Tank Disaster Lost 75% of my fish today!

[psmith444]

While I was at work this morning, my husband checked on our 180g tank to discover that almost all of our fish were dead as the tank was showing 97 degrees!!! I believe my titanium heater that is only 3 months old must have had a melt down. I have 9-10 fish left but lost all my Rainbows (except 1), my Roseline Barbs, Congo Tetras, Multipunctatus Catfish, Syndo Cats, etc... Atleast $600 worth of Large expensive fish and I am heart broken. Only good news I have to report is that atleast 4 of my 6 Large Clown Loaches and my 2 Angels made it. Now I will just have to hope they don't end up with Ick due to the stress. Needless to say that I will be looking to replace my little buddies if anyone has any of these types of fish available.

To make matters worse, today is my Son's Bday and we were all pretty sad about losing our fish instead of enjoying his day.

[DaveMorris]

What happened to the controller that was on your tank? It should have prevented that from happening. Was the heater not being controlled by the RKE?

[psmith444]

Hey Dave,
I don't know what happened. The heater was plugged into the RKE. We didn't have any warnings or anything. The only small sign of maybe anything wrong was a little algae on the front of the tank but hardly anything at all on Tuesday night. Wed morning however, Pat went to feed the tank and saw all those fish dead and felt the water and it was HOT so he looked at the RKE and saw 97 on it. (Even though it gets hot up here in Ramona, the highest temp our tank has ever been is just under 85 and that was during the day. So 97 degrees over night makes absolutely no sense other then an equipment malfunction.) Pat checked the pump and it seemed fine he said. He shut down the entire system, did a 40 gal water change along with ice bags, fans etc and brought the temp down to save the little bit of fish we had left. When he did power everything back up a couple of hours later, everything seemed fine as though it had reset itself. We have now unplugged the heater completely but everything else is fully operational. Any thoughts or suggestions? Should my RKE have warned us with some type of an alarm? Or do we rely on just visually checking the RKE for signs? All comments welcome.

[LotsaFishies]

oh no! so sorry to hear this Patty!

[psmith444]

Thanks Chris,
BTW- Do you have access to FW Rainbow fish on your LA runs? If so, I might be interested in placing an order.
(This just really set back my setting up the 325g salt water tank.)

[SoCalBoo]

Patty, give me a call (emailed you my number a bit ago). I two small schools (7 each) of red irian jaya rainbows and turquiose rainbows that I have been thinking about selling, only because I want more roselines. I am sure we can work something out if you are interested. some of the rainbows are getting pretty big - over 3" for sure on a couple. I expect to be up in Ramona 2-3 days per week for the next few months. The office is in the Re-Max building next to Burger King. I can pack them and bring them with me one day if you are interested. These came from that group buy I was trying to get together from the breeder up by LAX. The fish are beautiful, especially the turquoise. I also have a ton of endler's livebearers and red cherry shrimp that you can have for PIF/free.

So, so sorry to hear about this.

[DaveMorris]

Is the RKE reporting the correct temperature? It should have shut off the heater if it was at or above the temp set on the heater channel. Normally when temp probes go bad on the RKE I have only seen them show the temp as too high, which would definately shut off your heater. Strange....

[SoCalBoo]

Oh, and if my experience is any help - go slow on bringing the temp down. After getting back into my house after evacuating from fires, my garage tank was at 95. I floated ice bags, bringing temp down about 3-4 degrees a day gradually. No ick. But watch those clown loaches - ick magnets often.

[vinny73]

What precious equipment they make!!!! lol When there is a problem with their stuff, it's major! And if you have the Elite version...........Sorry to hear for your loss. You chose an unreliable product obviously. Maybe disconnect the heater while living in Ramona? Living in san diego, I can't imagine running a heater in my tank anymore.

I really am sorry for your loss. Hope DA pulls through for you, if indeed it is their brilliant product.

[RussM]

Really smooth move making such a sarcastic condemnation, Vinny, when there is not enough information to make a sure diagnosis of the actual cause of the problem.

So sorry to hear of this, Patty.

[fishtankcrazy]

Even with a controller, its a good idea to check on the temp 1-2 times a day. Though with that tank volume it should take a day or so before reaching those temps, even with a psychotic heater. I do so before work and before bed. I also unplug my heaters except for the winter / early spring.

[DaveMorris]

What precious equipment they make!!!! lol When there is a problem with their stuff, it's major! And if you have the Elite version...........Sorry to hear for your loss. You chose an unreliable product obviously. Maybe disconnect the heater while living in Ramona? Living in san diego, I can't imagine running a heater in my tank anymore.

I really am sorry for your loss. Hope DA pulls through for you, if indeed it is their brilliant product.

There is no way to know yet what failed and/or why. Neptune has horrible track records with temp probes. I have had two RKE systems running for a year now with no failure. What possible benefit comes from bad mouthing DA and putting down Patty for the way she chose to set up her tank. Something failed. Let's put our heads together and help figure out why and how to prevent it in the future.

[vinny73]

Really smooth move making such a sarcastic condemnation, Vinny, when there is not enough information to make a sure diagnosis of the actual cause of the problem.

So sorry to hear of this, Patty.

When you have a problem with their product and it kills all your fish and corals, and it's DA's fault, then come talk to me. Let's see how sarcastic you become. No sarcasm, FACT.

[vinny73]

There is no way to know yet what failed and/or why. Neptune has horrible track records with temp probes. I have had two RKE systems running for a year now with no failure. What possible benefit comes from bad mouthing DA and putting down Patty for the way she chose to set up her tank. Something failed. Let's put our heads together and help figure out why and how to prevent it in the future.

There was no badmouthing of how patty setup her tank. What benefit could come of such badmouthing? That's easy....... People won't buy unreliable products. KISS spells it out ever so clearly. If you have to rely on a controller to do it's job, then the controller should do it's job. This is the 4th instance where the controller has shut down completely that I know of. Now tell me, what good came from making the decision to go with an archaic controller whose customer service and dates of new controllers is unreliable. People need to stop defending such companies who continue to be 2nd best.

Why did you go with a titanium heater? Did you do some research of reviews it had? How old is the heater? How cheap was the heater? Where was it placed in the system? Where is you power outlet located? Did it ever get wet? Ever?

Now as far as badmouthing a manufacturer goes, I guess I can leave that up to it's performance. See,I didn't say anything bad. It's performance spoke for itself.

Who knows, maybe she used a crap heater. Then the blame would only be on her. Just giving her the benefit of the doubt. Having gone through a situation where massive amounts of livestock, and hurt feelings from losing what was a staple in my family, how do you react to it? GO OUT AND BUY ANOTHER DA PIECE OF EQUIPMENT? I think not. Until you have been through what patty has, or worse, your opinion of the merchandise is irrelevant. The fact the equipment didn't hold up to its perceived standards, and what one spent a grip of money on, why would you badmouth them? The feeling of loss and betrayal is what matters. And hopefully she will get them to cover their inability to make EVERY product last. This isn't a fishbowl.

[DaveMorris]

I would love to see one product that we use in this hobby that operates 100% of the time, all the time, forever. It doesn't exist.

The lesson that I think we all can take out of an unfortunate situation like this is that nothing in the way we set things up is guaranteed. And none of our equipment will be a total replacement for our one on one contact with our tanks.

Patty, I am sorry that your thread about your horrible losses has turned into an equipment bashing thread. I am sure that you had no intention of it going down this road. Please don't let it keep you from being a frequent visitor here. Some of us miss you!