chufa Posted April 5, 2003 Share Posted April 5, 2003 Well, I have managed to keep a nice 12 gallon eclipse system quite well. (see this thread ). Very perfect, no problems during the 7 months of its life, thanks in part to you guys here. Today, disaster struck. Woke up this morning and found tank all cloudy, things dying. Put my hand in and the water was hot! Checked the temp and almost 100 degrees! The damn heater (Marineland Dualtemp) malfunctioned and got stuck heating overnight. My beautiful and huge frogsawn, which I have grown from a tiny frag, dead, just melted all over the tank and made the water all clowsy and milky. My peppermint shrimp also dead. Some strange looking things (look like trilobites but with a snail-like body) also dead. Xenia all shrunk. My daughter was crying, what a mess. Fortunately, fishes, snails, and hermits were OK. The clownfish was acting like he drank too much coffee. Started some 4 gallons of saltwater immediately, turned off lights, removed the dead frogspawn, and let the tank cool. Will do some emergency waterchanges later. How sad. Hope it does not get worse. Link to comment
littlec Posted April 5, 2003 Share Posted April 5, 2003 chufa, I feel your pain, I've made seafood soup before myself. Glad to hear that it wasn't a total loss... Link to comment
Crakeur Posted April 5, 2003 Share Posted April 5, 2003 ouch. Been there, done that and more. Hopefully you got to the tank in time. Link to comment
harbingerofthefish Posted April 5, 2003 Share Posted April 5, 2003 There must be some kind of 7 month curse. I did a WC 2 days ago as usual, when I got back to the tank, everything was closed and shriveled. Since I have changed out 50% of the water volume. And things are perking back up. All tests check normal, a touch of trites from somewhere, but my calcium fell from 460 to 320!! sorry to hear about your loss but hopefully the survivors will rebound well. Link to comment
Christopher Marks Posted April 5, 2003 Share Posted April 5, 2003 Sorry to hear about the accident. Be sure not to cool the water down too quickly! (Don't help it along with ice packs or anything, just let it come down on it's own. Link to comment
chufa Posted April 5, 2003 Author Share Posted April 5, 2003 Thanks guys. Things are going slowly back to normal now, minus my pep shrimp and the frogspawn. Fortunately, no ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate detectable yet. Let the tank cool down slowly like Chris said, and then replaced the heater. Water still somewhat clowdy, from the frogspawn melting away. Did a 2 gallon waterchange, and will do more, but I am allowing the new water to dissolve and aereate for several hours. I guess it could have been worse. Link to comment
Fant Posted April 7, 2003 Share Posted April 7, 2003 use some carbon.. if possible run a skimmer for a few days. Link to comment
FlyGTI Posted April 7, 2003 Share Posted April 7, 2003 Chufa, Want some new frogspawn? I've got plenty to spare, I'd be happy to donate it to the cause, and I live right around the corner from you. Email me at ryanroossinck@h*otmail.com and we'll get something together. Sorry about the tank, man. That blows. Let me know about that frogspawn. Later. Link to comment
LakerFan Posted April 7, 2003 Share Posted April 7, 2003 Great offer FlyGTI - Chufa - Do you know what happened to the dual temp heater? I have one of those in my tank, and now i'm worried that something might happen to it. Anyone else have a good/bad experience with the marineland dual temp heaters???? Link to comment
chufa Posted April 7, 2003 Author Share Posted April 7, 2003 Hi Laker fan, no idea. When I took it out, it was jingling when I shaked it, like something broke inside, kind of like when a lightbulb goes out. I took it back to the LFS and they replaced it at no charge. They said it could have happened if the water level was too low and the heater was not totally submerged, but that was not true in my case. I have the same model in my FW tank, and it never failed. One thing I wonder about is if the coralline algae growing on it affected it. It had some patches. Also, snails sometimes take a ride on it. Link to comment
harbingerofthefish Posted April 7, 2003 Share Posted April 7, 2003 I wouldn't think algae growing on it would cause it stick, unless of course it was bare one day and the next day completely covered. Algae working as a heat sink probaly could happen. Probally a man. defect. glad to hear things are working out though. I would think most people would say F it and get out of the hobby. Link to comment
Dave ESPI Posted April 8, 2003 Share Posted April 8, 2003 chit happens, and sometimes when ######ty elements are used, they can form "Arc Welds" and fuse themselves ON. sucks. I had 2 computherms do it, but luckily I under heat my water, so they only bumped it to 87 degrees. Don't over compensate for heat Link to comment
onthefly Posted April 8, 2003 Share Posted April 8, 2003 Sorry to hear about that Chufa! Did you have some live stock that pulled thru? I'm interested to see what (if anything) was that hearty. I think this is the second heater malfunction posted this week. Yikes! Mine have been acting "funny". I'm in the paranoid state that lakerfan is in. Link to comment
mxpro32 Posted April 8, 2003 Share Posted April 8, 2003 hopefully your fish doesnt get too stressed out and get ich. good luck. Link to comment
chufa Posted April 9, 2003 Author Share Posted April 9, 2003 Thanks. The fish (ocellaris clown, y-t damsel, and green clown goby) are fine like if nothing happened. The hermits are about done having a party with some critters that died off the live rock, mostly some kind of mollusks shaped like a doodle bug. Xenia looks OK too, though not to its fullest. pH has been on the low side since the event. And my GSP has been closed all this time, maybe it's dead? Link to comment
jdsabin1 Posted April 9, 2003 Share Posted April 9, 2003 Crapola .. I have that same damn heater. Does anyone know if there is a heater on the market that instead of going through the roof with heat when there is a malfunction, the heater actually turns itself off instead? I am paranoid also now and want to make sure I have the best heater I can get for said emergencies. Murphys Law you know. Link to comment
onthefly Posted April 9, 2003 Share Posted April 9, 2003 Crap!! I came across a heater today (wasting company time ofcourse!), that boasted an emergency "shut off" mechanism. But for the life of me I can't find it now! I'll look tonight and post tomorrow. Link to comment
chufa Posted April 14, 2003 Author Share Posted April 14, 2003 Well, it's been 9 days, and still suffering from some aftermath effects. My GSP colony also died, the mat dried up and peeled off. Also, lots of coralline algae died off too. I have a lot of bleaching and white spots going on. This seems to have stopped now. pH has been low despite water changes every other day. There is no trace of ammonia, nitrate, or nitrite. Fish, snails, and crabs are OK. I'll still watch over it closely for a week or so before I add any replacements to my dead corals. Link to comment
OscarBeast Posted April 14, 2003 Share Posted April 14, 2003 Ebos shut off if they are taken out of water. Link to comment
CUNROE Posted April 14, 2003 Share Posted April 14, 2003 Originally posted by OscarBeast Ebos shut off if they are taken out of water. Tronics say that they also shut off if taken out of the water. I also read that tronics shut down if they malfunction. Don't hold me to that last statement. Chris Link to comment
FlyGTI Posted April 14, 2003 Share Posted April 14, 2003 Chufa, when you get that frogspawn, I'll clip a little GSP for you too. It'll be a tiny little piece, but in my experience, those tiny little pieces grow to be very large with little help from us. My guess is that the lasting effects of the tank boiling are starting to go away. They can't last forever. Later man. Link to comment
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