Tank Crash. Lost all my corals :(
 

Hmm, where to begin.. so dissappointing. I went away camping from Friday and got back today.. had a friend watch the tank. Unfortunately my lights got stuck on yesterday from 2pm to 5am or sometime after (could have been til noon) .. and I lost every piece of SPS, all LPS and almost lost my zoos.

So sad.. I have algae everywhere and the house just stinks like rotten garbage. I don't know where I am going from here.. I may sell my tank off or I may let things settle and go with an anemone/clown species only tank. There is just so much gunk everywhere... hair algae is starting to grow like mad..

My only question is... is the death of all the SPS and the LPS (just a frogspawn really) able to cloud my water? I have done an 8g water change (almost 50%) and it's still very cloudy.. not horrible, but not clear by any means.

I don't want to do anything more to the tank, I will let it sit and I have obviously removed all the dead corals and have a fan going in the room

So sad... heats a killer, and I know that SPS are not the right coral for me anymore. I know the LPS don't stand a chance in heat either, but SPS are just too finicky.

Having said that, my trust old red mille colony is still alive! Has some potential .. it will recover.

Anywhoo, just "venting" I couldn't imagine if I would have lost a bigger tank full of SPS.. I'd cry.

Damn man, that has to be one of the most disappointing that can happen. It is always so fustrating ever time you leave and come back to see your tank not in the exact condition you left it in. It would be terrible to come back and see it completely ruined.

Best of luck with whatever you decide to do with the setup.

Scott I feel your pain. I lost all my SPS this summer due to heat and a skimmer break down. It is so disappointing and frustrating. Don't give up though - you'll get it back.
If it was me I would be doing some more water changes - can't hurt and will get that nasty smell out of there sooner. You may also want to rinse your live rock in some fresh water as well.
I tore down my 44g cube yesterday and put all my livestock in rubbermaid trash cans - today my favorite fish from that tank (niger trigger) was floating belly up.
I know that I can replace him but this fish had a great personality and I really liked him.
So sorry for you tank - but keep you chin up and rebuild. An anemone/clown zoo tank would look great as well.

So very sorry to here about the fate of your tank, I had the same thing happen to my old 120 gallon before I got a chiller.
So do you still think that a 20 gallon is too small for a chiller ?

Sorry to hear/read about your tank.
I know what it feels like to have to start from scratch, it can be very demoralising. When my heater broke in two and fried all my fish, coral and inversts (except, as I found out two weeks later, my 6 line and lawnmower blenny) I decided to quit the hoby. Luckily my wife convinced me keep going.

Hang in there, Scott. I know you feel really lousy right now, but in a month or so, you'll be back in the saddle again. Now might be a good time to consider "cooking" your rock to get rid of the algae. Don't mean anything punny with that statement BTW, but "cooking" may give you a break from your tank and give your rock a renewed look.

Sorry to hear about your huge loss :cry:

Ouch. That's a lousy way to end a weekend... :sad:

My nano reef hasn't gone much higher than 84*F this summer (it usually stays under 82*F, thankfully), but my smaller mantis shrimp tank hits 86*F fairly frequently (no corals, just aipstasia in this tank). I haven't had any problems, though the mantis is far more active at cooler temperatures.

Do you know how hot your tank was? (I guess this question goes out to anyone who's lost livestock to heat issues.)

Do they make them small enough for 20 gallon tanks and under? I don't know much about chillers, except that they're expensive. :redface:

Theres the iceprobe
http://www.marinedepot.com/IMD/ch_iceprobe_1.jpg

Around $100, Should do a 20Gal.
Theres even a version you can get thats built right into a HOB filter.
http://www.marinedepot.com/IMD/ch_ia_microchiller.jpg

My condolences for your loss, it would be discouraging to anyone.

It seems that all of us in this hobby must go through our individual growing pains to arrive at a comfort zone. My 90 had developed into a soup a couple of years back, and I too was at the point where I just wanted to get rid of it and get out of the hobby. It was taking too much time and money, and it just seemed that I was killing everything I bought...

To the rescue came my girlfriend... she asked some very good questions that I was forced to answer, and let me know that it was allright to really attempt this with the right approach, both timewise and financially. Though she has virtually nothing to do with the tank, her acceptance when I come home with thousands of dollars worth of gear DOES allow me to pursue this in a free manner, because no matter what you WILL pay... especially if keeping delicate species like SPS is in your sights. I thank her for her encouragement, and I take pride in my attempts to make all of this work.

With this hobby, failures create challenges, and sometimes the simplest successes give us the most incredible feeling of accomplishment. Don't give up, we have all been humbled. Those that say they haven't are liars. Our best hope is to learn as much as we can from the failures we encounter, our own or others - thank you for sharing with us and I wish you the best of luck down the road.

Wow, thanks for all the kind words everyone. Really appreciate it.

Just a small update, but the tank is still quite cloudy and still has quite a stink to it. Is it all the dead tissues that is causing this foul smell? (i have removed all the dead corals) . I did 8g water change yesterday and things were looking alright. I think I'll do another 8g or so tonight . I am skimming heavy as well at the moment.

Ruth - So sorry to hear about all the recent troubles (and losses) Hope everything is back to normal soon. I think I will definitely do more water changes this evening. I also think I'll stick around for a while, I just need the stench and cloudiness gone and I am back in business. The rest is all algae which can be beaten.

revgeoff - Glad your sticking around in the hobby! Sorry to hear about the heater troubles... such a crappy way for a tank to die off, basically melting like mine was and boiling the fish. :(

Bev - Your right.. in a month I'll be back at it, it's just overwhelming (or was overwhelming) when I came home to that... now I know I just need to get the stench and cloudiness gone and it shouldn't be too , too bad. I think adding some snails (seeing how I lost 90% of mine) will help my case. Cooking the rock is an option as well.

Flusher - I couldn't tell ya how hot the tank got... definitely above 86 though. The tank was warm, even after being cooled.

Kabong - I've never seen anything like that before, that's neat... any links with info on those guys??

reeferaddict - Thanks a bunch for the post.. and I agree that everyone must go through something like this to get to a certain comfort zone. I still don't quite know what I am doing with the tank next, but I'll figure it out soon enough.

I am hoping a few more good water changes and things should stabalize. I'll keep the thread updated as well.

Thanks again everyone.

If I were you I'd do water change after water change, you need to get all that gunk out of the water before the tank can return to "normal". You don't want any of it settling out and rotting on the sandbed, possibly suffocating it. I'd do at least 4-5 water changes (or more) and then leave the tank just to recouperate for a couple weeks before you make any major additions. Chances are not only the corals croaked in that tank, some of the sandbed probably died due to less oxygen in the water from the die off/increased temperature. Oh and run some carbon if you have it handy.:biggrin:

Yeah.. as I said I am going to do more water changes once I'm home from work. I only had time for 2 yesterday, I just got back from camping and had a lot of things to get done last night. Is it just me , and it probably is but doesn't it seem wrong to change out 2g, replace it, then take another 2g out and replace it? Wouldn't the "correct" way of doing this be to just change out the whole amount (whatever that may be, probably another 8g in my case) and replace it all? Seems like this would be more effective?

I have nothing in there that it can further harm really (coral wise) . I don't have any carbon unfortunately.. I'll turn on my AC500 and stick the foam insert in for a bit though . I'll try to get some carbon today .

I also will turkey baste all the rocks and sand... hell, I may even remove my sand bed ... it's just full of crap and it's not doing my tank any good these days.

I like Bev's idea about cooking your rock now while you have the chance.
Might as well get rid of the nuisance algae and start fresh. :wink:

What a bummer..

Hmm.. how long does rock cooking take? I read a few articles about it a few months back but can't really remember all that much.

I could do that, but then my fish have no rocks. Also, I have a few remaining zoanthid colonies alive.

Yeah, doing 2 gallon water changes won't really get you far. Imagine having pitcher full of koolaid, take out a glassful and add a glassful of water, its still got tons of koolaid in it right (and tastes like it too :razz:)? Larger water changes are really warranted here. As well you have some (albeit small) mixing of water that is infused into your rock and sandbed, so you'd want to still maintain the larger water changes to get that out as well.

I don't really know what the foam insert will do for your tank unless there are large particulates you need to get out of the water, besides it will just trap gunk which will break down even further causing more problems for your tank. Definitely try to get some carbon in there to help break down and remove some of the water impurities.

I agree with Bev and Muck, definitely a good time to be cooking that rock. You don't want that crap leaching out later causing you all sort of problems down the line.

I am doing 8g water changes, not 2g . I do 4g at a time (I only have 2 - 2g buckets) Just so that's cleared up :)

I fully understand that I need to be doing larger water changes right now, as I am.. 8g at a time is a decent amount on a 20g . I plan on doing at least 10g tonight.

I guess the foam insert would be used when I baste my rocks and sand, all the gunk comes up and is collected in the foam. I never run the foam for more than a day. Then it's rinsed and stored away. I know they collect crap easily. Carbon would help me out quite a bit right now so I'll definitely try to get some. '

So again, how is rock cooking done and exactly how long does it take? I still have fish alive, and a few good corals alive as well.. so I dunno what I'd do about them, or the fish anyhow.

Yeah I knew you were doing the 8g water changes, I was just agreeing with you that a 2G would be a waste of time unless it were a really small tank.

So rock cooking is easy and doesn't involve any actual "cooking"
.
Basically you'd remove the rock from the tank, scrub it and rinse it in saltwater, then place it in a rubbermaid container with new saltwater, a heater and a powerhead and put the lid on. Then every once in awhile (say weekly/biweekly) siphon out all the crud from the bottom and whatever has settled on the rock. Swish the rocks around in the water (and scrub if needed), remove the rocks, dump out the water and add new saltwater with the rocks. This continues on for a few months. I only cooked mine for about a few weeks but man I couldn't believe the amount of crap that came off my rock.

Ahh okay gotcha.

I guess the rock cooking idea doesn't sound too bad.. does the algae slowly start to diminsh on it's own after a couple weeks? Seems easy and simple enough... but a few months is a little too long for my liking. Can it be done successfully for a shorter period of time?? I don't have that much rock, would that make a difference?

Ahh.. at the same time, getting new rock sounds just as easy :razz: But I can't really afford that.. I will cook the rock if the algae is definitely going to go away. Otherwise, I mine as well save future headaches and try new rock or something.

What do you use to scrub your rocks with ??

Basically you're letting the algae run out of nutrients as well as giving them no light to thrive. Its mostly the no light thing that gets rid of it, I found putting a handful of hermits in there as well got the job done as they had nothing else to eat but the algae.

Yeah it is a pain in the arse doing it for more than couple of months, I found that it depends on how much algae you have and the type of algae, browns seem to die off more quickly than say, green hair algae. For GHA it took a minimum of 6-8 weeks (this was on another batch of rock I "cooked" mostly I just didn't want to use it and was going to take it back to the store but never got around to it. It lived in a rubbermaid tote for about 8 months). At the time I cooked my rock I really really hated my tank and never spent more than a few minutes topping up the FW and feeding the fish. So really not looking so critically at the tank helped in my case :wink:

It certainly can't hurt just doing it short term although you won't see the full benefits. If nothing else it will at least leach out any gack into a different water source other than your tank. I doubt the algae will diminish much though, it can live for quite awhile without any light before it finally kicks off.

Well that all makes sense. I don't have a full blown algae outbreak though, but there's a bit of hair algae that's driving me mad. I was just going to add some snails to take care of it... and perhaps a sea hare. It doesn't even cover all my rocks, just a few of them and there's only a few patches per rock, so I am debating as to whether or not it's worth cooking, or just giving the rocks to someone for super cheap or for free, and just replacing them myself.

I think they do need a good rinse after all this though, so I'll take some of the smaller pieces and rinse them out tonight.

I guess I need to decide if I want to shut the tank down for a couple months (seeing as I do have fish and a few corals alive), and cook the rock.. or if I suck it up, rinse and scrub the rocks, get rid of the worst pieces , get some snails and a sea hare, and start over that way.

I was about to upgrade my tank as well, so if I were to do that.. I could remove my sand bed which would get rid of quite a bit of nutrients, rinse and scrub my rock, and so on...

I dunno what to do ??? Upgrading and scrubbing/rinsing the rocks and removing the bad pieces and replacing them sounds best.. and with the addition of some snails and a sea hare, things might clear up pretty well.

Whatever I decide on I want to act as fast as possible. Upgrading would give me the motivation to clean the rocks up and get a couple new pieces, remove the bad ones.. I'll also be able to get rid of that damn sandbed.

Sorry to hear about that Scott. This happens to be one of my biggest beefs. I've listened to peoples experiences and it absolutely floors me when I hear about someone loosing all their livestock because of an equipment malfunction. When I started this hobby I decided that I would spend the money and buy the best stuff recommended for the tank size I have. You would think that when you spend that kind of money that the things you buy should stand up but that's hardly the case. I've had a problem with almost every piece of my equipment. In my opinion, when you spend $1000 on something, you shouldn't have to worry about it failing in the first six months. When it's something like a chiller or a heater too, either of these can have catastrophic consequences on your tank. Eventhough it's just a timer that malfunctioned it ended up costing you a fortune and is just another example of bad equipment. I think I'm going to start a thread on this and hear other people's experiences too. Good luck with your tank. I have no doubts you'll be able to turn everything around.

Ultimately its up to you about what you want to do, but personally, I would get the rock out of the tank, scrubbed (I use a toothbrush or a "dish" brush, something with fairly stiff bristles) and cooking while you decide. Do your larger water changes and then take a step back and decide where you want to go with this tank. Putting some snails or hermits in with the rock while it cooks might speed up the process as they'll eat what they get and in this case its only the algae on the rock :biggrin:

Yeah, good call.. thanks Christy.. I'll let you all know what happens with the tank. My friend that babysat the tank said he would help me out with replacing stuff, so maybe he'll just help replace the rock, that would be a huge help and would save a lot of hassle. Then I can move on with my upgrade and be DONE with all this... and decide what I want to do with the tank. I think a clown/anemone/zoo tank sounds sweet, with a couple nice sps peices.. but that's baout it.

Anywhoo, I'll update later. Thanks again all :)

Perhaps fit a better timer and chiller into your budget :wink:

No no, my timer is fine. It was my friend that made the mistake!

My timer was set to come on at 5am - 2pm (to avoid too much heat during midday) He came AFTER 2pm (lights off) and I told him how to turn the lights on to feed the fish, and told him to turn them off afterward. Somehow, someway, he forgot to turn the lights off. I don't quite know how they were stuck on for as long as they were, but they were. So, had he would have turned the lights off, I would have been fine.

The sad thing is, I probably didnt even need him to come over on Sunday , I was only gone 3 days.

He felt pretty horrible, as did I, but oh well, what's done is done I guess. He did say he owuld help replace stuff, so I may take him up on that offer.. I never realized how much more problems this would cause unfortunately.

The chiller, yes.. I'll have to consider one of those guys now. :rolleyes:

Heres some links for the mini chiller's.
I havent seen them on any canadian sites,
But I've seen a few guys with them so I presume there is a source.
For the Ice-Probe
http://www.marinedepot.com/aquarium_...be.asp?CartId=
For the Micro-Chiller
http://www.marinedepot.com/aquarium_...ler.asp?CartId=

Man those things are cool, thanks for posting Tim. I am going to look into these for next summer . I never even knew these existed... guess I should do a little more research huh :neutral:

Oh yeah, a little update: I just spoke with my friend and, being the good friend he is.. he has agreed to help pay for some new live rock. I will then use the old rock and cook it, then it can be re-used in my new setup.

I think it's a pretty nice deal... I get to rid my tank of the worst pieces of LR and replace them with new ones... I think when I replace them, I am going to vacuum out the sandbed. No more sand for me... too much of a pain these days.

Hey Scott - just one final word. I just had someone look after my tank for the first time a couple of weeks back, a local LFS owner who knows his stuff. He did a great job, (only had to stop by once to fill the Auto Top Off in a week), but I had told myself before I left that even if I came home to a fresh seafood broth that I couldn't hold him responsible.

While your friend has made you an honourable gesture by offering to replace the rock, I'm sure it was an honest mistake and he was as horrified as you were - otherwise I doubt he would have made the offer. IMHO I would let it go, and in fact he would be the best candidate to watch it if you left again - he certainly would be a lot more wary of problems that may arise. Like I said in my earlier post - everyone can learn from this, but that's just my opinion....

Yeah, see.. I know he was scared shitless, I would be too. I was very calm about the entire thing, didn't really bother me a whole lot that I lost the corals, more so the following problems and work it creates (he thanked me very much for being so calm and understanding with him about the whole thing). Anyhow, he said he'd replace everything (I would have said the same as well) I told him not to worry about anything, everything was fine. He insisted on replacing things or helping me pay for things. (he just setup his own first ever SW tank) anywhoo, I told him no it's okay... I don't need you to replace anything, we're cool. It didn't seem to matter, he just said okay on Tuesday we'll go to the LFS and I'll get you anything you may need...once again I said it's fine, but he said we'll go... anywhoo....

This morning I was trying to think of how to make this work for him and not only myself (because he just setup his first tank) I told him he can take some of my rock, some bad pieces, some good... and he can have those, and if he'd like to buy me a couple new bigger pieces, then I'd be okay with that ( so at least he gets something out of this deal, and isnt buying a bunch of stuff for me.. I figured I would try to help him out here as well) He still insists he buys me some rock when he goes to the LFS.

It's kind of one of those situations where you have to just go ok ok fine :lol: . Don't worry, it's been in my head the entire time, I can't take stuff from him as I know it was a complete honest mistake. I would feel like a douche bag taking stuff from him. He insists though... just one of those guys in one of those situations I guess? If I do end up getting rock, I will be making sure he doesn't break the bank .. there's no need for any of this, he's just being very polite I guess.

I'm in a pickle!

Ya I know where you're at Scott... I would have been the same way as your friend. If it makes him feel better even though you have declined then that's a different story... good luck!

Yeah, oh I've declined... once, twice, three times, four , five... hahaha... Ahh well, I'll keep the thread updated.

One thing to think about when you are setting your tank back up.

If you are in a situation where a simple failure like leaving your lights on overnight will kill off the tank then IMO your system is broken. There will always be something that can go wrong but little things like someone making a really simple mistake should not put the whole system at risk.

To address this specific problem, a temperature controller costing less than $100 could have saved you. I know hindsight is 20/20 etc but this is how you learn things like this. Any time you are building a system you have to consider possible failures and have a plan for them.

You are right.. no denying that, such a small mistake cost me too much time and money.

Another update: I just did another big water change, and things are clearing up nicely, and the smell is going away slowly. Things are looking up . The fish look fine, and even better since the water change. My buddy and I are off to the LFS tonight for some more rock, I have the old SW I am going to put the old rocks in, I will decide what to do with them when the time comes (most likely cook them)

I am going to most likely get rid of my sandbed and vaccum it all out, I am also going to buy some carbon for my AC500, and a couple new chunks of live rock. Things are slowly looking up...

Scott,

How deep is your sandbed? If it's deep enough to have an anaerobic layer, I would remove the fish from the tank and have water on hand for a large water change before removing it.

Well, did another water change and I bought some carbon, and a vacuum. Cleaned the sand fairly well, too hard to siphon in such a small tank. But, got 90% of my sand clean... all I can say is WOW :eek: disgusting.. I had 3 pails full of dark brown water. Glad it's gone.

Now I just need to work on getting the rocks clean.

I've never cooked rock, but I think this might work:

If you were to find a temporary new home for your surviving corals and maybe your fish, couldn't you just keep the tank more or less intact and cook the rock right where it is? Leave everything running (heater, skimmer, powerheads) except for the lights. That might be the easiest way to do it. Maybe throw in more cleaners (crabs, sea hare), too?

Just a thought. You might even be able to keep the fish in there; I don't think they need much light (probably not enough light to grow algae, anyway). You'd basically have a dimly-lit FOWLR tank for awhile.

sorry to hear about your losses. i don't know how i would feel if i lost my whole tank. threads like these really discourage me from SPS and metal halides...

Don't let it scare you off... just pay close attention and plan accordingly if you DO decide to try SPS...