I voted Yes, it can and will eventually crash because something will go wrong and will not be caught on time. Murphy always rules
Sam
Sam
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Or like my old tank, where some now-jailed neighbors were cooking meth in their garage and the fumes killed my corals ( and gave me daily unexplainable nosebleeds.)There are external variables that come into play as well. I remember reading about an incident that happened to Paul B where his water supply added zinc orthophosphate. Even with proper maintenance/testing/backup an event like this could wipe your corals.
I certainly am not saying that it will never happen, but what I am saying is that it doesn't HAVE to happen, therefore it isn't inevitable in my opinion. If I felt it was "inevitable" I would never even consider setting up an SPS tank...Or like my old tank, where some now-jailed neighbors were cooking meth in their garage and the fumes killed my corals ( and gave me daily unexplainable nosebleeds.)
This thread is interesting so far. It seems the consensus is " NOOOO, it will never happen, ever ever ever because we're all too good at this now. Except when it does happen, like it does to all of us, all the time...BUT THOSE REASONS DON'T COUNT!!!!!" lol
I certainly am not saying that it will never happen, but what I am saying is that it doesn't HAVE to happen, therefore it isn't inevitable in my opinion. If I felt it was "inevitable" I would never even consider setting up an SPS tank...
I am also defining it as my tank, not someone taking over my tank when I croak. Of course I realize that my tank will most likely not outlive me, but I fully expect to keep it going until I make the decision to take it down, instead of it making the decision for me.
Again, I'm not saying that it won't ever happen. I am saying that it doesn't HAVE to happen. In other words the questions is:I use to believe that until my tank that had been thriving for 15 years was wiped out in minutes by a cleaning lady that used half a can of insecticide to kill about 20 ants about 5 feet from the side of my tank. Everyone in my household knows not to use pesticides inside the house and that system worked fine for 15 years, Did it ever dawn on me that a new lady coming in would grab for a can of pesticide on her first day of work and wipe out about $10K of corals and fish, Nope! It was the furthest thing from my mind. That is the day I realized that no amount of planning can save you from every event. As one person said, he had a bolt of lightning hit his house and it wiped out all of his equipment. I had the same thing happen but luckily because I am an Amateur Radio operator I have five x 10ft grounding rods going around my house and about $2K worth of grounding installed. How many people have that in place? How about bullet proof glass on your windows. I once had a neighbor fire off his gun at an intruder and the bullet hit the side of my house. luckily no one was hurt , but it could have also hit my tank and broken the glass. The list of rare and unforseen events is almost endless.
Again, I'm not saying that it won't ever happen. I am saying that it doesn't HAVE to happen. In other words the questions is:
Is it inevitable that an SPS dominated reef tank will crash?
In my humble opinion, the answer to that is NO, it is not inevitable...
Corals can potentially live forever. In an aquarium you can keep moving necessary items in and out and pruning to maintain balance. So a crash is not inevitable. (At least before the end of mankind LOL.)
One of the greatest dangers to coral in an aquarium is the owner loosing interest. How many here have kept a SPS coral longer than 20 years? A few. I guess less than 2%.
I see, you consider the tank half empty. I, on the other hand consider the tank half full I certainly understand how things can happen, and cause tanks to crash. I've been doing this since 1991. Heck I was shipping SPS around the country before most of the vendors around today even existed... I used to ship SPS frags in wet paper towels succesfully . I'm not saying things won't happen that will cause tank crashes, I'm simply saying that they don't have to and therefore it is not inevitable that an SPS tank will eventually crash. If I were so pessimistic as to assume my tank will crash before I have even set it up, I would save all that money and use it for toilet paper or something else more productive . I guess we just have to agree to disagree...I would bet you cannot find .5% at 20 years and as for going back 30 years I bet you could count the people on one hand. That is when you consider the millions of tanks that have been setup over the last 30 years including public Aquariums etc.
If you want to know what its like dealing with tanks over a 30 year period I suggest you read @o2manyfish build thread THREAD.
He had a better tank in 1996 than 95% of us have today. Read his thread and you will see how simple things can ruin everything. There is always a Rat that will eventually get your tank
Oh no!!! What happened?Old saying “picture worth a 1000 words”
Do you have any SPS coral still alive from 1991?I see, you consider the tank half empty. I, on the other hand consider the tank half full I certainly understand how things can happen, and cause tanks to crash. I've been doing this since 1991. Heck I was shipping SPS around the country before most of the vendors around today even existed... I used to ship SPS frags in wet paper towels succesfully . I'm not saying things won't happen that will cause tank crashes, I'm simply saying that they don't have to and therefore it is not inevitable that an SPS tank will eventually crash. If I were so pessimistic as to assume my tank will crash before I have even set it up, I would save all that money and use it for toilet paper or something else more productive . I guess we just have to agree to disagree...
No, just that I've been in the hobby since then. I have had the one tank crash due to the hurricane. Every other tank has been taken down by me and the livestock was sold or given away as we have moved several times since 1991. I do however have one of the corals that I imported back in 1991, as Adam at Battle Corals has it. It is the North Star Corals Pink Clathrata ( I owned and ran North Star Corals).Do you have any SPS coral still alive from 1991?