Killed All Fish In Both 150 Gallon Tanks By One Lapse In Attention :(

[JumboShrimp]

A cautionary tale-- this hobby requires that you stay thinking one-step-ahead at all times, or disaster awaits.

Long story short: For each of my 150 gallon FOWLRs I had a heater and temperature probe in the sump, controlled by their own Inkbird controllers. Fast-forward: For extensive maintenance I took the sumps 'off line,' and ended up temporarily placing one heater directly in each tank, controlled by a single controller, with the temperature probe floating in one of the tanks. So far, so good. But last night, in a single act of stupidity, I emptied out about half the water in the tanks, including the tank containing the temperature probe, and went to bed to resume things in the morning. When I went into my fish room and saw that NO fish were greeting me, I could tell something very-bad was up. Because the temperature probe was essentially just hanging out of the water in the chilly air all night, it kept supplying power to the tanks, and the tanks reached 105-degrees F. Yep. I cooked all my fish, including expensive ones.

I enjoy hearing the many success stories from the R2R community, but learn equally from people's candid mistakes, so I am passing along my experience. Best wishes to all as I start both tanks all over again from scratch.

 

[formallydehyde]

I am so sorry. I am always shocked at how few safety features aquarium heating has to prevent stuff like that from happening.

 

[BryanM]

Ouch, sorry to hear this.

I try not to do things late at night for this reason.

 

[littlefoxx]

Oh no. Thats awful, I had a similar experience with an outage in the hot summer. Its just devastating to come down and realize they all died. Im so sorry ;(

 

[Northern Flicker]

That's horrific.

Honestly I cannot wrap my head around draining the tanks to half and then leaving them overnight?

Never do maintenance within a day of vacation or right before bed.

 

[Devaji]

oh man I know the feeling. I lots all the fish ( 6) in my 200 gal FOWLR as I dosed API algae fix some how got the mil. mixed up and double the dose is the only thing I can think of with in 30 min. I lost emp. angel 4 dwarfs and a xmass wrasse.

I almost gave up but after a few weeks decide to get back into it.

so sorry for you lose man. hang in there.

 

[JumboShrimp]

Each tank had a Wrasse that needed the sand; maybe I'll re-tool over to bare bottom while I'm at it. Just for a change-up, to improve my mood.

 

[Gumbies R Us]

So sorry to hear about your losses! I try to avoid doing stuff with my tank early in the morning or late at night to try and prevent something like this from happening!

 

[Jay Hemdal]

So sorry to hear. I try to use multiple, low wattage heaters with redundant thermostats. That way, if any one fails (on or off) the other one can help manage the issues.

 

[GARRIGA]

So sorry to hear. I try to use multiple, low wattage heaters with redundant thermostats. That way, if any one fails (on or off) the other one can help manage the issues.

I'm trying to takE it one step further. Ensuring that the cumulative affect of all heaters failing (such as in this scenario where thermostat was exposed to colder room temperatures) can't fry my inhabitants. Although finding that exact combo might require having more than just a few to get the exact wattage considering most heaters are in 25w increments until reaching a certain point where they are in 50w or 100w increments.

Ideally maxed out tank can't exceed 84 degrees although aiming for 80 would be ideal. Living in south Florida there are few days where room temps drop below 69 and biggest fear is power outages causing room temps to reach 88. Seriously considering not running heaters or if needed then try getting as close to 78 and not sweating it if it's slightly below. Starting to think 78 makes no sense at all.

 

[Pntbll687]

Oh man, I'm sorry to hear that.

How many watts were the heaters?

 

[AlyciaMarie]

Gosh, I hate to read this story. Thank you for putting yourself out there and warning others. Sharing the hard parts and mess-ups of our reefing journey is as important, if not more important, for others who are also learning.

 

[hoffmeyerz]

So sorry for your loss, that's heartbreaking.
Unfortunately we can set lots of redundancies but it's hard to protect ourselves from our own mistakes, we're only human and bound to make them.
Lean on everyone here for support as you look to rebuild.
Hope things get better!

 

[BeanAnimal]

Note for everyone:

Heaters should - never (ever) be separated from their probes...

Probe and heater in the same compartment, with the probe on the upstream side of the heater. Any other configuration is asking for trouble. If you want to read other temperatures, tank vs sump, etc. Then use individual sensors or probes.

So no heaters in overflows with sensors in tank, no heaters on one end of the sump with the sensor in the other, or the tank etc. Always the same compartment. Full Stop.

 

[Stang67]

A cautionary tale-- this hobby requires that you stay thinking one-step-ahead at all times, or disaster awaits.

Long story short: For each of my 150 gallon FOWLRs I had a heater and temperature probe in the sump, controlled by their own Inkbird controllers. Fast-forward: For extensive maintenance I took the sumps 'off line,' and ended up temporarily placing one heater directly in each tank, controlled by a single controller, with the temperature probe floating in one of the tanks. So far, so good. But last night, in a single act of stupidity, I emptied out about half the water in the tanks, including the tank containing the temperature probe, and went to bed to resume things in the morning. When I went into my fish room and saw that NO fish were greeting me, I could tell something very-bad was up. Because the temperature probe was essentially just hanging out of the water in the chilly air all night, it kept supplying power to the tanks, and the tanks reached 105-degrees F. Yep. I cooked all my fish, including expensive ones.

I enjoy hearing the many success stories from the R2R community, but learn equally from people's candid mistakes, so I am passing along my experience. Best wishes to all as I start both tanks all over again from scratch.

No I'm so sorry.

 

[edsbeaker]

So sorry this happened to you.