My boneheaded catastrophe...

[Daniel@R2R]

So it's days like today that I wonder why I'm allowed outside of the house by myself...

Last night I got home and knew I should have just gone to bed, but I decided to fill the ATO reservoir first. My ATO is has a fitting that lets me directly connect to my RODI so I just turn it on and it fills the ATO until I turn it off and disconnect. I've done this for years and haven't had an issue yet...until last night...

Basically, I fell asleep and forgot to turn it off. This morning my apartment floor has water everywhere and the salinity in my tank is at 1.007. The fish are all fine, but my corals are ticked off (obviously), and I have dead bristle worms blowing around the tank and snails that have all fallen off the glass (unfortunately all of my asterina stars are fine)...

So what's my course of action at this point? I know I should usually raise salinity slowly for the fish, but I'm worried that with it this low that none of my inverts will survive.

I'm also worried about how much death may have already occurred and whether or not I'm likely to have an ammonia spike bc of it.

What should I do at this point? Mix up a major water change? Top off with SW to raise it back? Some combination of those two?

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Also, the sump is totally full of water, so presumably this would level off some just from evaporation...but not sure if that will be fast enough for my corals and bta.

 

[Humblefish]

Is it really 1.007?! Fish should be fine once you get it back to at least 1.009, but I can’t see corals/inverts living in that for very long. I would start doing water changes and use 1.026 replacement water. Every 6-8 hours do another WC. You don’t want to raise the SG by more than 0.002 per water change.

 

[Humblefish]

If you start seeing die off, dose Prime or Amquel to keep ammonia at bay. I would also test your pH. It’s probably way low right now, and you’ll need to dose some “baked” baking soda to bring it back up.

 

[Antics]

That sounds terrible, sorry to hear it. I agree with @Humblefish about slowly raising the salinity with frequent water changes. How is the damage to your actual apartment? Are you on the ground floor at least?

 

[Humblefish]

If corals start looking bad, it might be worth buying a 30 gallon Sterilite container and slowly drip acclimate them into that. Set the SG of the sterilite container at 1.016 or something. Something reasonable that you can drip acclimate them into.

 

[CindyKz]

That just sucks. I don't have anything to add other than I'm sorry to hear, and I hope your tank pulls through without major losses!

 

[Flippers4pups]

@mdbannister, @Humblefish is on point, water changes at 1.026 like he said. Reduce your lighting as well for a day or two.

Sorry this happened, you'll pull through it!

 

[4FordFamily]

Sorry man, I did this last week and shorted out all of my power cords for my wavemakers and three hydra 52 HD. $450 later all is well again. I just slowly increased the salinity over 12 hours back. Mine was 1.015. My house is brand new. I was not happy but I caught it before it got horrible. I only added probably 50 gallons and I was awake and able to handle before it got real. I topped mine off with very salty water to bring it back up.

We all make goofy mistakes. Sorry buddy. Keep your head up!

 

[Flippers4pups]

Yep, I had a issue a week ago where my spray nozzle fell and sprayed tap water all over my sump, electrical, floor joists for at least 15mims without me knowing! GFCI tripped and save me. Huge mess and my sump was at least 5 gallons plus.

Took some time to correct.

Hang in there!

 

[DMG Reef]

So sorry to hear about such a catastrophe for a seasoned reefer!! Thanks for sharing your experience. It definitely serves as a wake-up call for the rest of us. Good luck getting things back on track. I think it's safe to assume that we've all been boneheads at one time or another in this hobby.

 

[Geebs19]

Sorry to hear this! Hopefully not to damaging to your apartment. This is my fear as my new tank is going on carpet.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Thanks guys. This sucks. I'm making saltwater right now. I will go ahead and do as suggested on moving as much of my non-fish livestock to higher salinity asap. I'll bring the rest up slowly.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

Also, thanks for the concern over the apartment. Thankfully I'm on the ground floor and on a slab, so nothing to damage but the carpet...which should have been replaced already anyway.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

I'll need to get some Prime to deal with the ammonia...

This hasn't knocked me out. I'll deal with it and move forward, but it does absolutely suck...and it's a reminder that a simple mistake with something like this can bring disaster...

 

[4FordFamily]

I'll need to get some Prime to deal with the ammonia...

This hasn't knocked me out. I'll deal with it and move forward, but it does absolutely suck...and it's a reminder that a simple mistake with something like this can bring disaster...

Oh yes. I’m a big time screw up I make big mistakes all the time. I get busy and try multitasking and mess something up or accidentally cut a corner. It’s cross contaminated many tanks, flooded my sump a couple. Sigh.

 

[Daniel@R2R]

One small point of good news...I just ordered 2 big buckets of Brightwell salt in the Drs. Foster and Smith sale...so at least I've got plenty of salt to work with. LOL

 

[MTBake]

That sucks for sure. Really hope the loss is minimal.

Everyone makes mistakes. Keep your chin up and I'm sure you'll pull through in the end.

I've been through a tank crash before and it is not fun. Wish you the best luck.

 

[mcarroll]

That stinks....I just had a heater explode in my tank. (Which literally stinks....smelly!!!!)

Based on everyone's comments it seems like it's been a rough July for lots of tanks!!

 

[anit77]

Glad to know I'm not the only bone head, lol

My fish room and system is in my basement. If leaks get real bad the water runs between the concrete wall and slab. It'll also run under a wall and soak the carpet on the other side. I can't tell you how many times I've had to pull the shop vac and towels out.

When ever something happens like that I try to add in another redundancy where ever possible. I try to do as much as I can to save myself from myself cause it's me that usually screws up.

Good luck raising the salinity and I hope your losses are minimal.