What percentage of reefers have experienced disasters?

[Cell]

This thread gives me anxiety.

 

[ArizonaAquatics]

This thread gives me anxiety.

Checking on tank as we speak lol

 

[snorklr]

hurricane Irene put 2ft of water in my shop...well over the top of my sump...with lord knows how much gas oil and antifreeze from all the engines that went under...figured it was a total loss and was busy trying to salvage my way of making a living when i noticed the hermits were still alive...realized it wasnt toxins but hyposalinity from the stormwater...."Tanked" had just come on the air and they were filling their tanks, adding salt and dumping the fish in the same day...so did a 100% water change with just-mixed water....was retiring and moving so the tank left the shop for my basement at home and ran fine for a year till hurricane Sandy left the house without heat and power for 2 weeks while i was in another state...only 1 hermit crab and some kenya tree survived....the tanks next move was to my shop down here because we were still having our house built...while transferring the rock i heard a crunch...i stepped on the hermit crab that survived 2 hurricanes...and about 7 months later it got so hot in the shop to take out the remaining kenya trees...needless to say i now have a chiller and a whole house generator...and there were some heater failures along the way too

 

[OU812Reefing]

Lost my first saltwater tank with Hurricane Katrina then lost my second with Hurricane IDA still rebuilding tank sense Hurricane IDA other than that been great

 

[robert teseo]

had my house flooded by super storm sandy, had 2 reef tanks and 1 fw tank underwater. the saltwater in my house rose over the tops of the tanks. total loss of everything.

 

[Mortgaged Reefs]

It's kinda part of the hobby lol. It should be called the practice of reef keeping. You learn as you go. One been reefing for 20+ yes and I just made a grave error this week that I'm still cleaning up and learning from.

 

[OrchidMiss]

So in my mind, there are 2 different types of disasters.
1. those we cause because of our own ignorance or lack of information/education/knowledge
2. those cause by legitimate equipment failure.

My last reefing "disaster" was about 15ish years ago now.
I was in my 20s and had my own first tank!
I had a 29g basic tank with Coralife everything! I felt like I was the bee's knees, b/c this was leaps and bounds above what major mistakes my parents made in the 90's..
Well, about 8 months into my tank, with some very misinformed tank inhabitants, Christmas morning rolled around!!!
Around 6:00am Christmas morning, the smoke alarm and some other "powerplant spill" sounding alarms were going off.
****Note to anyone else who ever rents!!!****
Do not start a tank in the living room when it is directly above the breaker box in the super old/hauntedly scary 130 y/o basement!!
The HOB skimmer I bought, overflowed down the wall all night, into the breaker box.
Since then, I am fanatical about drip loops!

 

[madlos123]

Last year, when the derecho came by iowa. I was out of power for 2 weeks. My 40 gallon tank was in the basement so it never got hot. But there was no light. All i had was battery airpump. No generator. And when I come home from work i would just use a kayak paddle for circulation once an hour to supplement the flow. Never lost a fish or coral. Even not feeding for 2 weeks and i have 7 blue green chromis lol. So near disaster? So 2 weeks of no light, little to no flow, no heat prob got to 70's, no filter, no food. Mind you my 40 gallon was wall to wall lps coral. Filled every inch and zero looses afterwards thanks to my trusty kayak paddle lol

 

[MONTANTK]

I would say at least half. My disaster was being woken up by my dad at 4am because a seam blew out on my tank. About 2-3 gallons of water dripped through the ceiling but he was surprisingly cool about it and the tank manufacturer really took care of me

 

[Timfish]

Question reminds me what a friend told me when I got my motorcycle liscense "There's two kinds of bikers, those that have laid down their bikes and those that will lay down their bikes" :/

I guess it depends on what the definition of catastrophy is but having maintianed many tanks for decades I'd say 100% at the 10 year mark. Between power failures, equipment failures and human error (ignorance) it's inevitable. The most annoying is people thinking they're doing family or friends a favor by turning off AC to save electricity or spraying air freshiners or lysol around aquariums.

 

[ZoWhat]

Ask these guys

 

[dhnguyen]

Question reminds me what a friend told me when I got my motorcycle liscense "There's two kinds of bikers, those that have laid down their bikes and those that will lay down their bikes" :/
.....

That's it right there ^^^

I too ride so I know this all too well.

 

[Hugh Mann]

Does an actual natural disaster count?

If yes, then count me in. The BC flooding on November 15th put all 3 of my aquariums 1-2’ underwater.

Saved the fish though.

 

[Mywifeisgunnakillme]

all

 

[NigelRichardson]

Disaster that nukes your tank, or disaster that nearly nukes yourself ?

How about dropping a - live - mains power (240 volt - Australia) in the tank… when your hands are in the tank up to your elbows…

At least we now that circuit breakers work - really really fast….

 

[Paul B]

Oh yeah, I have had a few in the 50 years my tank has been running. The vast majority was floods but I had an urchin business where I would SCUBA for urchins. I got to many and didn't have room for them in my special, cooled urchin tank so I put 24 of them in my 100 gallon reef.

Bad move. I must have walked in front of my tank wearing my Speedo and all 24 of them spawned.
The tank looked like an advertisement for "Cool Whip".

I don't remember what I did but I didn't lose any livestock. It must have been magic.

Then a large carpet anemone croaked and stunk so bad I almost had to buy a new house. I also don't remember what I did but I don't think I lost anything except that anemone which was so large I was going to use it for a carpet anyway.

I went to Germany for a week. My tank sitter allowed the water to recede about 7" leaving the tank salty enough to turn Lot's wife into a pillar of salt. I didn't lose livestock.

Then there was the time I was crawling under the tank I accidently bumped my DIY, 5' skimmer and broke off the valve at the bottom that I used to drain the tank. It wasn't pretty and I almost drained the entire tank.

Wife wasn't amused.

 

[Sherry14]

We had a house fire that cooked my upstairs aquarium. The downstairs tank was fine once we got a generator hooked up got the water moving. We ended up having to find a rental house and buy a new aquarium and tear down and move everything in record time.

 

[ColoredRock]

I must have walked in front of my tank wearing my Speedo

no.. not before my morning cup of carbon..to much

 

[Floyd-]

I think all my fish loss early on was 100% because of the things I was doing. Thankfully its been more than half a year without death in the tanks.

 

[jfoahs04]

This thread gives me anxiety.

Tell me about it. I'm going away for four days next weekend which is what prompted me to start this thread. I IMMEDIATELY regret it.