Larry L
Valuable Member
So yesterday I head down to the kitchen for a mid-morning coffee break, and to check on my tank since that's when the lights start coming on. First I notice that the fish that are normally up and around at that time of day are nowhere to be seen, then I notice that the water level looks a bit low, and then I realize that the return pump is not running. Can't get it restarted even after disassembly and cleaning, but luckily I had a spare in the basement which I got hooked up after a little bit (and after a trip to the local Ace Hardware, because of course the backup pump had different sized fittings...).
As soon as the tank water starts circulating to the sump again, I start getting low temp alerts from my Apex: 68 F in a tank that normally runs at 77! The pump died sometime during the night, and the tank got cold, but my temp probe is in the sump with the heaters so as far as it knew everything was fine (and the sump stayed a toasty 77). I grabbed another heater out of my salt mixing barrel and stuck it in the tank to help bring it back up to temp quicker.
The fish started coming out and moving around as the water warmed up, and now a day later (to my surprise) everything looks none the worse for wear. As best I can tell the pump failed to auto-restart after evening feeding time, so there was probably no circulation from around 10 pm until around 1 pm the next day when the new pump was in place, so something like 15 hours, and almost a full 24 hours from the time the pump stopped until the tank was completely back up to temp:
Some lessons learned:
- Apparently the powerheads in my tank are able to keep it oxygenated well enough for quite a while without the return pump running.
- Apparently the tank inhabitants are capable of surviving a ten degree temperature drop pretty well.
- Always keep a backup return pump handy. I need to go get another one now.
- I think I need to get another temp probe to put in the tank, so it can alert me if the tank temp gets too low.
Just wanted to share so that people know a failure like this is not necessarily a panic situation.
As soon as the tank water starts circulating to the sump again, I start getting low temp alerts from my Apex: 68 F in a tank that normally runs at 77! The pump died sometime during the night, and the tank got cold, but my temp probe is in the sump with the heaters so as far as it knew everything was fine (and the sump stayed a toasty 77). I grabbed another heater out of my salt mixing barrel and stuck it in the tank to help bring it back up to temp quicker.
The fish started coming out and moving around as the water warmed up, and now a day later (to my surprise) everything looks none the worse for wear. As best I can tell the pump failed to auto-restart after evening feeding time, so there was probably no circulation from around 10 pm until around 1 pm the next day when the new pump was in place, so something like 15 hours, and almost a full 24 hours from the time the pump stopped until the tank was completely back up to temp:
Some lessons learned:
- Apparently the powerheads in my tank are able to keep it oxygenated well enough for quite a while without the return pump running.
- Apparently the tank inhabitants are capable of surviving a ten degree temperature drop pretty well.
- Always keep a backup return pump handy. I need to go get another one now.
- I think I need to get another temp probe to put in the tank, so it can alert me if the tank temp gets too low.
Just wanted to share so that people know a failure like this is not necessarily a panic situation.
