Tank Crashed

[kopilatte]

I have this evo 13.5 for two years and it was always stable. I had mix corals, sps (monti, birdsnest), LPS (duncan, hammer, torch, acan, blasto), softies (zoas, GSP, xenia) and they grow beautifully. Last my wife noticed in the morning that the water was so cloudy. The tank crashed, i didn't know what happen, but I found out later that the heater blown. I did water change every 2 days hoping that it will recover. But today I saw more and more hardier coral died, and the water smell like death.

I don't have backup saltwater tank. But I have couple 10 gallon tank laying around. No other saltwater system running other than a bucket filled with liverock and air line pump, heater and some light.

My question is. What should i do? should i just throw away the rest of the corals? I'm hoping to save the clownfish and the fire shrimp. Should i do 100% water change? 

For those who had the same experience, what is your disaster recovery plan?

[Humblefish]

I would setup one of the 10 gallons with brand new water, and put all the survivors in there. You don't need sand or anything, just keep the tank simple. Can the light on your evo 13.5 be rigged to work on the 10 gal?

 

After you have that sorted, break down the evo 13.5, clean everything out and set it back up. Add a bottle of Biospira (or similar) to boost bacteria levels and put your stuff back in the tank. You'll need to monitor ammonia for a possible mini-cycle, but this path is the lesser of two evils compared with trying to fix everything as-is.

[Tamberav]

So sorry! Humblefishs plan sounds good.

 

I would invest in a heater controller such as a Apex Jr or pinpoint controller. Heasters failing is common so it's not really a question of if...but when...

[hotdrop]

Run carbon, dose prime. And do a water change a day or 2 to keep amonia and toxins down. Not much else you can do, till everything levels back out and the die off stops. You can try segregation and fragging off corals that are looking bad. I don’t think switching tanks will help because you will create additional problems. 

[748S911]

Sorry to hear about your tank crashing. Water changes  daily until you get things stable again.  

[Clown79]

12 hours ago, Humblefish said:

I would setup one of the 10 gallons with brand new water, and put all the survivors in there. You don't need sand or anything, just keep the tank simple. Can the light on your evo 13.5 be rigged to work on the 10 gal?

 

After you have that sorted, break down the evo 13.5, clean everything out and set it back up. Add a bottle of Biospira (or similar) to boost bacteria levels and put your stuff back in the tank. You'll need to monitor ammonia for a possible mini-cycle, but this path is the lesser of two evils compared with trying to fix everything as-is.

This^

 

Remove survivors into another tank.

 

Clean out the old tank. Wash the old sand completely or get new.

 

Set tank back up, get bacteria supplements(bio spira, microbacter7 etc) 

 

Highly recommend a seachem ammonia badge to monitor levels, have Prime on hand in case of anything.