HELP! Almost lost my REFER 450!!!

pablomay28

pablomay28

Well-Known Member
Almost lost my tank. I went on vacation for 8 days and returned to a flood. The overflow adjustment knob on the tank seems to get clogged easy and caused the water level to rise in the overflow and go down through the emergency overflow. This caused the pipe to gurgle and water started to go over the sump and into the floor. My ATO ran dry and when I got home the return pump was partially above water and mixing water and air. The leak has caused the stand to swell on the right side. I might need to buy a new stand. The person I left to take care of my reef only knew how to feed the fish and told me everything was fine. All my live stock is doing perfectly fine; there were no losses except maybe the aquarium stand. I have since purchased a Neptune Apex System with lab grade probe, and a D-Link 5222L camera to monitor the tank. Wow does Neptune customer service suck, after trying to do the install and having issues I tried calling for hours with no luck. I left and email that has yet to be responded to. Luckily the people at Marine Depot had enough knowledge and patience to help me. I love the Apex just hope that I never have to contact customer service.
 
pablomay28

pablomay28

Well-Known Member
How would I go about getting a new stand If I need to buy it since these tanks are new and hard to come by?
 
SaltNoob

SaltNoob

Active Member
pablomay28 said:
Almost lost my tank. I went on vacation for 8 days and returned to a flood. The overflow adjustment knob on the tank seems to get clogged easy and caused the water level to rise in the overflow and go down through the emergency overflow. This caused the pipe to gurgle and water started to go over the sump and into the floor. My ATO ran dry and when I got home the return pump was partially above water and mixing water and air. The leak has caused the stand to swell on the right side. I might need to buy a new stand. The person I left to take care of my reef only knew how to feed the fish and told me everything was fine. All my live stock is doing perfectly fine; there were no losses except maybe the aquarium stand. I have since purchased a Neptune Apex System with lab grade probe, and a D-Link 5222L camera to monitor the tank. Wow does Neptune customer service suck, after trying to do the install and having issues I tried calling for hours with no luck. I left and email that has yet to be responded to. Luckily the people at Marine Depot had enough knowledge and patience to help me. I love the Apex just hope that I never have to contact customer service.
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Bummer.
Sorry to hear that, P.
Good luck on your rebuild and thank God your critters are all good.
 
SaltNoob

SaltNoob

Active Member
pablomay28 said:
How would I go about getting a new stand If I need to buy it since these tanks are new and hard to come by?
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I build ALL my tank stands. Always have. (Except for this adopted RSM 130)
Something about it I find therapeutic.
Give it a shot.
Plus costs about a third of what a prefab costs.
 
DianaKay

DianaKay

Princess Diana
RS STAFF
OMGosh! :eeknew: Very scary thing to happen, Sorry about your bad luck!! And now you will have to drain & re-start your tank :confused:
This is what nightmares are made of :frown:
Glad you didn't lose everything....hang in there!!
 
D

DaveK

Well-Known Member
Glad to hear your livestock is fine.

However, I don;t think the solution to problems was to get "a Neptune Apex System with lab grade probe, and a D-Link 5222L camera to monitor the tank". Neither of these address the root cause of your problems. The place to fix is your overflow and the adjustment knob. Overflows should run fail safe and should be a "set it and forget it" kind of device.

Once you get everything back working, start another thread and we can go over your over flow and sump.arrangement and get the root cause corrected..

As for the stand, what is it made of? If parts are swelling to any great degree the stand will need some kind or repair or replacement, especially if it's make of a material like particle board. My own stands have been through their own share of floods over the years, with no serious issues, although some places do look a bit rough and weather beaten.
 
pablomay28

pablomay28

Well-Known Member
I know it is not a solution but I can better monitor the tank. The stand seems to be fine. In regards to the adjustment knob if I open it to much it will do the same thing and gurgle due to the water flowing to fast. When I set it it seems to clogg and the water level rises in the overflow after a couple of days causing the water to go through the emergency overflow.
 
D

DaveK

Well-Known Member
pablomay28 said:
I know it is not a solution but I can better monitor the tank. The stand seems to be fine. In regards to the adjustment knob if I open it to much it will do the same thing and gurgle due to the water flowing to fast. When I set it it seems to clogg and the water level rises in the overflow after a couple of days causing the water to go through the emergency overflow.
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Something is obviously incorrect with this design. This should not be occurring. Start a new thread and post some picts of your overflow system. The fix may be as simple as a prefilter screen.
 
pablomay28

pablomay28

Well-Known Member
DaveK said:
Something is obviously incorrect with this design. This should not be occurring. Start a new thread and post some picts of your overflow system. The fix may be as simple as a prefilter screen.
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Will do brother. I never had an issue when I had a ball valve on my other setup. Might do a gate valve modification on this one if I keep on having issues with the stupid knob. I will post some pics soon just have to clean up some cables.
 
mtsully71

mtsully71

Well-Known Member
I will be interested to see what happened also with the valve, this is not good, I would think if the valve failed, Red Sea should be buying you some new stuff. Sorry to here the news. I am leaving my tank for the first time for 5 days, this weekend.
 
pablomay28

pablomay28

Well-Known Member
mtsully71 said:
I will be interested to see what happened also with the valve, this is not good, I would think if the valve failed, Red Sea should be buying you some new stuff. Sorry to here the news. I am leaving my tank for the first time for 5 days, this weekend.
Click to expand...

Sully have you had issues having to constantly adjust the knobb?
 
mtsully71

mtsully71

Well-Known Member
not really, not with any frequency. I have adjusted it less than a dozen times from the original set, I think it's due to other in sump factors. I definately want to see what you discover on/in that tube. I know I have some stomatellas that are in the overflow area and would hate to have one park his ass in the valve and screw things up. I think a screen is a good idea
 
spiraling

spiraling

Well-Known Member
Back to the stand... You said it seemed to be fine, which is great to hear!

I have been considering getting the Reefer, so I'm really curious about the stand. I have ruined stands in the past, which really sucks. I understood it was a metal (aluminum?) frame, and the panels were just hanging on it. So in the situation where it did get flooded the structural portions would be fine. If the panels were ruined for any reason you could get replacement ones. Is that correct?

Adding Kevin too @RedSeaKev
 
dacianb

dacianb

Active Member
I have a Reefer 350 and had similar knob adjustment issue.
I have some bacterial flocks growing in the tubes and reducing in time the flow. Once every month I just open the valve completely and all those white flakes go away. If they arrive back in main tank tangs are crazy to eat them - this is why I believe are some bacterials flocks and not calcium or other mineral deposits.
Also, I am using the return pump at 25% higher flow than RS recommend for my tank. Putting the flow at recommended value is more stable in time.
 
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