peterharte
New Member
OK, so I've been running a 250l and 1400l reef tank now for the last 5 years. I continue to amaze myself when it comes to finding new and unusual ways to break my reef tank. I love these forums, so I thought it was time to give something back. Hopefully someone will read these and avoid falling into the same traps I did. And I'd love to hear from others!
1. My dosing containers had fairly tight fitting lids. No issues for years. Then one time I spilt some salt water across the lids as I was taking something out of the sump. The water must have lodged beneath the lids, and as it dried out, it created a seal. Then a vacuum gradually developed as the doser operated. The solution was easy, drill a small hole in the lid.
2. I have an auto water change from a basement to a tank in my office. I was trying to use big Reeffactory Dosing Pump Large to accurately add and remove a consistent volume throughout the day, but I couldn't get the salinity stable. It turned out that these dosing pumps are not completely sealed when stopped (or at least not against a 3m head). So a siphon was set up, which my fresh water auto top off was compensating for. The solution was again easy, I set the intake at the target water level, so the siphon is lost before it moves the water level. (A non-return valve or siphon break would work too I'm sure). And just to be clear, no fault of the Dosing Pump Large, they've worked great for years now. Just an unexpected feature of a "positive displacement" pump.
3. Heater failures. I've had three now. Any tank needs to (a) have an alarm on temperature and (b) have at least two heaters. But most heaters come with rubber suction cups. These will always fail to hold, and your heater will end up sitting on something. If there is detritus, or chaeto, or other equipment, it can create hot spots on the heater, and it will fail. Now I always prop my heaters up on an angular support, so there is only a tiny contact point, in an area with really good flow.
4. Probes. I think all tanks should have a salinity probe and pH probe, and of course some automated kH testing (which again, rely on a pH probe usually). But probes will get biofouled, so you absolutely have to keep testing weekly with a backup.
5. Test kits. I like Salifert for kH, Mg, Ca. And Hanna for N03, P04. No point using Salifert for nutrients, I couldn't really get more than plus/minus 10ppm on the nitrate, and it's hard to pick up a trend with that accuracy. But you can screw up Salifert. I had a habit of leaving the bottles of reagents open while I was running Salifert tests. As the reagent was down to the last 10%, I think that evaporation had concentrated it. Because the change came on gradually, I didn't notice anything odd, but I was chasing the wrong level of Mg in my tank. Sneaky little error that one.
6. Temperature probes for the main heating controller. Again these come with a little suction cup. And again, this will fail to stick after a while. And since it was in an out of reach part of the sump, I ignored it. But of course keeping this probe in the water is absolutely critical. If it is exposed to the air, the heater will think the tank is cold, and in a few hours, you've fried your tank, with no alarms, because the controller is the alarm. Great care is required when pulling bits of equipment in and out of the tank not to dislodge dosing lines or, most of all, the heating controller temperature probe. Given that these are very cheap, but overheating is a guaranteed tank killer, I've now purchased a second heating probe. There is also an argument for putting one of the temp probes in the main display, as opposed to the sump. A return pump failure would allow the main tank temperature to fall, but the sump would look fine. In fact, this is an indirect way to have an alarm on a return pump failure (if you don't have an Apex sensing power usage, which I don't).
7. Automated dosing. It's a must. I use Triton. And the Reef Factory web interface makes it very easy to adjust (and my kH is automated from Reef Factory's kH keeper, working great). And it warns you as dosing containers are nearly empty. But it can lull you into a false sense of security, as the reported volumes may not have actually made it into the tank. On one occasion, I had another pipe flex the dosing line where it entered the dosing container, and because my lines are soft, it deformed and allowed some air to get pulled in. So I was dosing about half what I expected. That took a while to spot. I also only once over the last 5 years had a build up on my dosing droppers, to the point it blocked, and the pressure then popped off, and I ended up dosing my kalk into my cabinet floor. (Luckily I had lined the cabinet with waterproof film to create a 30mm deep water proof "bund", it's been used a lot more than I had hoped!). No idea why the dropper clogged once, and never before or after. Now I set my doser to drop in a few ml and I watch it to see that it's actually ending up in the tank, with no bubbles in the lines.
8. Dosing pump siphon #2. My kH keeper was giving inconsistent results. Turns out I had mounted it slightly below water level, and the dosing pump wasn't creating a perfect seal when not running, so I had a small siphon which was filling the testing beaker when it shouldn't. Fix was easy, move it above the water line.
Love to hear from others about exotic and unusual ways that your equipment has misbehaved!
1. My dosing containers had fairly tight fitting lids. No issues for years. Then one time I spilt some salt water across the lids as I was taking something out of the sump. The water must have lodged beneath the lids, and as it dried out, it created a seal. Then a vacuum gradually developed as the doser operated. The solution was easy, drill a small hole in the lid.
2. I have an auto water change from a basement to a tank in my office. I was trying to use big Reeffactory Dosing Pump Large to accurately add and remove a consistent volume throughout the day, but I couldn't get the salinity stable. It turned out that these dosing pumps are not completely sealed when stopped (or at least not against a 3m head). So a siphon was set up, which my fresh water auto top off was compensating for. The solution was again easy, I set the intake at the target water level, so the siphon is lost before it moves the water level. (A non-return valve or siphon break would work too I'm sure). And just to be clear, no fault of the Dosing Pump Large, they've worked great for years now. Just an unexpected feature of a "positive displacement" pump.
3. Heater failures. I've had three now. Any tank needs to (a) have an alarm on temperature and (b) have at least two heaters. But most heaters come with rubber suction cups. These will always fail to hold, and your heater will end up sitting on something. If there is detritus, or chaeto, or other equipment, it can create hot spots on the heater, and it will fail. Now I always prop my heaters up on an angular support, so there is only a tiny contact point, in an area with really good flow.
4. Probes. I think all tanks should have a salinity probe and pH probe, and of course some automated kH testing (which again, rely on a pH probe usually). But probes will get biofouled, so you absolutely have to keep testing weekly with a backup.
5. Test kits. I like Salifert for kH, Mg, Ca. And Hanna for N03, P04. No point using Salifert for nutrients, I couldn't really get more than plus/minus 10ppm on the nitrate, and it's hard to pick up a trend with that accuracy. But you can screw up Salifert. I had a habit of leaving the bottles of reagents open while I was running Salifert tests. As the reagent was down to the last 10%, I think that evaporation had concentrated it. Because the change came on gradually, I didn't notice anything odd, but I was chasing the wrong level of Mg in my tank. Sneaky little error that one.
6. Temperature probes for the main heating controller. Again these come with a little suction cup. And again, this will fail to stick after a while. And since it was in an out of reach part of the sump, I ignored it. But of course keeping this probe in the water is absolutely critical. If it is exposed to the air, the heater will think the tank is cold, and in a few hours, you've fried your tank, with no alarms, because the controller is the alarm. Great care is required when pulling bits of equipment in and out of the tank not to dislodge dosing lines or, most of all, the heating controller temperature probe. Given that these are very cheap, but overheating is a guaranteed tank killer, I've now purchased a second heating probe. There is also an argument for putting one of the temp probes in the main display, as opposed to the sump. A return pump failure would allow the main tank temperature to fall, but the sump would look fine. In fact, this is an indirect way to have an alarm on a return pump failure (if you don't have an Apex sensing power usage, which I don't).
7. Automated dosing. It's a must. I use Triton. And the Reef Factory web interface makes it very easy to adjust (and my kH is automated from Reef Factory's kH keeper, working great). And it warns you as dosing containers are nearly empty. But it can lull you into a false sense of security, as the reported volumes may not have actually made it into the tank. On one occasion, I had another pipe flex the dosing line where it entered the dosing container, and because my lines are soft, it deformed and allowed some air to get pulled in. So I was dosing about half what I expected. That took a while to spot. I also only once over the last 5 years had a build up on my dosing droppers, to the point it blocked, and the pressure then popped off, and I ended up dosing my kalk into my cabinet floor. (Luckily I had lined the cabinet with waterproof film to create a 30mm deep water proof "bund", it's been used a lot more than I had hoped!). No idea why the dropper clogged once, and never before or after. Now I set my doser to drop in a few ml and I watch it to see that it's actually ending up in the tank, with no bubbles in the lines.
8. Dosing pump siphon #2. My kH keeper was giving inconsistent results. Turns out I had mounted it slightly below water level, and the dosing pump wasn't creating a perfect seal when not running, so I had a small siphon which was filling the testing beaker when it shouldn't. Fix was easy, move it above the water line.
Love to hear from others about exotic and unusual ways that your equipment has misbehaved!
