I think I nuked my tank......please help!

[Fishstiks]

Last night we had a blip of a power outage, less than a minute. I checked everything in my 90g tank, all pumps, etc kicked back on with no porblems, but I think my heater got fried. Its a via-aqua that has the temp gauge on it. It automatically sets to 78 when pluged in,etc. it is still reading 78, but when I came home this eveniing, my corals and nem are looking really bad. I happened to look at the thermometer I have in the tank and it is reading 88 degrees!

My sps have some retracted polyps, my lps and softies are all very very pissed off, and worst of all my bta has moved about 6 inches from where it was, and is completely deflated. Im really worried about the nem. It is still attached, but looks bad.

I have a fan on the sump and am floating bags of ice, temp is already down to almost 86. Fish seem fine. Zoas and shrooms seem unaffected.

 

Should I try to take the nem out or just wait and see if he starts to look better? I really don't want him to die and nuke the tank, but I fear i may have already done that anyway. What steps do I need to take in the im,ediate future to help save these corals?

 

Please help! I am so worried everything is going to die!

[markalot]

Slow down, let it drop on its own. Fast corrections will often make things worse.

[Fishstiks]

Ok thanks. I will let it drop a little slower.

[FlamingPrawn]

Best you can do is monitor. Yeah the temp spike sucks Slow is always better.

[Benny314]

Yes for the love of god don't crash cool it. It will have taken hours to get that hot and it won't be any worse leaving it cool naturally. Sudden swings in anything temp, ph, salinity are all the biggest reasons for major issues.

According to google 88 is only 31c (I'm from the UK you strange Fahrenheit people lol) which isn't unheard of for tanks in summer. My little fluval edge used to run at 28-29 as a pump I was using was heating the water. There were no ill affects in the 4 months before I got a better pump set up and this summer was hot and a lot of people I know had tank temps of 30 most of the time, the trick is to keep it that warm over night so it doesn't swing wildly.

Check your parameters in case something has died due to the heater failure. If all is good things should settle down once the temp levels out.

[Fishstiks]

Thanks for the quick response guys. I have the doors and canoy open and am letting it cool more naturally. I don't want to speak too soon, but the nem already looks to be perking up just a tiny bit.....but that could just be me wishfully hoping. :/

[cindyp]

i'm so sorry to hear this! right before

the holidays too. i'm hoping they survive

this all okay!! sending good vibes, fishstiks!

[Fishstiks]

Thanks Cindy! Hopefully they will all be ok.

[Fishstiks]

Small update. Temp is back down around 82ish atm. Nem already looking better, he still has a ways to go, but he is much more perky, and seems to be letting the clown snuggle in for the night. Im hopeful. Other corals dont look any worse, with lights off they all closed up for the night so I wont really be able to see how they are truly looking until tomorrow. All inverts and fish accounted for and seem no worse for wear.

I will test params tomorrow, and it is water change day tomorrow so I may do a larger water change depending on how things look.

[Benny314]

Good to hear.

My 46l fluval edge survived an ATO failure while I was on holiday at the start of the year. Tank over filled and tripped the power, must have been cold a good 8 hours, then ran with no real filtration apart from LR for 8 days till I got home.

Found the salinity was 1.020 ish as opposed to the 1.025 I left it at and yet everything was ok. A few water changes to bring it back up to salinity and a rewire and I was back in business.

Fortunately the tank was only stocked with some CUC and coral.

 

I'm sure everything will pull through.

[Fishstiks]

Update. All seems ok on the tank front. The corals look to have all recovered nicely, eating well, great pe, color is good.

My anemone also seems to have recovered from the heat wave. He looks fine, but the little booger has not stopped wandering since the tank got hot. He has never moved on me before, so I am hoping he will find a happy spot soon and settle back down. He has stayed on that particular section of rock scape and I am sure hoping he doesnt decide to go wandering towards the powerhead. The clown goes where he goes.

I have tested params, and all were in thier normal specs, and did a 15g water change last night. I also tested for anmonia and trites, just in case, but they were both zero. I will test again tomorrow. Really hoping he is just moving around from the upset of the tank getting so hot.

 

[Benny314]

Might have moved to try and find cooler waters and is to simple to work out where it had come from and return as if it had stayed put I'd say it was happy with light and flow there. Can you move what its on back to where it was so it will readopt where it used to live? Sort of help the blighter out.