I think the fact that you did "own up" to the true reason of the failure in your oversight in the sump design and heater placement shows your true character. You could have taken the easy way out and fired the employee that may or may not have known he broke the heater, but at the end of the day, you gave him the benefit of the doubt. As long as everyone involved learned from the disaster, you are on the road to recovery with more knowledge. Thank you for sharing your pain with us so that others may learn. Im excited to see the Phoenix grow as it is reborn!

Lost my first reef tank from a bursted glass heater as well, thank you for keeping us in the loop so we could all learn from this. Respect for accepting that 💩 happens and not laying the smack down - that takes a big man. 👍

As an electrician, I'd recommend that you look into replacing the breakers in your circuit panel with GFCI breakers. They operate just like the GFCI outlets and protect the entire circuit rather than just the outlet. You can also "daisy chain" up to 5 outlets off of a single GFCI outlet if replacing the breakers is too expensive

"It's not his fault, it was really just an accident waiting to happen, anyone could have done it. Shit happens" Admittedly I don't know if this attitude continues when the camera is off, I'll assume it does and that while you may not intend to blame anyone, whoever broke the heater should be getting some deserved razzing for some time to come. But that said my respect for you as a hobbyist and as an employer increased 1,000 fold. My only recommendation if I were in your position would be to not link display and sale systems into the farm, I think aquaculture is the way forward for the industry not only as a sustainable means of providing coral to the market, but also I honestly feel that hobbyists contribute to the general understanding of the marine ecosystem.

Hopefully some people you have sold frags to over the years will bring back pieces to help you restart!

I love the fact that you have the classic old aqua clear HOB units on your shelving literally my favourite filter ever created you can do so much with it .. I’ve turned a 110 into a refugium once before ..

Huge respect for all your responses on this aftermath. All the very best with your tanks and store going forward.

Just found this channel while setting up my first reef tank. Learned a quick tip about glass heaters, but more importantly your attitude and commitment to learning from mistakes is what i really took from the video.

Hello March, I'm truly saddened by your loss of corals. It's commendable that you show the bad with the good, and that you're willing to teach others via your experiences. I just bought my first few frags a week ago, and I discovered and subscribed to your channel a few days ago. Thank you for your invitation to see the development of your new tank and I look forward to watching.

Thanks for the update! We can all learn from this incident! Sorry some corals are lost… heart aching!!! Appreciate your insightful character. Your new employee is lucky to be working for a great boss! 👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Been following your video's for a while now even though I'm based in the UK. Just want to say the way you deal with issues, the way you remain grounded and the fact that you are still a hobbyist at heart ... makes me wish I was able to visit your shop and have what we call in the UK "a good chinwag" with you about anything and everything. The thing is March is that you get it ... most people in this hobby visit outlets like yours, not just to buy something, but also to share their love and passion for reefing. Subscribed ... I'm along for the ride

With or without the tank crash, I can only dream of having such an incredible LFS in town! One of the very best reefing channels, your entusiasm has helped me get over some very frustrating tank issues. Looking forward to seeing the display tank progress :)

Thanks for taking the time to explain what happened. We can all learn from it, and that's much appreciated.

Appreciate the real conversation - you show the human side of yourself as a reefer/boss (frustration, upset, self reflect, empathy, ownership). You’re a good dude and you will learn and get better from this shitty situation. Look forward to seeing more videos - let’s make up the $$$ lost in KZfaq views!

So sorry about what happened, it was truly heartbreaking, I felt your pain. However thank you so much for documenting and sharing this with us, means a lot to your subscribers since we can all learn from this incident and the way you handled it. I just took out a cheap glass heater from my reef tank! Going to buy a shatterproof one for sure!!

Excellent attitude 👏, thank you for sharing your experience in the hobby, keep up the great videos we all the viewers appreciate. 👏👏👏

The way you reacted to this issue, you've confirmed why I only purchase corals from your store. Keep the chin up, you'll get through this!!

This is only the second video of yours that I'm watching. I am genuinely blown away by how you handled the situation man. Most of us would like to think that we can handle a bad situation with calmness and maturity but not everyone is actually capable of doing so. In my line of work, I see a lot of 'bosses' that are only too happy to pass the buck when something goes wrong under their watch. Kudos to you my man and good luck going forward.

Man if everybody was as positive as you are.. the world would be such a better place! Keep up the good work and cannot wait to see the new build!

Very mature way of seeing things. Respect. I'm sure you will recover from this very fast. Thanks for sharing

March I think you and the staff do a great job I think your positive attitude makes all the difference in tough situations and I’m very excited to see what kind of new fail safes you can setup, maybe even some that will text you phone if anything gets to out of range of the parameters you set up, I’d love to see that because that’s a personal goal of mine, but I’m not there yet I just have a 32 gallon bio cube but I do really enjoy the all in one tanks even if it doesn’t have as much room.

Love your positive attitude, brilliant! Thanks for sharing 👍🏾

Your energy is pure respect ✊🏾.. this video is the reason why I’m ordering me a tank and getting into reef aquariums.. thanks for sharing. Content is valuable 💪🏾

Love the videos. Wish I was in Canada to check out your cool store. Interesting to learn about corals

Good for you March. What an awesome outlook to have considering how devastating the situation is. Can't wait to see what you create

I think this event shows your maturity as a person and business owner. Kudos to you and good luck!

Inspiring video despite all the losses!!! Your definitely giving me positive vibes to restart my tank. Just subscribed :-) Thanks for sharing.

Thanks for sharing. It’s a nice reminder to check equipment we use on a daily basis. I truly believe your chalice and other corals will survive and recover. I had a neon mummy eye frag that lost all tissue to an alk spike. I thought the frag was dead. Tossed the plug and skeleton in the back of the rockwork after contemplating tossing the frag or to keep it. Six weeks later little green polyps began to form. It’s now the size of a dinner plate. So don’t give up on them. 😀

Great video, it gives insight into your character. I will continue to support your great canadian owned business.

I had a heater related disaster too, I feel your pain. Mine was a 650w titanium heater that just failed, 6 months old and it just packed up, it was one of two that heated one of my coral growing tanks in my workshop. I try to do everything right, but as you said , s**t just happens. I have 3 on the system now. I enjoy your videos, and sorry for your loss. Iain , from the U.K.

Hi March, your videos videos and also Melev's reef issues are very timely for me and have helped me accept my own tank failure. My tank is currently going through a crash because of a stupid decision that I made. My wife is contemplating selling it but as upset as I am, that is the last thing in my mind. I've accepted my mistake and I'm thinking to the future I'm not done with the tank yet. This hobby is a creative outlet for me, I've never been into anything else more in my life and the fact that my ego is hurt from a failure is not a good enough reason to quit. The only way to get over such loss is to keep doing it and to look at it as a learning experience that is part of the journey.

Been watching you for months after just starting my journey in saltwater. No matter the content you make its always enjoyable and inspiring in some way. With your variety of weekly content your subs and views should be 10x higher hands down!

The way you have handled it is unreal. Great ownership from yourself. 🙌🏽

My respect for you and this shop is sky high after this video. Wishing you all best of luck with the farm.

Thanks for being so honest. Makes me rethink my heater placement. Very upright of you to own up to the mistake.

Ah the old heater failure trick, does it every time! Glad you are ok and looking forward to the Phoenix rising!

March I’m so sorry. I’ve been following Fragbox TV and really enjoying it - I’m actually shocked (no pun intended) that it was a heater but i agree with you at least you know precisely what happened and you don’t have to guess and always worry it might happen again. It’s like the number one reason for catastrophic failures - heater issues. And you can fix it easily for future protection. So after a lot of thought and expense, I’ve gone with a radiant heating system in my new 600 gallon setup. One hundred feet of Pex coiled in a 100 gallon Rubbermaid stock tank, connected to a little water heater and circulated by a Grundfoss circulating pump controlled by an Inkbird. So simple. I never again have to worry about a heater destroying everything. I highly recommend it - super-stable and completely reliable. Keep your head up, you got this! And I still have the devils eye chalice growing well and getting pretty big - let me know if you want a piece and I’ll grow some over a frag disk and bring it to you. 👍🏻👍🏻💪🏻💪🏻💪🏻

Thank you for sharing with us and another learning lesson for all of us

Continuing my journey through this saga. I live in FL and heat has basically been a weapon that has constantly been used against me. Between our AC breaking multiple times throughout the years, losing power due to hurricanes, or a return pump getting so hot it melted the cord, electrocuted and killed corals/invertebrates. Glad you found the cause, nothings worse then not knowing. Again sorry for your loss but stay strong and show everyone how you can turn things around, and share your experience with customers so they don't make the same mistake

Good man! You deserve to have the respect of your employees and friends. Great channel. Please share this story with your kids if you have any. Great teachable moment that has impact. Share the dollar amount lost to drive home the lesson. I’m making my teenagers watch this.

Thanks for sharing March.

Just a suggestion , I’m an electrical engineer , and one way to prevent that is to “ground” your tanks , you can insert a titanium probe into the aquarium or sump and connect it to the ground of your electrical installation , that way if something like this happens , you will have a short circuit and the circuit breaker (or another device that protect against small discharges) will open and this will turn off the electricity of that circuit . Off course you still have the issue of contaminating the water with the metals inside the heaters , but at least you won’t kill the corals immediately.

Congrats of findig the culprit and for staing positiv! Best of luck from now on!

Respect!!! you reflect very well. Be proud of yourself. You'll do better next time. Many thanks for sharing another great video. BR, Miguel

It is unfortunate what happened. But your attitude is superb. Hats off to you Sir. And you know why it occurred, which is even better. You're certainly not the first one to have a tank crash from a heater. I run a titanium heater with an InkBird controller because others like you have taught me, not to press my luck. Thank you once again for the insight, and lessons learned. And I'd personally opt for a controller over a grounding probe, such a device would have tripped and screamed at you with an issue like that. That's not a critique, just food for thought.

Thank for sharing, Im sure this way you will save many from loosing hundreds of not thousands of $$, do like the attitude of taking responsibility and forgiving your employees, keep up the positive attitude and all respect and prayers for you.

I like the way your mind work, very strong.

Sorry to see that happen it was a beautiful reef. It was so good seeing this tank all the time on the video ✌️

Kudos to you for taking responsibility. The attitude you have over this failure I'm confident will only bring you longer term success. As a hobbyist I also feel you're loss :(

Sorry to hear that is was a hardware failure and it could have been prevented… but great to see how you are handeling the situation. thanks for sharing so that anybody can learn from these kind of situations. Would love to donate some frags ( from the Netherlands 🤣 )

In the part 1 tank crash video, I had commented on a heater failure and possibly temperature spike that killed the livestock. A heater literally physically broken is even more dangerous. Regardless of if the employee broke it accidentally or from carelessness and whether the fact he knew it or not, it is a SAFETY issue , not just to live stock but the people in the store and the entire property. About 2 years ago, a really large and excellent LFS near our area had a similar fire hazard from a similar incident. And the city shutdown the store completely. I saw all the livestock inside just slowly starving and withering away as the store was not allowed to reopen. It’s was really unfortunate. But running a reef tank more than everything safety is crucial whether at home and you go on vacation or in a larger commercial setup. This was a good warning before things could have gone more out of control. A blessing in disguise I would say. It’s a good lesson for all the viewers as well and thanks for sharing such experience. It’s highly invaluable

Good ownership of the problem. I ran glass heaters temporarily for the first few months until I could get 2 x 300 watt titaniums run by a dedicated controller, which is also hooked into an apex to shut down on overheat. I recently replaced it with 2 X 600 watt.

This video really makes a person think. I am definitely going to double check my gear and replace my heater with a titanium one. Sorry for you loss and good luck.

Thanks for sharing good lesson , love the vids keep them coming 👍👍👍

God that sucks! Lesson learnt, move on is the right attitude... stay positive and look forward to the new build :-)

Sharing your fails is brave. You Are the hero we need, but we do not deserve. Really im geting more and more positively suprised by your content. In the beggining od watching you i tought that i will stop watching cause od so much talking around... Now IT is almost most favorite channel

I've seen many cobalt heaters "blowing" up on its own. Although I've never had the glass cobalt heater, I've had their neotherm heater overheat and have no control of the temperature. I suspect the heater would've eventually "blown" up. Sorry for your loss though, also much respect for how you handled the situation!

You guys rock. Can't wait to visit again. Shit does happen!!! Keep up the awesome work.

Very professional and that you for sharing your experience

BRS had a full video on heaters and how one going bad can destroy your day. They suggest an inkbird with two heaters and both, not in glass. I do an inkbirt with a fan and a heater.

Oh that sucks! Broken heater? Unbelievable! Sorry March, I guess that happens when it isn't just you maintaining and cleaning things. Thank you so much for sharing! Honestly it isn't his fault ultimately, and I doubt he knew the heater broke, in tight spaces especially it's pretty hard to know when you break something like a heater. Also yes please bring us along.

Wow that could have really been dangerous for you. You could have bought the farm yourself with that heater issue. I’m glad you are ok, and I agree with you. It wasn’t your employees fault. I’m sure the next setup will be even better. Thanks for the video. Now I’m going home to fix my heater setup now. Yes my heater is setup just like your heater in my sump. An accident waiting to happen.

As a small business owner, I completely understand you in terms of accepting the ultimate responsibilities. I try to set up systems where it is as much "idiot proof" as possible. I let my employees know that yes, everyone makes mistakes but please let us know asap, there is no need to hide and please learn from it. Yes I was surprise your circuit breaker did not trip. Have an electrician look at that because you know what if it happened during when you were opened and a customer touched the water and received a shock.

Good luck man, that was really sad to see but I believe you would be ok!

Hey March found your channel a couple months ago and have been going back in time to catch up on all I’ve missed. I may have not got to it yet but did you put out a video on what you ended up doing to try to fool proof your system? Keep up the great work and hope to visit your store someday even if I can’t bring any coral back to the US.

My guess is blew up on its own. I used to run one of those glass ones, and it just shattered one day on it own. Go with Titanium!

What a absolutely fantastic outlook on what in other circumstances couldve been the end of that employees career

Glad you were able to figure out what happened. As for GFCI/AFCI, in a shop like you have, I'd have an electrician come in and replace every circuit breaker in your power panel with a GFCI/AFCI breaker. Hopefully you don't have a toxic culture in your store where an employee would be afraid to tell you if they broke something. Good luck on the rebuild, and glad it wasn't any worse.

I highly recomend the new solid state heaters from inovative marine. Expensive but the most stable temps I've ever seen on my tank. So sorry for all your loss, lessons learned are how this hobby grows.

if you need to talk about what has happen and this is a major loss then keep sharing I for one will keep watching and here to listen I am happy that you did find the reason for the crash and its nice that you take the ownership for it! kudos to you!

I work in the continuous improvement world and mistake proofing is a part of what I do. We try to identify potential points of failure in processes before they occur and this one was definitely a tough one to catch. I remember you saying in the previous video before you discovered the cause of the problem, this system could have been set up better from the get go. Very often in my work, potential failure points become actual failures when the process is in the hands of a newer/inexperienced employee. When this happens, you have to investigate and discover what the true root cause of the problem was. The root cause is never “the employee was new so they messed up.” You can always go deeper than that which it sounds like you are doing. There are lessons to be learned for the employee being more careful around delicate equipment and livestock and there’s an opportunity to improve the system so it is mistake proof in the future. On the reefing side, I’m a very much beginner reefer and just came across your channel. I’m trying to learn all I can from experienced KZfaq reefers as I continue caring for and stocking my little Evo 13.5

Omg bro that is so upsetting I pray for a blessing in disguise

2 things that make people succeed in business here. One looking at ourselves and what we could of done better and 2. Giving someone the benefit of the doubt, he will probably turn out to be a fantastic worker.

Good that you found out what happened. I think switching your heaters over to titanium heaters would be a good thing. They are not infallible but more so than glass.

Bro you are a pro. These things happen, don’t blame yourself.

That sucks!! I had that happen in a smaller 65 gallon tank I used to have, probably 20 something years ago, mine just filled with water because of a small crack on it and as soon as I touched it I got zapped. I have only used the titanium heaters since. Sorry for your losses!!

Thanks for sharing your ordeal, hopefully your store will recover.

well done my friend, anyone can make a mistake, and as you said, accident happen, just have to make the best of it.

Glass heaters have been known to fail spectacularly and crash many tanks, cobalt heaters have been reported to break in the on potion. So, this is no surprise that this is what caused your crash. Heart breaking yes. Lesson to be learned protect your live stock. Sad to see the cheapest piece of equipment caused all this and could've been prevented.

You said a lot of good things. Firing him wouldnt solve the issue. You just paid for a very expensive training class & he went through it with you, as did the whole team learn. I say you handled this well. Goes back to the hobby's biggest point. Patience. Much love March! Love your vids.

Im sorry for your loss but any time we tank a person under our wing we are responsible for them . I happy to see you take the blame because our projects are our responsibility to full proof our builds. I'm curious as to where the heater was plugged in to if it wasn't the apex on the system. Great video Buddy.

Damn March that's a rookie mistake, GO with schego titanium heaters they are bullet proof!

That's crazy! 😮 Cant believe in the US and Canada GFI is not standard, every building in the UK has Fuses or newer builds have RCD's which would hopefully trip and prevent this 🤞 hope you get it back up and running soon!

It's one of those things. You can point the finger as much as you want but ultimately if you set it up that way the system is your responsibility. You will have a valued employee though as any boss who gives you the benefit of the doubt deserves the loyalty and hard work of his team.

All the equipment I now use in the tank is d.c. powered except for the heater. I been zapped by 120 volt powerheads and broken glass heaters. My old tank had a couple of grounding probes after I discovered stray voltage. They do work. Now I use Autoaqua temp limiter with apex controller on titanium heaters.

Perfect example of why you NEVER buy glass heaters.

Thankful no one was hurt. If you think losing coral is bad, imagine what losing an employee would feel like.

Accidents happen ! You don't hear about accidents like this one. But it should be advised when setting up a reef tank to take precautions to avoid similar accidents. GFCI outlet and/or grounding probe.

I am glad that you found the problem. Not knowing why is almost as bad as the occurance itself. Solid answers are better than living with reefer's paranoia and guessing. There is a lot of ambiguity (hydrodramatics) in the hobby. It could be this, it could be that, but its probably something simple. Why do my fish have spots? And the very last thing I look for is the plug to the UV that has been pulled out of the wall. Plug it in, spots go away and mark the cable with a 'do not uplug' sign. Why is the Ph low? Did I forget to turn on the skimmer after feeding last night? Yes. Don't close the cabinet until the feeding is over and I will not forget it.

Heaters can be delicate, I lost my first tank as a kid (a little guppy colony) to a heater turned on after a lighting storm caused a power surge. I feel bad for your loss but hopefully you enjoy the creation of a new display.

Thank you for not firing him march! This is such a tough hobby.

How many times has that particular skimmer been cleaned, perhaps it was a glass heater waiting to be broken. Who moves heaters once they are installed. Perhaps you might want to put your heaters on a RCD? Did your Apex not pick it up, temperature dropping etc?

This is so sad, I always loved coming in and checking out the evolution of the show tank! Definitely going to stop by soon and will buy some bigger frags and colonies as my contribution to the "Phoenix" rebuild fund. And thank you for the reminder that I absolutely need to add a GFCI powerbar to my setup.

How old was the heater, and also how would any sensor have picked up on this? Should we just replace them every X years?

I've been reefing since the late 90's I've crashed 2 tanks in all this time and one also do to a heater!! Even though I wanted to quiet my love for this hobby inspired me to do learn and do better. My thoughts as to this individual I would let this person stay but on "probation" because in order to care for this animals you have to love them, if not it'll be just another chore that has to get done to get a paycheck... You never know he/she may learn from this and become a valuable Fragbox team member.

This really helps you think abt being neat and taking your time

I thought it was just that one tank upstairs, then you went down stairs and my jaw dropped. That's insane, sorry for you loss brother

Please can you share the ICP results. I’m curious to see what it did to the water. I presume it added a load of copper. I’d be surprised if it was anything to do with electrocution as the heater should have fused out almost immediately.

OMG, get to the point. Oh Cobalt heaters, I have had the worst luck with that brand. Tried the ceramic slim design type and twice in a row they malfunctioned and was stuck in on mode. Both instances I came home to find almost everything dead or dying and the water temp was over 95f. uh, I think that is somewhere around 35 celcius eh? If I can ever travel back up to TO from Buffalo I will definitely stop in to admire all your beautiful corals. Looking forward to seeing the iteration of the show tank. Have a good one everyone at Fragbox.

Would a grounding probe and/or gfci outlet stopped something like this? Just trying to think through how I could prevent something like this in my own aquarium.