Tank Crashed, bummer

[NS Mike D]

Stuff happens :-(

I was admiring my tank last night, pleased that the new light and sump were resulting in really nice coral growth and sps starting to color. I went to bed and woke up this morning to see the tank totally cloudy, foamy on the surface and the corals bleached.

My parameters were fine this weekend and I changed the activated carbon as usual to protect. no clue as to what went wrong and started the chain reaction.

It's a 29 gal with a 5 gal cpr hob fuge and 10 gal sump, i with all the rocks it's probably 30 gal total. i had 5 gal of rodi on hand, i removed about 15 gals, made some emergency salt water and put back 5 gals . after my client meeting at 11, I'll pick up 20 gals of salt from the lfs and change what i can and start making new water.

i moved the rock with corals under the water line, added a bag of carbon into the cpr and turned off the sump. i have a new tunze 6020 adding circulation.

with the water level down, i decided this would be a good time to patch up the leak in the overflow over the top over flow box ( it continues to fill up from below and will eventually flood the sump in a power failure.

good idea, bad execution. while adding more silicon to the joints, my fat hands pulled the box off the glass, so now i have to get more silicone and re-attached the box. that may not be too bad since it will give me time to make more saltwater

of course i have 6 new corals arriving from jason fox this morning (the truck is near according to fed ex) . bummer. i may pick up a 5 gal to set up a fast quarantine for the new corals - worth protecting the $200 investment in new corals.

hoping that the bleached corals did not die and most will recover over time.

i didn't have the heart to take pics this morning but i will post my emergency progress later and maybe get some clues as to what happened. nothing really obvious in terms of changes that would trigger the crash.

 

[JBKReef]

Sorry for your loss.

 

[Ludders]

Good luck and post pics when you can

 

[NS Mike D]

Found the culprit. The cord to the pump to the carbon/gfo reactor shorted out an burnt through. Got a nice shock when I picked it up. If there is a silver lining, it’s that the new JF corals arrived today and not yesterday.

I’m glad I shut down the sump this morning

 

[wyattray]

How was this plugged in out of curiosity? Surge Protector, GCFI?

 

[NS Mike D]

The LFS was closed today. I was able to pick up 2 boxes of imagitarium Pacific Ocean water and put one box in right now.

I got DAP Silicone and a clamp and properly adhered the overflow box (no more Russian roulette with a power outage) so that the siphon will break when the return pump is off. Letting that dry right now.

I have a cpr outflow going through a bag of carbon and the tunze circulation the water.

New orals in a beta box. I’ll use my recirculating pump to make a little flow and do small water changes through the night.

 

[NS Mike D]

Question, the gentlemen at petco who does side work for tv like Tanked suggested I dose iodine to help the corals in the DT rehab. Yeah or nay at this time?

 

[NS Mike D]

How was this plugged in out of curiosity? Surge Protector, GCFI?

surge protector, no gcfi or grounding plug

 

[NS Mike D]

Sump back and running. Put a 900gph Marineland maxi jet on the gfo/carbon reactor for now (ordered a 100gph eco plus for the permanent replacement) and put hob filter with carbon for now. Everyone but 2 chromis are accounted for, likely hiding in the rock work. Now it’s wait and see which corals survived.

With the white lights, pretty cloudy and yellow, and bleached/faded corals.

 

[NS Mike D]

back to iodine issue - should I dose or not? was the clerk correct that it will help the corals that are still alive or would could that make it worse?

 

[jsker]

Just let the system ride and do make any changes.

 

[Ludders]

Just let the system ride and do make any changes.

+1

 

[Zack K]

Just let the system ride and do make any changes.

+2

 

[Justfebreezeit]

That sucks dude, glad you had time to get on top of it. Keep us updated. Wonder why the water got all cloudy from a shorted power cord though?

 

[NS Mike D]

even with the 50% water change and running two sumps and filter with extra carbon, the cloudiness has not dissipated at all, it's like a fog.

while i wait it out, let me know if i should be taking any other action if indeed the cloudiness needs to be addressed.

 

[NS Mike D]

That sucks dude, glad you had time to get on top of it. Keep us updated. Wonder why the water got all cloudy from a shorted power cord though?

lots of coral mucus? they are still shedding

 

[NS Mike D]

Still very cloudy. Lost the cleaner shrimp this morning. Some update pics. Lots of shedding still by the devil hand leather. The new sps are bleached but some sps still have polyps. The frogspawn, Duncan’s abs mushrooms are itching to open. I’ll be testing the water when I get home. I have 5 gals of saltwater mixed ready to go. I stormed the tank this morning to get the mucus into the filter socks.

 

[NS Mike D]

Tank is still cloudy but noticeably clearer. Quick tests.
NH3 0.25
NO2 0.
NO3 0.50
SG. 1.025
PH 7.8

Ammonia is a concern but I understand that the bacteria have been stressed and that each time I storm the tank it kicks up a slew of dead tissue. I just changed the filter sock.

I also fed a cube of mysis for the fish

The devil hand is my biggest concern. It’s bleached and I can’t tell if it’s dead or going to die. The idea of it streaming dead tissue over days/weeks isn’t something that could be good. It also grew into the rock so I can’t simply pull it out of the tank. Recommendations?

And some of the corals they may have been lost.

 

[NS Mike D]

^^^^ just in case my question got buried in that post, seeking advice on what to do about the devils hand

 

[Zack K]

I would cut out as much as possible. Unfortunately it looks a little far gone.