Self inflicted mistake, need advise

[HouseofStark]

I cannot believe what just happened, Ill spare the details, but this am I accidentally push a button that turned off my return pump, and left the house. I didn't notice because as I was walking out the door the tank was in feed mode....OK fast forward about 1.5hrs ago

I stopped by the house for lunch and realized my mistake. The display tank had dropped down to 75 degrees. I normally run the tank 77.7-78. But the sump had ran all the way up to 92 degrees. I grabbed 4-5 ice packs and a fan. Opened the doors fan on high and grabbed a pump and pumped the water from one side of the sump back over to the other side to recirculate it. I then did a 10 gal water change in the sump only. Im sure everything life wise that was in the sump I nuked. I tossed a heater into my tank and slowly brought that back up to 78 degree over, Id say and hour or so. Same with the sump got it cooled down with ice pack, water change and air over the same time frame. My ROUGH estimate of water left, doing the sump water change was probably 10 gallons?

Ive since started the system back up.

Is there anything else I should do?

Is a 3 degree drop in the DT (90 galls) big?

Im most concerned with the sump water that seen 90 degrees and the death that occurred. (small rock/cheato refugium)

Any tips or help would be great!

 

[brandon429]

you need to disassembly clean out the sump since it's non critical surface area but potentially stressed waste and bacteria and mulm

and for the DT that's not a problem on temp shift. I expect no losses there as long as poison water did not circulate. watch for clouding in the display tank that's # 1 sign we may need other measures.

 

[brandon429]

I'll post the reef tank cpr thread in a sec when I can find, we're doing those interception steps currently.

turn your light intensity down; no full power sun days on stress events (bleaching intercept)

run bluer lights w no whites if not already, and lower power like a cloudy reef week.

we dont need testing for this intercept**non digital ammonia testing will harm us, not help us bc it causes false doubt and folks add in lots of mixed chemicals in reaction. we don't want more bacteria in your water using oxygen, for example, so we don't test for ammonia because none of this kills a cycle. your sump bacteria aren't dead; they're potentially shrouded in heated waste and unneeded animals/clean it back to bone zero new before passing water through it.

seneye testing will calm us lol if present. if no seneye, leave testing out, focus on cleaning the hot zone before circulating it back into the cool zone up top and lower light power to avoid coral bleaching. you would re ramp the lights as if they're new while you're cleaning out stuff.

this will not be a hard save if you can clean out the sump and let temps equalize.

 

[HouseofStark]

Currently its clear, had alot of micro bubbles when starting it back up along with junk that I banged loose tossing ice packs and pumps in. That cleared within 10 mins or so. Tank as of right now looks as it did prior.

There was "bad" water that did circulate, like I said I couldnt get all the water out the sump, and have since turned the system back on.

 

[TokenReefer]

Wondering how the sump heater stayed on to get it to 92. Is the probe in the dt and not the sump?

 

[HouseofStark]

Wondering how the sump heater stayed on to get it to 92. Is the probe in the dt and not the sump?

correct, mistake on my part.... shaking my head right now

 

[JumpingFlea]

I’ve done this exact same thing before. It got up to 100 f before I noticed. If you had fish or crabs in there, they’re probably gone but the chaeto and rock is probably fine. Especially the rock, it takes a bit to kill bacteria. I just cooled it for a bit and started running everything. Absolutely nothing happened. To be safe I would keep an eye on nutrient levels though.

 

[HouseofStark]

Nothing in sump except cheato rock, pods and brittle stars. Will do, should I run carbon? and or do some daily water changes?

 

[JumpingFlea]

I always have carbon running on my tank. Daily water changes in my opinion isn’t necessary unless something is wrong but if you feel like it needs to be done go for it but large daily water changes isn’t probably the best for fish or coral.

 

[brandon429]

yes agreed carbon and water changes that's if you have already ran carbon on the tank before

in the disease forum they talk alot about the irritating effects of carbon dust on fish so I wouldnt use unrinsed carbon or anything as first go/water changes will suffice. but if you're already using/have used go ahead

I realize 99% of the hobby might disavow this notion/carbon is a staple/it's just emerging discussions from Jay's forum I like to keep up with/relay in fitting posts. I was shocked to read recently that carbon isn't an ideal go-to in all systems and that certain species can be more irritated by it that others. I w leave it up to any fish owner to know about his or her stock as it relates to carbon

the stuff is a good water polisher and tint remover that's for sure. good for pulling irritants among options we have.

 

[HouseofStark]

Ya I had carbon in my reactor, Ill put a fresh batch in there and maybe a passive bag near the return just for good measure.

 

[MaxM]

Nothing in sump except cheato rock, pods and brittle stars. Will do, should I run carbon? and or do some daily water changes?

I'd remove brittle stars to a quarantine tank or really anything and watch them so as not to end up with dead ones fouling your water.

 

[All_talk]

I think die off creating an ammonia spike is your only risk at this point. If the volume of life in the sump is small in proportion to your overall system I doubt you will see any issues, I'd just keep an eye on the critters for odd behaviors or other stress. If you're worried, water changes or some Seachem Prime will mitigate any ammonia while your bacteria pick up the slack.

 

[HouseofStark]

Should I be proactive get some prime in there? Just to be on the safe side? I do have one of those seachem color changing ammonia alerts in the sump. If it starts to detect what’s my options…

water changes and carbon?

 

[MaxM]

Should I be proactive get some prime in there? Just to be on the safe side? I do have one of those seachem color changing ammonia alerts in the sump. If it starts to detect what’s my options…

water changes and carbon?

Prime will make ammonia and nitrite nontoxic but it will obscure your ammonia test unless your test can distinguish free from bound ammonia. It's really up to you whether you add prime, just know that it works that way. It won't prevent bacteria from converting it all to nitrate.

 

[reef_1]

Is a 3 degree drop in the DT (90 galls) big?

No.

When you go into the sea there are small cold currents catching you regularly, I guess sea life should survive these small cold currents.

This summer my tank peaked 2 times at 33 celsius (91.4F) for a few hours and been on 31(88) for 2 weeks - soft corals, a monti frag and fish only though, but with no issues.

 

[Ashish Patel]

Your in good shape, I honestly would thing that sump temp would just balance out anyways so I wouldve just turned on the pump for few minutes at a time and get the tank up and running. Not sure how long you waited by 6 hour or so isnt a death sentence (Maybe if you got alot of life in the sump like LR or algae then you may want to remove it but I would not worry. Not much you can do besides get the tank back online and just keep everything else stable by not trying too much like water changes, since die off is not the problem here, its just temp mainly. Also, I dont believe in turning my return or pumps on feedmode, I want my fish to swim like crazy for the food. Good luck and dont worry I think your good.

 

[Coinzmans Reef]

My money is you are going to be fine, Bacteria is hard to kill. To many corrective actions at once may do more harm than good. Move the temp probe to the sump.
I have the Apex controlled heater and probe in the sump. I also have a back up heater in the DT set slightly lower than the Apex controlled heater in the sump.

 

[All_talk]

Should I be proactive get some prime in there? Just to be on the safe side? I do have one of those seachem color changing ammonia alerts in the sump. If it starts to detect what’s my options…

water changes and carbon?

Prime will make ammonia and nitrite nontoxic but it will obscure your ammonia test unless your test can distinguish free from bound ammonia. It's really up to you whether you add prime, just know that it works that way. It won't prevent bacteria from converting it all to nitrate.

Carbon wont do anything for ammonia.

I doubt you will need to do anything. Whatever you do, you should act with consideration of the nitrogen cycle...

Any die off will create ammonia, bacteria will convert it to nitrite, then nitrate. IF (<--Big if) the ammonia spike is large enough to be a problem you want to mitigate it so your bacteria colonies have time to catch up. If you do that with water changes you are removing it from the system and it wont be converted to nitrate. If you use a binder like Prime all the die off will end as nitrate. This end product of nitrate will be removed by you normal processes, like cheato growth or water changes.

I would watch your tank, if things look off, do a water change (just like you might at any other time).

 

[brandon429]

don't dose ammonia controllers or prime

you don't have an ammonia issue heres why:

Does anyone dose ammonia and/or how would one try?

So, after an interesting discussion on nitrate dosing and looking at my Walt Disney coral and seeing it slightly less colorful than I have seen it in others tanks, I have decided I want to learn about and then try dosing ammonia instead of buying 20 damsels. Nitrate additives I see abound and...

www.reef2reef.com

from that link of 50 seneye tanks...ammonia is resolved in 5-10 mins, far larger doses input purposefully vs what you may have had worst case scenario

you don't have big carcasses laying about/don't react by adding anything.

post a full tank picture/thats is the final say in all ammonia challenge posts/not a test kit reported as nh4.

from the tank pic: your fish are positioned normally, stuff is open vs closed up mean etc.

that's ammonia control

it isn't going to sneak up on you and fail.

you don't have an ammonia issue