As the Curator of the Ocean Explorium (New Bedford, MA), I am responsible for multiple marine aquarium exhibits.  Two weeks ago, I got one of those phone calls no one wants to get.

It was the weekend and I was enjoying my time off.  As I listened to the aquarist describe the problem, her frustration was high.One of our aquarium exhibits was up to almost 90 degrees F!  It was the sea scallop exhibit (normally at 58 degrees F).

The aquarist had just completed a water change AND she did complete the “check out” procedure we always do when leaving for the day.  And then she went home.  But … during the “check out” process, instead of looking at the temperature controller to confirm that the chiller was on, she looked at the power plug (which she had unplugged during the water change).  The only problem was that the plug wasn’t plugged all the way in, thus, the chiller was not on and the tank overheated to 90F (instead of 58F).

Saltwater aquariums, and all aquariums for that matter, are subject to inherent vulnerabilities, which, if not addressed and accounted for, may lead to the demise of your aquarium’s inhabitants.  So what are these inherent vulnerabilities?

Well, before I get into it, let’s just say they are simpler than you may think.  You might be thinking of the 100 things that can go wrong in a saltwater aquarium.  Because, lets’ face it.  Keeping saltwater fish and/or reeftanks involves solving a lot of problems.  After all, there is nothing like a big problem to help you really learn your lesson and improve your skills of problem solving.  At the end of this post, I’ll tell you a brief story of one recent nightmare that was a perfect example of not doing a proper “check out”, and how it would have caught the issue and prevented the loss of animals.

But first, back to the mistake of only focussing on problem solving.  Even if you only focus on becoming great at problem solving, you will waste a lot of time dealing with problems that could have and should have been prevented.  So now you’re thinking you should be focused on the prevention of problems … and you’d be right.

So what is my big secret to how to prevent over 90% of the inherent problems that come with keeping saltwater fish and reef aquariums?

When I tell you my secret solution, you’re going to say to yourself “that’s obvious” or “that’s so simple”.  And again, you’d be right.  So here it is.

My secret to preventing over 90% of all problems that are inherent with saltwater aquarium keeping is … “check in …. and check out”.

See, I told you it was going to sound simple and obvious.  Most problems that occur in keeping saltwater aquariums are preventable … by far.  If you want to see consistent problems, floods, broken equipment and loss of valuable saltwater fish or corals, then watch what happens when you don’t do a proper “check in” and “check out”.

And the key to doing a proper “check in” and “check out” is to turn it into a written recipe or procedure that you go over EVERY SINGLE TIME you work on your tank(s).  The key here is that it be written out as a check list, SO THAT YOU DON’T FORGET ANYTHING.  In fact, because you’ve written it out (post it on the wall in your fish room or on the cabinet door under your tank, etc.), now you no longer have to worry about forgetting any of the key steps in this process.

This whole ‘forgetting things’ is usually the biggest source of nightmares, accidents, leaks/floods, and problems in saltwater aquarium keeping.  In my aquarium consulting business, we service large, high-end saltwater aquariums (typically costing over $50,000), so you can imagine how important it is to prevent problems.  When we come to service a client’s tank, the first thing we do is go through our “check in” process.  We use a simple written check list for this, and you’d be surprised how many items are on the list (it’s over 25).

But the great thing about having this list is that you don’t miss anything, and you don’t have to think.  You just go down the list and check them off.  Save your thinking for problem solving.  Yes … that’s right.  Even after you adopt a strict and consistent routine of doing a thorough “check in” and “check out”, you will still have problems to solve … just A LOT LESS of them … a lot less.  I mean, even in the story I told at the begging of this post, a problem still occurred even though we were using a “check out” procedure … it just wasn’t followed correctly.  This is where the human error part of the equation comes into play.  We humans make mistakes and when we’re in a rush we take short cuts … which is one of the rules of proper “check in” and “check out” – no short cuts.  Always follow the procedure.

So you’re probably wondering if we lost any animals with that big of a temperature spike.  The answer is yes.  We lost four scallops, but it took them a few days until the effects of the temperature spike to do them in.

Stay tuned for more, in upcoming posts, as I’ll go into detail on how to do a proper and thorough “check in” and “check out”, and exactly what to “check” for.  Meanwhile, go to www.saltwateraquariumsecrets.com and sign up so that you don’t miss anything.  Also, you can click on the orange RSS button at the top of this page to be notified whenever we post new material here on the blog.

Go now to www.saltwateraquariumsecrets.com to get more tips and secrets on how to actually enjoy this wonderful hobby.  Look over our shoulder as we take you behind the scenes of public aquariums and custom saltwater aquariums.


Technorati Tags: "check in", "check out", high temperature, overheated tank, prevention, problem solving

Related posts

Tagged with: • • • • •

Filed under: Uncategorized • problem prevention • problem solving

Like this post? Subscribe to my RSS feed and get loads more!