TheClark Posted November 18, 2014 Share Posted November 18, 2014 I had a self induced aragonite sand winter wonderland this morning. Last night, I swapped the WP-60s out of the frag tank and into the display. Not being careful when removing and replacing, one of the mounts was loose. As a result, a powerhead came loose from the mount and fell into the sandbed overnight. It blew sand directly from the bottom of the tank into the water column with the full force of a WP-60. Everything, I mean everything was covered in white aragonite snow. A huge elegance was flipped and buried under inches of sand. I could not even find it at first. After a moment of panic, I settled into the task at hand of digging everything out and blowing things off with the turkey baster. Lesson Learned - If you mess with powerheads before leaving your tank overnight or before work, double check they are secured well! Things are looking good now. Here you can see the aftermath. The clowns working on clearing the toadstool, and an upset toxic hammer. Notice the fine sand particles in the water column too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bicyclebill Posted November 18, 2014 Share Posted November 18, 2014 Holy smokes! What a mess that would make. Those things are almost too powerful when mounted in a desirable place! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rworegon Posted November 18, 2014 Share Posted November 18, 2014 Hopefully the sandbed wasn't too old. There can be all kinds of nasties burried under an old sandbed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheClark Posted November 18, 2014 Author Share Posted November 18, 2014 Hopefully the sandbed wasn't too old. There can be all kinds of nasties burried under an old sandbed. Yes, good point, talk about a major sand stirring event.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Micah Posted November 18, 2014 Share Posted November 18, 2014 Yeesh! Luckily when an MP40 falls off, it just lands gently on the bottom. I can only imagine a WP60 pumping sandy death all over a tank. Glad everything is okay! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mandinga Posted November 18, 2014 Share Posted November 18, 2014 I am sure you aren't alone in this! Major design flaw in the WP pumps...even the RW pumps...especially in the WP series...if it comes loose it will wreak havoc on a tank! Just glad you caught it in time. #1 KILLER OF reefs....not global warming...IT IS SAND! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheClark Posted November 18, 2014 Author Share Posted November 18, 2014 I am sure you aren't alone in this! Major design flaw in the WP pumps...even the RW pumps...especially in the WP series...if it comes loose it will wreak havoc on a tank! Just glad you caught it in time. #1 KILLER OF reefs....not global warming...IT IS SAND! So true, I have lost too many corals to sand piles. Time to think seriously about siphoning most of it out. I could leave some in the canyon for the wrasses. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pledosophy Posted November 18, 2014 Share Posted November 18, 2014 Depending on placement you can also look at securing the cord. If it comes loose and falls a couple inches it might still suck, but not suck quite as bad as if it falls all the way into the tank. I had that little red arm break on a korallia a fee years back and ended up with a small sand storm just below the pump, thanks to a piece of tape on the cord. Glad things are doing good, healthy corals are pretty resilent Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badxgillen Posted November 18, 2014 Share Posted November 18, 2014 I have had this happen a couple times and on one occasion the current was so fierce it got a large amount of sand inside my derasa clam. Fortunate for me it was not over night and the clam got some immediate attention and is still with me today. I am in the process of slowly removing sand and replacing it with a larger grade of aragonite due to this and that I can not change up my flow much without moving sand dunes around. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheClark Posted November 18, 2014 Author Share Posted November 18, 2014 I have had this happen a couple times and on one occasion the current was so fierce it got a large amount of sand inside my derasa clam. Fortunate for me it was not over night and the clam got some immediate attention and is still with me today. I am in the process of slowly removing sand and replacing it with a larger grade of aragonite due to this and that I can not change up my flow much without moving sand dunes around. Close call! Great idea on sand replacement, I would love to do the same. Been regretting re-using this fine sand since the beginning of this tank. Can you share your recommendation on what aragonite to replace with / where to get? Thanks!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badxgillen Posted November 18, 2014 Share Posted November 18, 2014 I snag mine from the local fish store The Animal House as they sell it by the pound or 20 Lb bags. I believe the #0 is the really fine sugar sand and one is regular grain sand. I want to say I went with #3 as it is a little larger than kitty litter and it doesn't blow around much nor does it get caught up in my gravel vac siphon tubes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bombertech Posted November 19, 2014 Share Posted November 19, 2014 Jeremy, if you are only concerned about the wrasses sleep habitat you can always make them a wrasse house. They will also sleep on bare-bottom. I have a melanarus and a very large red coris wrasse that live in my LR tub. See them sleeping up under the rocks all the time. Best change I ever made to my tanks was yarding out the sand and running bare-bottom. Runner-up option would be a 1/2" of coarse. As much as it gets a bad wrap, I've had great luck with Black Sand (the dry stuff from Petco) when running high Kelvin lighting (+30,000K). I think the negativity comes from placing newly cycled LR on it which sheds argonite. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheClark Posted November 19, 2014 Author Share Posted November 19, 2014 Thanks Matt for the ideas on replacements. I suspect the old phosphate laden sand is not helping my algae situation. Guess this is a good excuse to start yarding it out! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheClark Posted November 19, 2014 Author Share Posted November 19, 2014 Things turned out surprisingly well, no coral losses that i can find. This elegance was buried under 2" of sand flipped face down. By yesterday afternoon it looked like this, amazing! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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