Enad
Active Member
Hi all,
Very sad to be posting this, but unfortunately northern Oregon got hit with a terrible blizzard and I was left without power for 36 hours with nearly subzero temps. I did everything I possibly could to keep the tank alive, which in this case meant draining half the tanks water volume, running my car the entire time with two inverters to heat two 100w heaters, a small pump and a battery powered air stone. Despite the two heaters, my house's ambient temp dropped down to 32 degrees and the tank dropped into the 50s. Even with the two heaters, I was only able to maintain a temp of around 62. I finally got power back last night and it seems my efforts mostly paid off. It seems almost all of my 10 fish are alive, with my Yasha Goby still being MIA, and my poor fathead Anthias alive but doing very poorly. My Clowns, Yellow Tang, Grammas, and Damsel are all doing good and acting pretty much normal again and my baby Mandarins are slowly recovering. Most of my inverts seem alive too, minus a few snails.
Now for the new problems. Unfortunately, I lost all my bubble corals so there was a lot of rotting flesh in there overnight. I woke up today to the Anemones looking great and some my hammers looking pretty good too, but the water was cloudy. As the morning went on, the water got even cloudier, and the both the hammers and the anemones have started to look a bit worse. Not concerned about the anemones, I'm sure they'll be fine, but the hammers look pretty rough now.
All clearly dead corals have been removed from the tank, and I've dumped in a full bottle of 32oz Fritz Nitrifying bacteria and 250ml Microbacter 7 into the tank. I'm sure there is an ammonia issue without even needing to test as there's been a TON of die off on my rocks, which were very much aged and alive prior to this.
I've done a 30g water change on my 60g tank, and even after a few hours now - the water remains fairly cloudy. As mentioned, most of the fish are acting perfectly normal though I haven't fed them yet as I'm worried about the clean-up crew not really functioning well currently and causing more ammonia issues. Pretty much all of the corals left look deeply unhappy but hopefully not on the verge of death anymore.
I've set my light to 30% 30 day acclimation as I imagine the corals will need some time to rebound. Ultimately, my question is what do next and what to prioritize? Right now, the tank is running pretty much as it usually would with two powerheads, return pumps going, only difference is I'm not running my skimmer as I want the Fritz Bacteria to colonize. I have another bottle I can dump in and can get more nitrifying bacteria if need be. Would running the skimmer be more beneficial at this point?
I'm not keen on tearing apart my tank and disturbing my animals to clean the rocks, but I could brush them underwater and do more water changes if need be. I also have Phyto on hand and can get pods fairly quickly.
So, what to do next?
Very sad to be posting this, but unfortunately northern Oregon got hit with a terrible blizzard and I was left without power for 36 hours with nearly subzero temps. I did everything I possibly could to keep the tank alive, which in this case meant draining half the tanks water volume, running my car the entire time with two inverters to heat two 100w heaters, a small pump and a battery powered air stone. Despite the two heaters, my house's ambient temp dropped down to 32 degrees and the tank dropped into the 50s. Even with the two heaters, I was only able to maintain a temp of around 62. I finally got power back last night and it seems my efforts mostly paid off. It seems almost all of my 10 fish are alive, with my Yasha Goby still being MIA, and my poor fathead Anthias alive but doing very poorly. My Clowns, Yellow Tang, Grammas, and Damsel are all doing good and acting pretty much normal again and my baby Mandarins are slowly recovering. Most of my inverts seem alive too, minus a few snails.
Now for the new problems. Unfortunately, I lost all my bubble corals so there was a lot of rotting flesh in there overnight. I woke up today to the Anemones looking great and some my hammers looking pretty good too, but the water was cloudy. As the morning went on, the water got even cloudier, and the both the hammers and the anemones have started to look a bit worse. Not concerned about the anemones, I'm sure they'll be fine, but the hammers look pretty rough now.
All clearly dead corals have been removed from the tank, and I've dumped in a full bottle of 32oz Fritz Nitrifying bacteria and 250ml Microbacter 7 into the tank. I'm sure there is an ammonia issue without even needing to test as there's been a TON of die off on my rocks, which were very much aged and alive prior to this.
I've done a 30g water change on my 60g tank, and even after a few hours now - the water remains fairly cloudy. As mentioned, most of the fish are acting perfectly normal though I haven't fed them yet as I'm worried about the clean-up crew not really functioning well currently and causing more ammonia issues. Pretty much all of the corals left look deeply unhappy but hopefully not on the verge of death anymore.
I've set my light to 30% 30 day acclimation as I imagine the corals will need some time to rebound. Ultimately, my question is what do next and what to prioritize? Right now, the tank is running pretty much as it usually would with two powerheads, return pumps going, only difference is I'm not running my skimmer as I want the Fritz Bacteria to colonize. I have another bottle I can dump in and can get more nitrifying bacteria if need be. Would running the skimmer be more beneficial at this point?
I'm not keen on tearing apart my tank and disturbing my animals to clean the rocks, but I could brush them underwater and do more water changes if need be. I also have Phyto on hand and can get pods fairly quickly.
So, what to do next?
