My 180 gallon reef tank had been running for the last 4 years. We had good days and bad days with it, it even crashed a few times. My love for the hobby kept me going on, and I thought I would be ready to take over any new challenges, but I could never have been ready to what happened on Monday night.
I usually go to bed early every night but that night for some odd reason I was up until 10pm, the next thing i heard was a big loud boom and water rushing just like the sound of a waterfall. I ran down to our main floor bare foot and realized that the bottom of the tank had apparently shattered and everything in the tank was on the floor. By the time i go to them Smoke was already coming out of the electrical outlets, i had to walk in water over broken glass to disconnect the wires to avoid a fire.
Ended up with pieces of glass in my feet and since our whole main floor and basement was flooded i was also getting shocked from the electrical wires that were still connected. Finally I managed to disconnect everything.
With the bottom of the tank failing and everything ending up in the sump, the rocks broke the sump. There was only 2-3 gallons of water left in the sump, we were literally going through the house to find any fish that could possibly have survived.
We ended up calling our friends at fluid designs. Mike responded to our call immediately, when we explained what had happened and our concern in regards to saving our livestock, he was more than happy to go grab all the necessary equipment that we might need from their shop and head our way (we called him at 10:30pm).
In the meantime we were struggling to remove all the furniture along with the sand and water to minimize the damage to our hardwood floors.
Mike arrived in less than an hour with buckets full of water and helped us save our livestock. We were running out of time on the fish they had been out of water for long time and then had to be put in the shallow glass filled waters of the sump.
He was kind enough to offer to help us with the cleaning, but we were more concerned about the fish, so he took all our fish and headed back to the shop.
It took us over 4 hours to get the majority of the water and sand cleaned and we are still cleaning and trying to recover from this disaster.
It is still a mystery to me and to even the professionals such as the crew at fluid designs how a tank can just give up like that.
The whole tank and the equipment is a total loss, have lost most of my corals and quite a few fish, but thanks for Mike we were able to save the rest.
I would like to send a shout out to the guys at fluid designs and thank them for being there for us. Without them we would have lost everything. That is a company that really cares and are there when you need them, I will continue to do business with them.
Dave took pictures of the tank to post, so everybody can see how bad the damage was.
Incidents like this make u rethink the hobby. I wish you all the best and hope nobody else goes through what we had to
I usually go to bed early every night but that night for some odd reason I was up until 10pm, the next thing i heard was a big loud boom and water rushing just like the sound of a waterfall. I ran down to our main floor bare foot and realized that the bottom of the tank had apparently shattered and everything in the tank was on the floor. By the time i go to them Smoke was already coming out of the electrical outlets, i had to walk in water over broken glass to disconnect the wires to avoid a fire.
Ended up with pieces of glass in my feet and since our whole main floor and basement was flooded i was also getting shocked from the electrical wires that were still connected. Finally I managed to disconnect everything.
With the bottom of the tank failing and everything ending up in the sump, the rocks broke the sump. There was only 2-3 gallons of water left in the sump, we were literally going through the house to find any fish that could possibly have survived.
We ended up calling our friends at fluid designs. Mike responded to our call immediately, when we explained what had happened and our concern in regards to saving our livestock, he was more than happy to go grab all the necessary equipment that we might need from their shop and head our way (we called him at 10:30pm).
In the meantime we were struggling to remove all the furniture along with the sand and water to minimize the damage to our hardwood floors.
Mike arrived in less than an hour with buckets full of water and helped us save our livestock. We were running out of time on the fish they had been out of water for long time and then had to be put in the shallow glass filled waters of the sump.
He was kind enough to offer to help us with the cleaning, but we were more concerned about the fish, so he took all our fish and headed back to the shop.
It took us over 4 hours to get the majority of the water and sand cleaned and we are still cleaning and trying to recover from this disaster.
It is still a mystery to me and to even the professionals such as the crew at fluid designs how a tank can just give up like that.
The whole tank and the equipment is a total loss, have lost most of my corals and quite a few fish, but thanks for Mike we were able to save the rest.
I would like to send a shout out to the guys at fluid designs and thank them for being there for us. Without them we would have lost everything. That is a company that really cares and are there when you need them, I will continue to do business with them.
Dave took pictures of the tank to post, so everybody can see how bad the damage was.
Incidents like this make u rethink the hobby. I wish you all the best and hope nobody else goes through what we had to
