AstroReefer

A reef tank crash… one of the most feared parts of the saltwater aquarium hobby. It is the systematic failing of your tank, often rapidly and often resulting in the die off of all or most of your live stock. This can include your fish, coral, and invertebrates.

My personal experience with a tank crash has ranged from SPS die offs (likely due to parameters) through STN, anemone deaths poisoning the tank, and more recently losing more than half my tank due to a mass die off of planaria flatworms. In this most recent crash, I lost:

• One Spot Foxface
• Two Spot Bristletooth Tang
• 2 x Green Chromis
• 2 x Banggai Cardinalfish
• Around 10 coral (LPS and SPS)
• Half of my clean up crew

Loosing hundreds of dollars or more in livestock and the tank setback that results is hard for anyone. Often though, there is a lesson that can be learned through each experience in the hobby and tank crashes are no different.

For example, after the planaria started dying in my tank I did not do a large enough water change, and did not respond fast enough with carbon in my reactor. I assume now that had I done a 50% water change immediately followed by another 50% the next morning combined with a reactor full of carbon with a swap out the next day… I might have saved more than I did. Conversely, had I not responded at all I would have lost the rest of my fish are coral that did make it. There were also some interesting results from the recovery, such as one of my chalice corals that almost didn’t make it is now extremely colorful in a new color pattern! Not to mention that all the flatworms are completely gone from my tank after 4 months.

Experiencing issues such as this allows us to grow as aquarists and work together as a community to learn and prevent issues, but only if we share our experiences and try our best to use empirical data to support a causality for negative outcomes. That is one of the goals I have for this site by sharing the realities of a reef tank. Far too often are we shown perfection by content creators, Instagram, and opinions on forums.