Mongoose87
New Member
Hi folks,
I have a reef tank I've been keeping for about 10 years that unfortunately had a melt down after a prolonged power outage for about 72 hours. If you ever had this happen you probably know how this goes; "Estimated 4 hrs until power restored," 6 hours go by, "4 more hours until power restored;" 8 more hours go by, "4 more hours until power restored." I never hated PG&E so much until now, but I'm really the one to blame for not setting up a backup system. This long in the hobby I should have done this.
I tried to circulate some water after about hr 36, but then my old tired backup battery stopped after about 1.5 hrs, so it was a bit of a bungle on my part. Of course at that point i was thinking it would be only 4 more hours until the power was restored, so what's the difference after 36 hrs already.
I looked at the temperature and it got down to 55 degrees, so really not good. What's funny, is the coral didn't really look super bad until the pumps and heater turned back on again. I think that sudden burst of circulation after so long and heat was too much. I was stupid and just left the heater to heat the water all the way back up to 77 degrees as quickly as possible. In hindsight that was a mistake.
So now the question is what to do next. I had a lot of coral in there that have all pretty much died. Many xenia that seem like they are on their way to the grave. This was a pretty grown in system, so I feel 2 ways about it. One side of me thinks the system should be more robust after such a long time, even if there is die off.
The other side of me thinks this is 10 years worth of crud (no matter how well you maintain it) left rotting for 3 days without circulation and huge temperature fluctuation, so the copepods, brittle worms, and all the other little ***** in there have died, so the rocks themselves now contain a lot of bio material that will take some take to digest. To be honest, this was somewhat bad timing as well as far as my cleaning schedule, and probably should have done a water change a week before this event regardless of the power outage.
Following the power outage I did a pretty thorough cleaning in hopes to remove as much decaying stuff as possible, but I'm wishfully thinking maybe a few of the xenia will survive with time. I didn't remove as many of those as I probably should. My thought is generally there is going to be some decaying coral in there for a bit of time, unless i completely throw away all my live rock and start over. I removed the dead bodies of the 2 clownfish that were the original fish I bought when I first set up the tank, so that dead material is gone. They were the only fish in the tank. Some of the hermit crabs are still alive! woohoo!
When I tested the water prior to changing the water it didn't really come out that bad. Ca (44), KH(10), Nitrate (~0) were all good. Phosphate was a little high around 0.20 ppm, but the tank needed a clean even before the outage. The phosphate and other levels can only be better now that there is freshly made changed out.
It's been so long since I've started the tank I don't have an ammonia or nitrite test kit any more, but I'll do that tomorrow.
After the cleaning I also put a dose of microbater7 and Vibrant into the tank to help reseed any beneficial bacteria back into the tank that could have died, as well as a phosphate removal filter pad and carbon filter pad.
I like this hobby and want to stay with it, so I'm trying to emotionally get past this by restocking the tank and keeping the biological system going, but how soon is too soon to restock?
If the water tests 0.0ppm for ammonia and nitrite should I be good to add a few corals and a fish or 2 to keep the cycle going?
What do you all think?
I have a reef tank I've been keeping for about 10 years that unfortunately had a melt down after a prolonged power outage for about 72 hours. If you ever had this happen you probably know how this goes; "Estimated 4 hrs until power restored," 6 hours go by, "4 more hours until power restored;" 8 more hours go by, "4 more hours until power restored." I never hated PG&E so much until now, but I'm really the one to blame for not setting up a backup system. This long in the hobby I should have done this.
I tried to circulate some water after about hr 36, but then my old tired backup battery stopped after about 1.5 hrs, so it was a bit of a bungle on my part. Of course at that point i was thinking it would be only 4 more hours until the power was restored, so what's the difference after 36 hrs already.
I looked at the temperature and it got down to 55 degrees, so really not good. What's funny, is the coral didn't really look super bad until the pumps and heater turned back on again. I think that sudden burst of circulation after so long and heat was too much. I was stupid and just left the heater to heat the water all the way back up to 77 degrees as quickly as possible. In hindsight that was a mistake.
So now the question is what to do next. I had a lot of coral in there that have all pretty much died. Many xenia that seem like they are on their way to the grave. This was a pretty grown in system, so I feel 2 ways about it. One side of me thinks the system should be more robust after such a long time, even if there is die off.
The other side of me thinks this is 10 years worth of crud (no matter how well you maintain it) left rotting for 3 days without circulation and huge temperature fluctuation, so the copepods, brittle worms, and all the other little ***** in there have died, so the rocks themselves now contain a lot of bio material that will take some take to digest. To be honest, this was somewhat bad timing as well as far as my cleaning schedule, and probably should have done a water change a week before this event regardless of the power outage.
Following the power outage I did a pretty thorough cleaning in hopes to remove as much decaying stuff as possible, but I'm wishfully thinking maybe a few of the xenia will survive with time. I didn't remove as many of those as I probably should. My thought is generally there is going to be some decaying coral in there for a bit of time, unless i completely throw away all my live rock and start over. I removed the dead bodies of the 2 clownfish that were the original fish I bought when I first set up the tank, so that dead material is gone. They were the only fish in the tank. Some of the hermit crabs are still alive! woohoo!
When I tested the water prior to changing the water it didn't really come out that bad. Ca (44), KH(10), Nitrate (~0) were all good. Phosphate was a little high around 0.20 ppm, but the tank needed a clean even before the outage. The phosphate and other levels can only be better now that there is freshly made changed out.
It's been so long since I've started the tank I don't have an ammonia or nitrite test kit any more, but I'll do that tomorrow.
After the cleaning I also put a dose of microbater7 and Vibrant into the tank to help reseed any beneficial bacteria back into the tank that could have died, as well as a phosphate removal filter pad and carbon filter pad.
I like this hobby and want to stay with it, so I'm trying to emotionally get past this by restocking the tank and keeping the biological system going, but how soon is too soon to restock?
If the water tests 0.0ppm for ammonia and nitrite should I be good to add a few corals and a fish or 2 to keep the cycle going?
What do you all think?
Last edited:
