Primeval Posted October 17, 2011 Share Posted October 17, 2011 At some point last Friday night my heater failed and cooked the tank. Saturday morning (probably 10 hours of cooking) the tank was cloudy and most of the coral had sloughed off its skeleton. I have 2 frogspawns (one blue and one green), large bubble coral, several types of green, red and blue mushrooms, and various zoas and polyps throughout. The bubble coral is mostly a skeleton with some tissue still buried down in there (attracted the attention of my hermits). The frogspawns are down to their skeletons with some tissue flapping in the flow of the tank, ready to fall off. The mushrooms are completely missing and all of the polyps are closed. What are the chances that any of the corals recover from existing tissue left over, or should I just pull them all out and start completely over? I've damaged the head of a frogspawn before and it never recovered so I just cut it off. Each frogspawn has 5-7 branches each. In this case, all heads are missing or severely damaged. Just as a note, I have done 2 50+% water changes since then to clear the water and added a fresh chemipure and filter floss. Last pic before crash: After crash pics: FTS Bubble Coral Green frogspawn 1 Green frogspawn 2 Blue frogspawn Red button polyps Link to comment
PRReef Posted October 17, 2011 Share Posted October 17, 2011 probably if something is still alive it will eventually die in a couple of days. I would remove everything, do a 100% water change and let it be for a couple of weeks. I think is time for you to buy a controller. It will cost less than restocking your tank and it will take care of the cr@ppy technologies companies use for making heaters. Reef keeper Lite is pretty cheap so you can get one without breaking the bank. I personally like my Apex but that was $500 :| good luck bro Link to comment
lawnmowerblenny Posted October 17, 2011 Share Posted October 17, 2011 ahhh what a shame.... what kind of heater is it if you dont mind me asking? Link to comment
PinkDamsel Posted October 17, 2011 Share Posted October 17, 2011 Sorry to hear about the heater accident, Primeval. I would urge you to change 100% of the water and give the corals a chance to recover and not give up on them until it's 100% clear they are dead. Something happened with my tank 10 days ago that burned the skin off my candycanes & meteor shower, nothing but white skeleton but darned if they both aren't coming back. Just this morning I decided 3 of the 10 candy heads were alive (a few feeders were out), but after lights-on skin has emerged from the others and I think 8-9 of them will recover. The meteor polyps are partially extended from the bare skeleton. (I really need to post pictures & document this.) Anyway, not to give false hope but if there's a chance, pls give it to them. Link to comment
thadscottmoore Posted October 17, 2011 Share Posted October 17, 2011 I had a similar incident happen to me a couple months back with my RSM. I was away when my Central A/C decided to take a dive. When I got home at 3AM- my water temp was 95 degrees F. I quickly removed anything that looked like it could be alive and rushed it to a friends house. Out of a dozen plus corals- all my zoas survived and one digi survived and one of two candy canes survived. all are healthy and growing today. I lost all my frogspawn and hammer head corals. lost some other SPS corals, and all my live stock. After I got all the life out of it- I removed all my rock and placed in a large cooler with pumps wide open for a few days. I kept doing water changes 3-4 times a day on the rock. I removed and replaced all the live sand. Placed all the live rock back into the tank and did a restart- cycled didnt take long at all. I waited a couple extra weeks- monitoring the water parameters before I decided to start returning my corals back to the tank. Crazy enough, my parameters in my refugium stayed stable. Chaeto is still full of life! tanks is returning slowly but surely back to its condition when it was in its glory days! In short! dont give up your corals! I have seen some that we thought for sure that were dead and turned out- life was restored to them. though, others were a no win deal.... Link to comment
Woogalie Posted October 17, 2011 Share Posted October 17, 2011 Pic of after the crash please? Link to comment
thadscottmoore Posted October 17, 2011 Share Posted October 17, 2011 Pic of after the crash please? before the crash photo- after the crash and reset up in bedroom- will post a better photo this evening- showing the growth return. just realized that this photo isnt doing it justice. Link to comment
tylernt Posted October 17, 2011 Share Posted October 17, 2011 I feel for you Primeval, because I lost a tank in exactly the same way -- stuck heater. I dropped out of the hobby for a few years because of it. I'm back now though, with two new personal reefkeeping rules for myself: 1. Heater must be plugged into an independent heater controller as a failsafe 2. No bimetallic thermostat heaters -- electronic only Here's hoping you have as many survivors as possible... Link to comment
plainrt Posted October 17, 2011 Share Posted October 17, 2011 I had this tank crash after some dirty hands were in my tank.I prob lost 90 percent of it.For a while i didnt want anything to do with the stuff but after some time and a new setup i now enjoy the hobby again.Just rebuild better the 2nd time. Link to comment
kidninja Posted October 17, 2011 Share Posted October 17, 2011 I had this tank crash after some dirty hands were in my tank.I prob lost 90 percent of it.For a while i didnt want anything to do with the stuff but after some time and a new setup i now enjoy the hobby again.Just rebuild better the 2nd time. is that antheilia growing upside down...? lol Link to comment
plainrt Posted October 17, 2011 Share Posted October 17, 2011 was growing on back wall lol...... Link to comment
Primeval Posted October 17, 2011 Author Share Posted October 17, 2011 Updated with a few crash pics from my cell phone. I did another water change and the water seems to be getting pretty clear again and it doesn't smell like death anymore. The fish seem totally fine. I have two zebra turbos that also seem to be doing fine. All of my mushrooms seem to have vanished. Someone above asked what heater it was. I honestly can't remember. My local store still sells them so I will look at the brand next time I am there. Link to comment
Primeval Posted October 19, 2011 Author Share Posted October 19, 2011 Update: Water is back clear. Coral looks about the same. Link to comment
Primeval Posted December 20, 2011 Author Share Posted December 20, 2011 None of the coral came back, really. I did manage to save some red polyps but that looks to be about it. The walls of the tank are getting pretty coated with a green coraline-type algae so I am going to get in there soon to clean house. While I'm in there I'm going to check the weight of the other pieces and see if they are just empty skeletons at this point. Probably getting this tank rolling again soon. Link to comment
civickm Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 None of the coral came back, really. I did managed to save some red polyps but that looks to be about it. The walls of the tank are getting pretty coated with a green coraline-type algae so I am going to get in there soon to clean house. While I'm in there I'm going to check the weight of the other pieces and see if they are just empty skeletons at this point. Probably getting this tank rolling again soon. i am sorry man that sucks Link to comment
Lawnman Posted December 20, 2011 Share Posted December 20, 2011 What kind of heater? I had a tank crash a year ago. LED lighting was to strong for a large chalice and it was a downward spiral from there. Got home from work tank was all slimmed over and cloudy. Lost about 2k in coral. Link to comment
Primeval Posted December 20, 2011 Author Share Posted December 20, 2011 ahhh what a shame.... what kind of heater is it if you dont mind me asking? What kind of heater? I had a tank crash a year ago. LED lighting was to strong for a large chalice and it was a downward spiral from there. Got home from work tank was all slimmed over and cloudy. Lost about 2k in coral. It was an earlier model Fluval heater. I'll take a picture and post it at some point. Link to comment
Primeval Posted April 16, 2012 Author Share Posted April 16, 2012 I have officially decided that this tank will now morph into the Red Sea Max 250. Details to come in a separate thread as the build commences. Link to comment
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