reefkprz
Active Member
Random Reefkeeping installment 5
Welcome, to another series of random thoughts, by yours truly.
Random thought of the day, critical failures, how ready are you? Do you have a back up plan? What are you going to do if your aquarium springs a leak, or an important piece of equipment fails?
Some of us have expirienced this nasty reality first hand. Tragic losses are often the result. My biggest tragedy occurred when I was out of town, as they often do. for me my coralife superskimmer started overflowing at 2 am and my fiancee not familiar with my equipment just kept unplugging things untill water stopped pouring onto the floor. Unfortunatly, among the equipment unplugged on the way to the skimmer cord was the heaters and main circulation pumps. I must emphasize this was in no way her fault, I was the one that did not have the outlets labled so she would know which one to unplug. As it was the over flow of the skimmer turned far more tragic than it needed to be simply because I had not labled a few power cords a simple step which only takes a few minutes.
Some simple steps can be taken to help protect your livestock in case of critical failures, of any sort.
1. Ensure you have containers or spare tanks capable of holding absolutly everything in your tank, these can be garbage cans totes, aquariums etc. If your going to use plastic totes or garbage cans make sure you clean them really well before storing them, chances are you wont have time to clean them when tragedy strikes.
2. Have a couple back up pieces of critical equipment, such as a circulation pump or powerhead, a heater is definatly a must have back up. in the case of reef tanks spare bulbs are important, even your old bulbs that arent as good are better than none, if it takes you a week to get new bulbs and 50% of your lighting blows, a weeks worth of 50% light can light shock more sensitave corals and clams.
3. Lable all power cords at the outlet. This will save time in unplugging a malfunctioning piece of equipment, such as a busted heater dumping current into a tank or an overflowing skimmer.
4. Do your basic equipment maintinence on a regular scedule, this may allow you to spot problems before they happen and will definatly reduce the chance of a piece of equipment from malfunctioning due to, dare I say "neglect".
5. DONT have all your equipment run from one gfi, if a ground fault occurs when your not around everything will shut off. It is safest to divide the load between two seperate circutes each with their own gfci, with a heater and circulation device on each. Obviously this may not be practical for smaller tanks like nanos, and picos. Whenever possible having functional backups, may just save the day. When using GFI's make sure you dont have two gfis on one circut this may negate the effectiveness of the units and not allow them to operate as they should.
6. Water sensor alarms, a great piece of inexpensive equipment that can alert you to leaks in the middle of the night.
7. Whenever possible have saltwater premixed and aerated ready for emergency use.
Now for the first time, in the short history of Random Reefkeeping, I am going to ask you the reader a serious question, What is your back up plan? I want to hear it. it may help some others out there formulate their own plans for emergency's to hear how you have planned for yours.
my back up plan is pretty basic. I have about 20 spare aquariums and all the equipment needed to set up every one of them should I need to. The lighting to go over enough to sustain my corals and anemones. as well as having a permanent holding tank of mixed salt water set up in a closet. I also keep high quality dechlorinator on hand in case I need to make more water than my RO can produce in short order. I always keep enough salt on hand to make 100% of all the marine water in my house.
Well thats all from me, for now. Lets hear your back up plans. the more explicit you can get the better. Thanks, and I hope you enjoyed this rather disturbing segment of Random Reefkeeping (is that an oxymoron?).
Welcome, to another series of random thoughts, by yours truly.
Random thought of the day, critical failures, how ready are you? Do you have a back up plan? What are you going to do if your aquarium springs a leak, or an important piece of equipment fails?
Some of us have expirienced this nasty reality first hand. Tragic losses are often the result. My biggest tragedy occurred when I was out of town, as they often do. for me my coralife superskimmer started overflowing at 2 am and my fiancee not familiar with my equipment just kept unplugging things untill water stopped pouring onto the floor. Unfortunatly, among the equipment unplugged on the way to the skimmer cord was the heaters and main circulation pumps. I must emphasize this was in no way her fault, I was the one that did not have the outlets labled so she would know which one to unplug. As it was the over flow of the skimmer turned far more tragic than it needed to be simply because I had not labled a few power cords a simple step which only takes a few minutes.
Some simple steps can be taken to help protect your livestock in case of critical failures, of any sort.
1. Ensure you have containers or spare tanks capable of holding absolutly everything in your tank, these can be garbage cans totes, aquariums etc. If your going to use plastic totes or garbage cans make sure you clean them really well before storing them, chances are you wont have time to clean them when tragedy strikes.
2. Have a couple back up pieces of critical equipment, such as a circulation pump or powerhead, a heater is definatly a must have back up. in the case of reef tanks spare bulbs are important, even your old bulbs that arent as good are better than none, if it takes you a week to get new bulbs and 50% of your lighting blows, a weeks worth of 50% light can light shock more sensitave corals and clams.
3. Lable all power cords at the outlet. This will save time in unplugging a malfunctioning piece of equipment, such as a busted heater dumping current into a tank or an overflowing skimmer.
4. Do your basic equipment maintinence on a regular scedule, this may allow you to spot problems before they happen and will definatly reduce the chance of a piece of equipment from malfunctioning due to, dare I say "neglect".
5. DONT have all your equipment run from one gfi, if a ground fault occurs when your not around everything will shut off. It is safest to divide the load between two seperate circutes each with their own gfci, with a heater and circulation device on each. Obviously this may not be practical for smaller tanks like nanos, and picos. Whenever possible having functional backups, may just save the day. When using GFI's make sure you dont have two gfis on one circut this may negate the effectiveness of the units and not allow them to operate as they should.
6. Water sensor alarms, a great piece of inexpensive equipment that can alert you to leaks in the middle of the night.
7. Whenever possible have saltwater premixed and aerated ready for emergency use.
Now for the first time, in the short history of Random Reefkeeping, I am going to ask you the reader a serious question, What is your back up plan? I want to hear it. it may help some others out there formulate their own plans for emergency's to hear how you have planned for yours.
my back up plan is pretty basic. I have about 20 spare aquariums and all the equipment needed to set up every one of them should I need to. The lighting to go over enough to sustain my corals and anemones. as well as having a permanent holding tank of mixed salt water set up in a closet. I also keep high quality dechlorinator on hand in case I need to make more water than my RO can produce in short order. I always keep enough salt on hand to make 100% of all the marine water in my house.
Well thats all from me, for now. Lets hear your back up plans. the more explicit you can get the better. Thanks, and I hope you enjoyed this rather disturbing segment of Random Reefkeeping (is that an oxymoron?).
