Fish System Meltdown

So it's been a well known fact that the fish system controlling our wall of fish tanks at my store is...well...ancient.

Like. The entire thing is old enough that we were considered to get an entirely new fish wall and such last year before well...all the crazy happened. Who knows when or if we'll get an entire fish wall.

But our fish system?

Yesterday around noon it started acting up on me.

It started out innocuously enough with the system suddenly turning off (aka stopping the water from running) and then turning back on.

It's a thing that usually happens if water levels in our sump get too low and usually that's because the filters within the sump haven't been changed recently. 

But upon switching out the filters and adding a bit more water to the sump....the fish system continued to do it's off/on thing. 

...Not good.

So I figured maybe it would need a break and so I put the system on a feed hold while I went on lunch to give it a break from being on.

...the Feedhold should have only lasted 45 minutes...yet an hour later the system still hadn't turned back on.

That probably should have been another clue that something wasn't right.

In any case. I also checked all the electrical things to make sure none of the switches controlling the pumps/heaters/ etc had been kicked off. As sometimes something triggers the system to shut off a heater or a pump and I have to hit the right switch to get it back on.

Everything was normal.

I even went  through an manually kicked off and then on every switch in there.

The system continued it's on off thing.

Like it would turn off and turn on and turn off multiple times over the course of 5 minutes and then run smoothly for like 15 before repeating the process.

Like...I knew something was wrong. But What was wrong I had no idea. Glancing through the odd user manual thing told me nothing helpful as whatever I was checking for I either couldn't find or it was working normally. 

I ended up calling a manager at our sister store who was familiar with the system and asked for their help and they suggested adjusting the water pressure and then making sure that the sump was fully filled which meant using our gravel vaccuum to siphon water from the sink behind our fishwall into the fish sump to give it more flow and to let that run for like an hour.

The system was still acting up when I left work for the day.

And my closing managers informed me when I checked in with them, that it was constantly turnin gon and off.

Not good.

And I didn't feel good about leaving the system on and acting like that without supervision all night.

So I had the closing manager turn off the fish system for the night.

It wasn't ideal as the fish do best with running water and said running water would be heated. With the cold nights we've been having....not the best to give the fish no constant heat source. 

At the same time...I knew that if the temperature dropped slowly throughout the night the fish overall would be just fine even if the water got a little colder than they usually like it.

Better to have cold fish than to have something 'burn up' in the system and set the store on fire from all the off/onness it was doing.

Which is probably a good thing that I had the system turned off...

As when the opening crew came into work this morning...the system wouldn't turn on at all.

Not. Good.

We got an emergency work order sent in and a Tech came out ASAP to check it out and see what the problem was.

The problem?

Yah...the computer/hard drive whatever electrical thing that controls the fish system is called....was completely fried. 

Insomuch that the entire box of electrical parts needs to be replaced. :S 

Yikes.

Definitely probably a good thing I had the system off all night then.

But yah. We have a new 'computer' thing on order to replace the ancient one currently being used as that thing is apparently from the 70s and the company that makes them stopped making them ages ago so parts are like...impossible to find. 

So yah.

We're gonna get a whole new device to control our fish wall.

And no worries about the fish themselves. 

Luckily the system can 'manually' be turned on. So even though the 'auto' system no longer works and all the buttons don't work...we can still ensure that the water is being heated and running through the tanks.

Even though we can only have 2 of our 3 pumps running at a time on said manual setup. So the water flow is a little less strong compared to it's usual capacity.

But hey. At least it's running.

Until you next find these words;
I'll be watching the leaves.
Enjoy the day!

-Sarnic Dirchi