when the family was about 300 miles away from home for the Christmas break, the temp outside was 10 degrees. I got a page from my aquacontroller (pre Apex) and called my sister-in-law to go over and reset the GFI. I had a webcam in my fish room that I was watching her look for the GFI, when she couldn't find it I told her to turn left and look up. She wasn't as amused as I was that my wife and I were watching her fumble around the fish room looking.

 

[JoeIII]

This is a terrible situation, but it is exactly why I am writing a run book for each of our systems. This outlines all equipment and SOP's as well as step by step plans for various possible failures and contact information for trusted local reefer's and LFS (with their permission) in case something happens while I am unavailable and someone else has to handle a situation like this.

I encourage everyone to prepare a similar document - If properly documented your wife would have been able to assess the situation and put your plan in place before you even left work.

 

[Turbo's Aquatics]

I believe that some acrylic pieces in the overflow designed to keep a screen in place had, in the last three years expanded to the point of excess and caused the rear wall of the overflow to pull away just enough to cause a decent leak.

This sounds like a plausible explanation.

Interestingly enough, a tank I had built by Miracles in Glass had an external overflow box on the end of a tank, which was a weir cut-out designed for a BeanAnimal overflow drain. They shipped it with an acrylic insert with teeth on it (no charge, I didn't ask for it either) and that thing was cut to the exact inner dims of the overflow box, to the point where it was hard to actually get it in and out. I knocked out the teeth and put in some screen material, and eventually removed it completely and now I'm glad I did because that could have caused the same issue. slowly expanding acrylic pressing with constant force on the overflow seams could definitely cause a seam failure. And that does happen.

In fact, if you put an acrylic baffle in a glass tank and you cut it to fit perfectly snug, it'll crack that bad boy eventually.

Some tank manufacturers need to learn this lesson!

 

[Battlecorals]

This is a terrible situation, but it is exactly why I am writing a run book for each of our systems. This outlines all equipment and SOP's as well as step by step plans for various possible failures and contact information for trusted local reefer's and LFS (with their permission) in case something happens while I am unavailable and someone else has to handle a situation like this.

I encourage everyone to prepare a similar document - If properly documented your wife would have been able to assess the situation and put your plan in place before you even left work.

Totally agree. This take it one step firthwr even and something I've though about a lot but never actually did. I have even considered the what if that I was suddenly gone for a while like an accident or something. There a lot of stuff that needs to happen to keep things going around here. Lol. Would be a small book

If this one had been been a total blow out, I completely agree that when seconds matter Having someon here to address it immediately would be the best case scenario.

Thanks for your input.

 

[jcdeng]

I am glad you were able to turn this around from being a total disaster Adam. If you got no room for those Acro you can always send them my way, I will hold them for you lol

 

[ProjectAnemone]

Hey Adam,

Those are the better calls to have. Years ago I had a GFI trip on my heaters when the family was about 300 miles away from home for the Christmas break, the temp outside was 10 degrees. I got a page from my aquacontroller (pre Apex) and called my sister-in-law to go over and reset the GFI. I had a webcam in my fish room that I was watching her look for the GFI, when she couldn't find it I told her to turn left and look up. She wasn't as amused as I was that my wife and I were watching her fumble around the fish room looking.

I remember you telling that story at a CMAS or WAMAS meeting many years ago. You had light bulbs rigged to the wiring so you could see from the webcam what was on or off.

-Leishman

 

[ca2or]

This should be the Apex sales pitch right here. Makes me want to get one as well. My system is built somewhat similar to you....hours if not days of planning and trying to cover every scenario.

I think we need a "Disaster Planning" thread for people to reference

 

[Saltwaterwill]

I almost puked when I read this , that's one nightmare I have with a custom tank. How would you recommend an external overflow to be made for a bean animal system, out of glass maybe?, I would hate a catastrophe to happen while my wife and kids are home. Thank u for sharing your experience .

 

[Battlecorals]

OK Well Here I am two weeks later and I will admit that total reasonable acceptance of the issue with the tank manufacturer has turned to frustration to put it mildly.

The tank came from Miracles in canada and while i don't want this to be a feedback thread i cant help but express my utter disappointment in their handling of this situation. I was on the phone with Derric the day it happened and was assured that the pieces i needed would be cut and shipped immediately. I feel like they completely blew me off and made no priority of fixing their screw up. The reason the tank failed was entirely because of poor craftsmanship and nothing else. It was their failure 100%, and their lack of diligence in addressing it has left a pretty sour taste in my mouth.


I'll just have to go ahead and say it. If you are considering Miracles then proceed with caution because the true test of a companies greatness comes when things don't go well and how situations like this are handled. I believe they have failed miserably at this . If I did not have the means to keep everything alive in other tanks in the meantime, it would have all been dead by now in some crudely thrown together accommodations. I was beyond polite and perhaps made even to light of the whole thing with them, but I'm an easy going guy. My disappointment lies in that their product failed in the worst way, and they did not consider it a priority to remedy it at all. Here I am 2 weeks later and the tank is still in utter disarray. If I knew I'd be waiting this long I'd have fixed it myself. I don't offer up bad feedback easily but this instance has warranted it in my opinion.

 

[Tanked_Life]

Just by the fact that you where calm and collected enough to publish this thread indicates how well you must have handled the situation except for the profanity haha but hey I would be in a wrought over that if it happened to me so well done!

 

[MikeyB]

Sorry to hear Adam. That's a huge shame. Anyone who hasn't met Adam before or talked to him. He's one of the nicest down to earth guys I know so I truly believe he handled the situation very well.

I am glad you posted your situation though. With social media as big as ever it doesn't take much for people to flock away from something. Knowing this now if I'm ever looking for a new tank I'd stay away from these guys

 

[Turbo's Aquatics]

Interestingly enough, a tank I had built by Miracles in Glass had an external overflow box on the end of a tank, which was a weir cut-out designed for a BeanAnimal overflow drain. They shipped it with an acrylic insert with teeth on it (no charge, I didn't ask for it either) and that thing was cut to the exact inner dims of the overflow box, to the point where it was hard to actually get it in and out. I knocked out the teeth and put in some screen material, and eventually removed it completely and now I'm glad I did because that could have caused the same issue. slowly expanding acrylic pressing with constant force on the overflow seams could definitely cause a seam failure. And that does happen.

^^ this. I don't think you mentioned that Miracles made the tank. Seems we both had the same issue with exact-cut or over-tight acrylic inserts. Now I'm thanking my lucky stars that I removed that insert.
I worked pretty closely with Derric when I was designing the tank, drew it up in CAD, and things went well for the most part, I found that I had to be very specific with everything. Even then, things didn't turn out exactly as I had planned. The notch on the end (end overflow) was not rounded quite like I expected, and the holes they cut in the bottom of the overflow box, which I had given them specific dimensions on (for BRS schedule 80 bulkheads) were cut just a hair too small, and I had given them CAD plans so there was no excuse for this. I ended up using ABS bulkheads which is fine, no biggie.

The other thing that I, as a tank builder myself, consider when designing a tank or an overflow, is what the relative water level in the tank will be and what issues this might bring up. In my case, I'm running 3000 GPH through an end weir overflow that is 16" wide into a BeanAnimal drain with 1.5" pipes. I should have made the external overflow box deeper so that I wouldn't have problems with air entraining into the drain, that's on me. I originally had it shallower than it was made and I adjusted that 'just in case'...turns out, I dodged a bullet, I'm probably at the minimum as far as operating feasibility, but it runs perfect, so no complaints, and not their fault, just an education thing on my part.

But the long-term effect that I did not account for was the water height in the tank. With that much flow, I run 3/4" from the rim all the time (rimless tank). So there are issue with sloshing when reaching in the tank and fish splashing water around going down the back of the tank (which is totally inaccessible as it is recessed into a wall pocket). If I had to do it over again, I would raise the tank walls up 1" to minimize this effect. The tank is fully enclosed so having excess height would not have affected the aesthetics. This was a design item that I had not considered and I don't recall it ever being brought up to me.

So this isn't so much of a rant against any one tank manufacturer as it is just a statement that you really have to think about every aspect of a tank when you're having one built, and not assume that just because someone builds tanks = they understand exactly how you're going to use it. You have to be proactive and give direction. But a really good designer will have a list of questions that they will just send you to weed out these potential complications way ahead of time.

But the acrylic insert thing, IMO, that's on the manufacturer, and I can vouch for you on that one, specifically to this manufacturer. Based on my experience.

 

[WilRams]

Doing my research on a possible Miracles second hand purchase has brought me to this thread. I want to be as informed as possible when I look at it. Pictures online are limited but can anyone show me what they are talking about with this overflow design? Their external overflow box design makes me a little nervous but maybe its because I have zero experience with it.

 

[Turbo's Aquatics]

There's nothing wrong with their design, it's the acrylic insert that @Battlecorals and I both had the experience with, fitting too tight (in my case, I didn't even ask for it)

@WilRams do you have a tank designed already?

 

[WilRams]

There's nothing wrong with their design, it's the acrylic insert that @Battlecorals and I both had the experience with, fitting too tight (in my case, I didn't even ask for it)

@WilRams do you have a tank designed already?

No this is a used setup I am looking into. Well I say used but it was never set it up. Its has dual external overflows and I just wanted to get a better idea what this acrylic insert is.