Unfortunately I have an update in the significantly negative form. While away out of town the tank suffered a complete crash. It's really one of those once in a million type of events where several pieces acted together screwing up something that you assume to be full proof, but of course nothing is really full proof. This is what happened:

Profilux float somehow has failed in the on position, it somehow became non responsive, not just getting stuck but actually somehow sorting out completely. Normally not an issue, profilux has max on time, shuts off top off and sets alarm, remaining off until manually reset.

However it seems for whatever reason there is another way to reset the alarm, if the power is shut off and turned back on it resets the alarm. Again a single power cut would still not be enough to cause any damage.

But I also seemed to have left town during the one time in the year the power company decides to apply rolling power cuts to my area. I've lived here close to 2 years and not a single power cut that I remember. Regardless the top off is capable of approximately 10 gallons before the alarm is triggered. Based on the new tank salinity over 100 gallons of fresh water was added meaning the power was cut approximately 10 times which neighbors have confirmed.

So the result was a huge drop in salinity, most fish seem to have survived but virtually all coral is toast. I'm in the process of changing water and correcting salinity but it's going to be a do over for sure.

For those using profilux in a similar manor be sure to check for this, an alarm is pretty useless if it can reset itself.

Wow, that completely sucks. Your tank was looking amazing, hopefully everything will pull through. I wish my system was more established and I could offer some replacement corals :sad:

So sorry to hear this! Every reefers nightmare. Here we think we build in as much redundancy as we can, but even then Murphy finds his way in.

wow!....sorry to hear this Steve......you had a bunch of sweet stuff:sad:.....

Holy crap man. That sucks so bad. I'm terrified of power outtages, you never know when it'll happen.

Sorry for your losses Steve.

I'm sorry to read such terrible news

So no water damage ?

Terrible!

Oh no :sad:

Yes there is some water damage but it's not that bad. I did actually had an overflow drain added when I rebuilt the fish room however I didn't get around to actually connecting it up to the drain before I left. I also had salinity control ready to go as well but again didn't spend the time on it prior to leaving as I didn't really want to add such things so close to my departure. In hindsight these two things would have saved the tank and prevented damage but it's not worth thinking about now.

The damage is minor as the new tile contained most the water limiting the damage to replacing the carpet underlay in the adjacent room. The basement only being partially developed defiantly saved a significant amount of work and parts that will need to be replaced.

'nuff said