Heater failed while I’m on holidays

[Luan B.]

So as the title says my heater failed while I’m on holidays, it was keeping 22degrees for a few days and now completely failed, currently sitting at 18 degrees and I’ll be home tomorrow, note that in Ireland atm is freezing cold and my house heater is off… just wondering if anyone has any experience with anything surviving for a couple days at this temperature.

*no one can get into the house to change the heater for me

 

[Dburr1014]

So as the title says my heater failed while I’m on holidays, it was keeping 22degrees for a few days and now completely failed, currently sitting at 18 degrees and I’ll be home tomorrow, note that in Ireland atm is freezing cold and my house heater is off… just wondering if anyone has any experience with anything surviving for a couple days at this temperature.

*no one can get into the house to change the heater for me

Not good.

I can say, I've had coral dip into low 70's/high 6o's and survive.
Fish would be fine at those temps also.

But, your talking freezing temps and house is shut off, way different. This all depends on how cold your house will get.
If your house dips to sub 0C, your pipes will freeze. Your tank will be way too cold to sustain a reef tank.

Edit:
If that temp log you posted is your tank, you are already at that cusp of survivability. 18 celcius is 64 Fahrenheit. That is already pushing it. Someone needs to intervene now.

 

[exnisstech]

Not sure why you would leave your house heat off if it's freezing :thinking-face:. Maybe the heater hasn't failed, maybe the house is just too cold for it to keep up. Either way it's sound likely that you'll loose livestock.

 

[BeanAnimal]

It looks to me like the heater was working but the house temperature was maybe dropping and the heater couldn't keep up. Not sure why would you leave town and turn off your heat in freezing temperatures? Whatever the case, the fish may or may not live depending on how fast you get to them -- but the coral are likely not going to.

 

[Dom]

On the flip side, I wonder if the colder temps will slow metabolism and allow the fish to survive until tomorrow.

As @exnisstech has already mentioned, it may be that the heater is unable to keep up with the demands of the tank. But we can't be sure until we know how many watts the heater is, total water volume of the tank and the ambient setting of the house thermostat.

 

[Luan B.]

Not sure why you would leave your house heat off if it's freezing :thinking-face:. Maybe the heater hasn't failed, maybe the house is just too cold for it to keep up. Either way it's sound likely that you'll loose livestock.

Maybe not like freezing temperatures in America, when I left was around 5 Celsius outside and my house is pretty well insulated and attached to other houses… we just got a cold wave and the temperature dropped to -2 but inside should be more than 17 Celsius…

 

[Luan B.]

Thanks for all messages I’ll reply to this post with the damage when I get home.

 

[Luan B.]

Not good.

I can say, I've had coral dip into low 70's/high 6o's and survive.
Fish would be fine at those temps also.

But, your talking freezing temps and house is shut off, way different. This all depends on how cold your house will get.
If your house dips to sub 0C, your pipes will freeze. Your tank will be way too cold to sustain a reef tank.

Edit:
If that temp log you posted is your tank, you are already at that cusp of survivability. 18 celcius is 64 Fahrenheit. That is already pushing it. Someone needs to intervene now.

Sorry, freezing temps for Ireland, not like in America, my house without the heater on should be around 17 Celsius even if is 0 degrees outside

 

[Dburr1014]

Sorry, freezing temps for Ireland, not like in America, my house without the heater on should be around 17 Celsius even if is 0 degrees outside

17 Celsius is too cold. They won't live.
Maybe a fish or 2 but if others die your going to get lots of ammonia and the living will suffer.

 

[carri10]

Sorry to hear that. This hobby can hand out some punishing times every now and then. I hope the damage isn’t too bad.

 

[Luan B.]

*update* so got home and it was a mess… my ato+ pump wasn’t getting all the water close to the bottom of the reservoir, which lead to the sensor being out the water and showing those low temps (didn’t show in the app that was out of the water) heater started to fail as well but was holding somehow around 21 degrees Celsius, because the water level was low on the back chamber the skimmer stopped working and nutrient were high as hell. Also got algae bloom due high nutrients and a boom of stomatella snails, tank is FULL of them, didn’t lose any livestock *YET* fishes and snails looking ok but corals in bad shape… can’t blame only the heater the whole thing was a mess

 

[thedon986]

A great reason to have a $25 wifi camera staring at the whole setup

 

[Dragen Fiend]

Something to think about for future safety nets. Smart thermostat for the house. If somehow my heater fails. I will go into the ecobee thermostat app and set my house temp to 76. This can also help stabilize your tank.

 

[Pistondog]

So as the title says my heater failed while I’m on holidays, it was keeping 22degrees for a few days and now completely failed, currently sitting at 18 degrees and I’ll be home tomorrow, note that in Ireland atm is freezing cold and my house heater is off… just wondering if anyone has any experience with anything surviving for a couple days at this temperature.

*no one can get into the house to change the heater for me

Tank got down to 62f in a 36 hour power failure.
PUt airstones in tank.
All fish, inverts and corals survived.
Green slimer, red planet, staghorn, montis, torches hammers zoas, aptasia, gha all lived.

 

[dakoop]

That's why I have two heaters in mine