Electrocuted entire tank!!! - Death Toll Update

[bassman]

The title says it all. I came home from work to find one of my 110v cooling fans dangling in my tank and it had been for several hours! Of course this has to happen 2 days before I was planning on installing GFI's!

Every coral I have is closed and many are emitting stringy tissue.
I am not sure what is alive if anything. My fish might be okay. They look a little stunned and some are breathing a bit fast. The fins on my Purple Tang are white on the edges, hopefully they will be all right.

As for my corals only time will tell I guess. If they are all dead I may pack it in. I have spent thousands of dollars in the past year getting this system going and I just can't see starting all over again. I would probably get divorced if I tried anyways.

So, anybody have any experience with this situation?

I am wondering if my LR is going to have a pile die off now thus causing my tank to cycle and sending my levels through the roof.

[Nate]

keep an eye on Ammonia levels...

And

Use plenty of chemical filtration

small Water changes and grounding probe would not hurt either.

[bassman]

Thanks Nate,

The daily ammonia testing will begin tonight. I am scheduled to change my water tomorrow anyways so I get more water ready right after that just in case I need it.

When you say chemical filtration are you referring to carbon?

[Beverly]

Pretty sure he means carbon.

How's the tank doing today? What bad luck for the fan to fall into the tank

[bassman]

I thought so too. I am running some now, I always do but I will replace it with some new stuff tonight.

It's hard to tell as my lights were off this morning and had been since 8:00 o'clock last night so most of my corals would normally be closed anyways.

I did find one dead snail this morning. The conch that I thought was dead last night has since moved so he must be okay. My harlequin shrimp, arrow crab and hermits all seem fine.

The fish are always behind the rock work in the AM so I couldn't see how they were doing, none of them died anyways so that's good.

I did see some pods with my flashlight this morning, that to me is a good sign. I would think that they would have fried first.

My elegance coral (which had the fan laying right on top of it) seemed to be opened up a bit more this morning and my clam was 80% open too.

I will know more when I get home afterwork, which seems like days away LOL

I couldn't even eat last night I felt so sick to my stomach.

It looks like I might have gotten lucky. Only time will tell I guess.
One of my concerns is how many toxins were released into the water by all of my corals and anemones trying to defend themselves against what they probably thought was an attack. My skimmer looked like someone had poured dish washing soap into it last night, major foam. I cranked it up a bit so it will skim more wet today, hopefully that will help. It didn't seem too be quite as foamy this morning.

I am still crossing my fingers.

[Tangman]

good luck

[bassman]

Thank you.

[OCDP]

Sounds like things are pulling through okay.....

I would continue doing regular water changes and running lots of carbon to remove as much toxins, etc as possible.

If your fish are alive and corals/inverts are showing signs of life.. I'd say things are looking up.

Good luck and sorry to hear the unfortunate news.

[bassman]

Thanks so much.

I sure hope they all pull through.

[vanreefer]

http://www.canreef.com/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=27483

same thing happened to me about 5 months ago with a clip on light... not to be the bearer of bad news but everything died with the exception of 2 pieces of SPS and my frogspawn... it took several weeks for the fish to die... I hope that my experience was not the norm for your sake... best of luck and I would do lots of water changes and run lots and lots of C

Good luck

Dan