JennM;687026 wrote: Not sure - it's ancient. We've been servicing the tank for 9 1/2 years now and that chiller was old when we started with it, and it has no cover. It's a 225-gallon tank, so I'm guessing it's 1 HP. I'd venture to guess it's an old Aquanetics. I think the tank is probably about 15 or so years established (no old tank syndrome on our watch!)
We knew the controller was acting up but the customer didn't want to replace it. He'd messed with it just prior to going out of town (NEVER DO THAT!!!)... we knew this because the instruction manual had been taken out of its place and was left on top of the RO reservoir... the customer's adult daughter came over to feed the fish and I got a panicked call that "all the fish were dead". I hate those calls... but 99% of the time, that's an over-reaction.
I called my service tech who got there just before I did, when I walked in there was a fog on the outside of the tank (condensation)... when I dipped my finger in the tank it was COLD - just then my tech came upstairs (from where the sump is) and said, "50 degrees".
One fish was dead - the rest were just hunkered down. I believe they only lost the one, amazingly. The Xenia, leathers, Euphyllia didn't make it, nor did most of the other corals - but the Green Star Polyps stayed closed for about 3 weeks... the customer was convinced they were dead but they didn't decay so I told him to just be patient - and they did bounce back - you can't kill those things!
The tank had gone from 77-78 to 50 in 24 hours. We turned off the chiller and put on the lights overnight to help warm it up - then we had to turn the lights out again because they would have overheated the tank. Got him a new Ranco and things are good since (knock on wood...) I don't know just what caused it to fail - the set point was still at 77 when we got there, but the chiller was on and chilling quite effectively. Too effectively...
Jenn
