Why you should always have a reef controller.

[sagecx]

So yesterday i made one of those small mistakes that cause so much trouble. While moving some things i managed to break my temp probe on my reefkeeper. So took out the probe and was going to order another one in a few days figured what harm would a few days do. After the first day i noticed the tank was getting pretty cold so i plugged in the heaterr to a non controlled plug and dialed it down to 76. Bad idea...I hate heaters

The next day i come home after a crazy long day sit down and notice my baby bellus angel is upside down. Freak out thinking she got stung by one of the anenomes and hoping she would be ok I stuck my hand in the tank. SUPRISE its really hot! check the temp and wow its 98 in the tank. Unplug the heater and start rapidly moving everything to bowls with the water to cool down and transfer to my other tank which i just set up the day before.

Long story short i was suprised that i saved several of the fish and about 1/3 of the corals. Of course of the corals i did lose were all my designer chalices....that hurt and several pieces i had only one of. for those who have seen my tanks you know how stuffed full with corals i go for so yeah the whole thing sucked. But i am happy i saved some of the fish and corals which is amazing since at that temp i was basically cooking them.

Anyways looks like i will be putting my red sea up for sale again and have learned to never ever go without a controller... and maybe an extra temp probe. Though i would share my pain since thats supposed to help...i guess.

 

[RadReefer]

Jeez, sorry to hear that...was the bellus deceased or were you able to save it?

 

[pallobi]

sorry to hear about your misfortune and i never like to hear of negative things happening to any other hobbyist, especially my fellow club members... my sympathies and understandings...

however, for the sake of discussion in regards to your thread title, i myself do not use a controller and never plan too, aside from maybe an external heater controller as they only help it seems and the possibility of fault is very low... but everyone has to decide what is best for them, and their own system and husbandry methods...

GL in the future my friend, glad you still have some livestock left!

 

[Turbosnail]

Wow sorry to hear.

 

[s_kelley]

Ouch! Sorry to hear this.

 

[sagecx]

The bellus angel didnt make it

 

[Andy V]

As I found out, the temperature probes eventually fail, as I had the opposite problem, i.e. the chiller stayed on. Fortunately I was home and noticed the thing wouldn't stop, so I was lucky. Now I keep a spare probe on hand, since they are only $20. Good luck.

 

[gweston]

I hadn't even thought of keeping a spare temp probe on hand... certainly makes sense to have one considering the 'when it dies, then what do I do?' situation one ends up in. I guess we just get wrapped up into the, it is working so nothing is wrong, state of mind. Since I got my controller, I can't believe I lived without one. But really... one's heater could break and be in a stuck-on state, and we wouldn't even know about it due to the controller doing it's job and shutting things down when the tank comes to temp.

Very sorry to hear.. hopefully there wasn't much of a loss.

 

[Jocko]

One of Sanjay Joshi's talks was about approaching your setup from a systems design perspective. He has every known failure point mapped out and attempts to build redundancy in everywhere. Spare parts was a big thing he mentioned. He said for his main circulation pump, for example, not only does he keep spare parts for repair, but he actually bought a whole 2nd pump just in case he could not repair the first one!